Understanding ‘landscape governance’: the case of wind energy landscapes in Germany

Abstract

Although the term ‘landscape governance’ has been attracting increased attention in literature, its use until now has been rather heterogeneous. In order to conceptually systematise various notions of landscape governance, the paper applies the Triple G model developed in the context of forest governance. We demonstrate that three distinct concepts of governance, namely government, governance in the narrow sense and governmentality provide the observer with a range of genuine lenses for analysing space, scale, actors, institutions and political decision-making processes as well as the relations between them and how they are mutually constitutive of one another. The three perspectives are discussed with an eye to overlaps and differences, the constitution of landscapes, the respective take on power and the potential interfaces between science and policy. For illustration, the paper draws on empirical evidence of German wind energy landscapes.

Keywords:

• Policy-making
• government
• governance
• governmentality
• spatial planning
• power