Basil Bornemann/Thomas Saretzki
In the last couple of years, gas and oil companies took initiatives to explore so called “unconventional” gas reserves and extract natural gas from shale with the help of hydraulic fracking in a number of states in the Federal Republic of Germany. Since 2010, at most of the sites in question, these initiatives to explore new possibilities of domestic drilling have been met with dedicated opposition from local residents and farmers. In many cases, municipalities
and other local and regional political bodies adopted resolutions calling for a stop of these activities or at least for a moratorium until all concerns over possible ecological impacts of fracking are clarified and the necessary steps to regulate the use of the technology are taken.
In the context of a generally growing civic protest culture in Germany, companies, advocates of these new energy technologies and politicians were reacting to these protests and calls for regulation with various strategies. A prominent and rather unconventional strategy included an offer to different publics of affected citizens and critical stakeholder groups to take part in
a “dialogue” on unresolved issues with scientific experts funded by a major oil and gas company. However, as in other cases, the proposed “dialogue” did not lead to the intended public acceptance of the controversial technology. Rather, it opened the field for a more or less contentious politics of expertise.
How to study the conflicts over fracking policy in a democracy? This paper is going to interpret and evaluate the conflicts over fracking policy, about its publics and the practises for conflict regulation in Germany in five steps. Referring to a multidimensional analytical framework for the study of environmental and technological conflicts in modern democracies
(Saretzki 2010), our first step is to interpret the apparent and latent societal conflicts associated with the introduction of hydraulic fracking as an energy technology designed to exploit unconventional gas reserves at a larger scale. Secondly, we analyse the framing of issues and the production of expertise in a rather large and costly participatory arrangement designed to be a forerunner in the public mediation of the upcoming controversies over fracking: the “Hydrofracking dialogue” sponsored by a major oil and gas company (Exxon
Mobil). Thirdly, we assess the potential for conflict clarification and conflict resolution specific to this sort of “dialogue” on the risks and environmental impacts of fracking. Fourthly, we look at the politics of expertise that can be observed in Germany after the publication of the results of the “Hydrofracking dialogue” in 2012 when other studies have been published and criticized by different experts, agencies and interest groups. Finally, we will summarize our findings on the politics of fracking policy in Germany in order to provide
the grounds for a comparison with case studies on fracking from other countries.