The emergence of alternative discourses on nuclear energy in Belgium during the Three Mile Island disaster (1979)

The current debate on energy – its environmental impacts, its importance for economic growth, its role in geo-political power struggles, its social aspects, and so on – is not new. The different discourses in the current debate have elements that go back many decades. In this paper we focus on an earlier episode of the debate on energy – the first oil crisis (1973-1974) –, a crucial moment in the history of the energy debate and in the development of a number of alternative discourses on energy. Using a discourse theoretical framework (Laclau and Mouffe 2001) combined with elements of critical discourse analysis and the procedures of qualitative content analysis – a strategy which has been called discourse-theoretical analysis (Carpentier & De Cleen 2007) – we will expose the ideological struggle between different views on the energy issue as it took place in mainstream and alternative media in Belgium. The first oil crisis can be considered a dislocatory moment (Laclau, 1990) during which the discourse of limitless economic growth powered by unfettered energy consumption, was endangered. The oil crisis led to drops in economic production, and saw the Belgian government take measures such as prohibiting people from using their cars on Sundays. The oil crisis also provided the context for the introduction of nuclear energy in Belgium in January 1974. The analysis shows how the promise of nuclear energy was meant to suture the dislocation caused by the oil crisis, to restore the stability of the discourse of economic growth. But the oil crisis also saw the emergence of alternative, critical discourses that contested the assumptions of the dominant discourse of economic growth and addressed issues such as the social desirability of continued energy-dependent growth, as well as the environmental risks of nuclear energy. Alternative media, we argue, played a special role here. Whereas real democratic debate – offering real options – on the introduction of nuclear energy and on answers to the oil crisis had little space in mainstream media, a number of alternative media endeavored to complement and criticize mainstream media coverage. We study the emerging alternative discourses on energy heard mainly in those alternative media. Whilst these alternative voices remained marginal during the first oil crisis, their importance is real, not only because they offered a sometimes radical alternative, but also because these voices would soon become rather more present in the discursive struggle over energy, as the current state of the debate testifies.

Jaar van publicatie:2015