Energy policy participation through networks transcending cleavage: An analysis of Japanese and German renewable energy promotion policies

Abstract

Developed countries with minimal energy self-sufficiency struggle with lowering their dependence on oil and coal. Security guarantees countermeasures against global warming, and ensuring new energy sources are issues that have driven their choices between nuclear power generation and promotion of renewable energy resources in recent years. Individual nations such as Japan and Germany have been implementing various policies according to their own political and social circumstances, and often these circumstances include discussions and negotiations among diverse actors with different viewpoints and objectives. The networks formed by overcoming the cleavage between the electric power industry and the community consisting mainly of environmental organizations and left-wing political forces could also function as an additional means for environmental actors to break through the impasse formed by the political structure. However, in assessing the effectiveness of the ties that overcome this confrontation, in addition to the existence of ties that connect such communities, it is also necessary to consider whether the influence of environmental actors through intermediary networks extends to the policy formation process. This paper describes the networks involved in the renewable energy feed-in tariff system enacted in Japan after March 2011 and in Germany in the early 2000s and 2012 to investigate such influences. When comparing the energy policies of Japan and Germany, corresponding networks unifying the two communities in both countries were observed in an analysis that emphasizes the existence of ties. However, an in-depth analysis of attitude-based networks and hyperlink networks focusing on policy reveals the predominance of economic and industrial interests in Japan, as well as functional differences even within the same corresponding networks.

Full text

Qual Quant (2015) 49:1485–1512
DOI 10.1007/s11135-014-0093-9
Energy policy participation through networks
transcending cleavage: an analysis of Japanese
and German renewable energy promotion policies
Manuela Hartwig ·Yohei Kobashi ·Sae Okura ·Leslie Tkach-Kawasaki
Published online: 21 September 2014
© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014
Abstract Developed countries with minimal energy self-sufficiency struggle with lowering
their dependence on oil and coal. Security guarantees countermeasures against global warm-
ing, and ensuring new energy sources are issues that have driven their choices between nuclear
power generation and promotion of renewable energy resources in recent years. Individual
nations such as Japan and Germany have been implementing various policies according to
their own political and social circumstances, and often these circumstances include discus-
sions and negotiations among diverse actors with different viewpoints and objectives. The
networks formed by overcoming the cleavage between the electric power industry and the
community consisting mainly of environmental organizations and left-wing political forces
could also function as an additional means for environmental actors to break through the
impasse formed by the political structure. However, in assessing the effectiveness of the
ties that overcome this confrontation, in addition to the existence of ties that connect such
communities, it is also necessary to consider whether the influence of environmental actors
through intermediary networks extends to the policy formation process. This paper describes
the networks involved in the renewable energy feed-in tariff system enacted in Japan after
March 2011 and in Germany in the early 2000s and 2012 to investigate such influences.
When comparing the energy policies of Japan and Germany, corresponding networks uni-
fying the two communities in both countries were observed in an analysis that emphasizes
the existence of ties. However, an in-depth analysis of attitude-based networks and hyperlink
M. Hartwig (B)
Free University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany
e-mail: manuela.g.hartwig@gmail.com
Y. Kobashi ·S. Okura ·L. Tkach-Kawasaki
University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan
e-mail: yohei.kobashi@gmail.com
S. Okura
e-mail: okura.sae.xp@alumni.tsukuba.ac.jp
L. Tkach-Kawasaki
e-mail: tkach@japan.email.ne.jp
123

