Turbines and Tensions: Polarized Advocacy Coalitions in U.S. Offshore Wind Policy

• In Event: Lightning Session: Natural Resource, Energy, and Environmental Policy

Abstract

Wind energy has become a major source of global electricity in response to climate change, driven by technological advances and declining costs over the past three decades. In the United States, wind power has expanded rapidly, yet offshore wind remains one of the most politically and socially contentious renewable energy sectors. Conflicts arise over siting, environmental impacts, commercial fisheries, property values, tribal rights, and energy equity. Offshore wind has also been especially vulnerable to shifting political tides, with successive federal administrations adopting sharply different priorities. These dynamics make offshore wind an important case for examining how advocacy coalitions form, compete, and respond under conditions of sustained conflict and polarization. 

This study investigates the U.S. offshore wind policy process at the national level, focusing on the dynamics of polarized advocacy coalitions. Drawing on the Advocacy Coalition Framework, the study examines (1) how policy actor networks are formed and sustained over time, (2) how external and internal events influence coalition behavior, and (3) the extent to which such events mitigate or heighten polarization. The study analyzes 451 policy statements from news articles and 824 statements from public hearing testimonies, coded using the Discourse Network Analyzer. Coalition polarization was measured using the Advocacy Coalition Index (Satoh, Gronow & Ylä‐Anttila, 2023), a recently developed metric designed to systematically assess coalition dynamics, and the analysis was supplemented with statistical tests. 

The findings show that polarization intensifies under adversarial conflict, with actors increasingly consolidating into opposing coalitions. However, external and internal events appear to have a relatively limited influence on overall polarization levels. By integrating discourse and network analytic approaches, this study provides new insights into how polarized actors communicate and interact in the policy process, contributing to a better understanding of the governance challenges involved in advancing offshore wind energy in the United States and beyond.

Author

• Aerang Nam, Korea Institute of Energy Technology
  Presenting Author