1486 M. Hartwig et al.
networks focusing on policy reveals the predominance of economic and industrial interests
in Japan, as well as functional differences even within the same corresponding networks.
Keywords Renewable energy policy ·Feed-in tariff ·Policy networks ·Network analysis ·
Hyperlink networks
1 Introduction
In the past two decades, renewable energy has been a vital policy area in almost every
country in the world. With increasing attention to global warming, balanced by decreases
in the world’s finite energy supplies, each country has had to grapple with devising energy
policies that fulfill its current needs and ensure energy supplies for the future.
Although energy policy formation is often carefully planned and conceived, sudden major
events can cause massive shifts in energy policy trajectories, both domestically and inter-
nationally. One such event was the March 11, 2011 earthquake in Japan, as the immediate
aftermath of the earthquake saw decisive shifts in domestic energy policy in Japan. One such
example is the Act on Special Measures Concerning the Procurement of Renewable Electric
Energy by Operators of Electric Utilities (Saisei kan¯oenerug¯ı tokubetsu s¯ochi h ¯o),whichwas
sponsored by the DPJ (Democratic Party of Japan) and passed in the summer of 2011. This
law, focusing on promoting new energy and the full amount purchase of renewable energy,
became obligatory for renewable energy suppliers in Japan.
In response to the difficulties caused by the Fukushima Dai’ichi Nuclear Plant situation,
debate over the safety and utility of nuclear power versus renewable energy expanded beyond
Japan’s borders to other countries that utilize nuclear power. Among other countries in the
world, German debate on nuclear energy is one of the most prominent. With a long history
of anti-nuclear activism and attention to renewable energy resources—evidenced by the pas-
sage of the Renewable Energy Act (EEG or Erneuerbare Energien Gesetz) in 2000—German
debate on nuclear energy and renewable energy entered a new phrase in the post-Fukushima
era.
A key point in the energy policies formulated since 2000 in Germany and Japan was the
FIT (feed-in tariff) system. While Schreurs (2002) did not go so far as to investigate the
power relationships between actors in terms of energy policy, she identified FIT (feed-in
tariff) as a mutual environmental and energy policy, which suggests that it is different from
a typical environmental policy. Germany’s FIT system was incorporated within the initial
draft of the Renewable Energy Act of 2000, and it is considered to be a solid policy initiative
aimed at promoting renewable energy (Jacobsson and Lauber 2009). Japan also included a
FIT system within its 2011 legislation aimed at renewable energy operators with comparable
compensation. However, while the formal systems for the FIT in Japan and Germany appear
to be similar, are their actual functions or operations also similar?
While the institutions involved in the renewable energy promotion systems are very similar
in both countries, specifics concerning new energy, nuclear energy induction amounts, and
installation methods are quite different. For example, Table 1shows the rankings of different
countries in terms of the induction of specific renewable energies. Germany (bold) leads in
renewable power per capita (hydro power not included) and is one of the most active countries
in renewable energy implementation. Germany also ranks high in terms of solar photovoltaic,
solar photovoltaic per capita, and wind power adoption. In contrast, Japan (bold/ italic) does
not appear in the rankings in implementing renewable power per capita (renewable power
including/not including hydro power, renewable power, and renewable power per capita not
123

Energy policy participation through networks transcending cleavage 1487
Tab l e 1 Total capacity of renewable energy 2012 (as at year end)
Renewable Power
(incl. hydro)
Renewable Power
(not incl. hydro)
Renewable Power
per capita (not incl.
hydro)
Bio-power Geothermal Power
1. China China Germany United States United States
2. United States United States Sweden Brazil Philippines
3. Brazil Germany Spain China Indonesia
4. Canada Spain Italy Germany Mexico
5. Germany Italy Canada Sweden Italy
Hydropower Concentrating
solar thermal
power (CSP)
Solar photovoltaic Solar photovoltaic
per capita
Wind power
1. China Spain Germany Germany China
2. Brazil United States Italy Italy United States
3. United States Algeria United States Belgium Germany
4. Canada Egypt/Morocco China Czech Republic Spain
5. Russia Australia Japan Greece India
Solar water collec-
tor (heating)
Solar water collec-
tor (heating) per
capita
Geothermal heat
capacity
Geothermal direct
heat use
Solar water collec-
tor (heating)
1. China Cyprus United States China China
2. Germany Israel China United States Germany
3. Turkey Austria Sweden Sweden Turkey
4. Brazil Barbados Germany Turkey Brazil
5. India Greece Japan Japan/Iceland India
Source: REN21 (2013) RENEWABLES 2013 GLOBAL STATUS REPORT, p.17
including hydro power). Even in looking at the implementation of specific new energies,
Japan takes barely fifth place in terms of solar photovoltaic, geothermal heat capacity, and
the direct use of geothermal power.
There is a striking difference between Germany and Japan in terms of domestic electric
power installation of nuclear energy. As of the end of April 2012, Germany was running
126,960,000kW with no existing construction plans for new nuclear power plants, yet Japan
was running 461,480,000kW nuclear power electricity with actual construction plans which
will increase this amount by 168,280,000 kW.1
In other words, regardless of the implementation of similar systems that focus on further
reducing environmental burdens and developing renewable energy, a huge difference exists
in the background and current state of energy policy. In order to learn from the implications
of Germany’s experience, Huenteler et al. (2012) argue that the Great East Japan Earthquake
became an opportunity for a turnaround in energy policy in Japan, but also speculated whether
renewable energy could be a realistic alternative to nuclear energy as it was for Germany.2
1Graphical Filp-chart of Nuclear & Energy Related Topic 2012 [Genshiryoku/enerugi zumen-shu] of Fed-
eration of Electric Power Companies, available at http://www.fepc.or.jp/library/pamphlet/pdf/all.pdf (Access
date: December 1, 2013).
2All nuclear power plants in Japan have been temporarily closed since May 2012.
123

1488 M. Hartwig et al.
Whereas official intentions are discussed within national legislatures, it is necessary to
consider the background, as motives may differ because related proposals were made via
cabinet decisions in both countries before the earthquake occurred. After the middle-right
CDU/CSU (Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union) was re-elected as the rul-
ing party in 2009 in Germany, although postponing nuclear phase-out was debated briefly,
they intensified efforts towards a total nuclear phase-out from June 2011 in response to the
Fukushima Dai’ichi nuclear incident. Whereas in Japan, after the LDP (Liberal Democratic
Party) returned to power in December 2012, the possibility for continuing nuclear energy
power became part of the larger debate on national energy policy.
Thus, considering the background differences concerning the proposals is key in compar-
ing renewable energy policies in Japan and Germany.3In the next section, we briefly outline
the background to environmental and energy policy in Germany and Japan by identifying the
institutions, actors, features, legislation, and common issues.
2 Environmental and energy policy in Germany and Japan
2.1 Institutions and actors in environmental policy in Japan and Germany
As previously noted, in the past three decades, Germany has been at the forefront in tackling
environment and energy policy on a national scale. According to Schreurs (2002), since the
inception of Germany’s Green Party, calls for environment preservation have been introduced
directly to the Bundestag, creating a situation wherein other political parties have also been
forced to produce environmental policies. In addition, there are numerous NGOs and think
tanks, including Greenpeace, BUND (Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland), and
the BBU (Bundesverband Bürgerinitiative Umweltschutz) that wield formidable power in
environment-related politics. Attention to energy policy in Germany was also reinforced
through the creation of the Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear
Safety in 1986.4This German ministry was quite powerful compared to the corresponding
department for nuclear power oversight within the Science and Technology Agency in Japan.
The role of the German business sector is a further point of differentiation. In Germany, the
traditional notion of the social market economy has been particularly strong with widespread
acceptance of strict regulations governing markets. Thus, when formulating policy, German
NGOs, various levels of government, and representatives from businesses and industries
conduct spirited discussions and consultations (Schreurs 2002).
In contrast, national-level ministries and agencies offices in Japan are the main leaders in
environmental policy, and the influence of private-sector interests is weak. Through expe-
riences with environmental pollution in the 1970s, companies have been unable to directly
oppose environmental regulations, and this point is reflected in differences in Japanese and
American attitudes towards the Kyoto Protocol. Furthermore, although organized groups
within the environmental protection community were active in the 1960s and 1970s, since
that time, the power of their influence has diminished and the center for decision-making in
environmental policy has rested with national-level ministries and agencies.
3Declared in Japan’s Reconstruction Strategy formed in committee session on June 14, 2013. Available at
http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/singi/keizaisaisei/pdf/en_saikou_jpn_hon.pdf (Access date: March 8, 2014).
4Subsequent to the general election September 2013, the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature
Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) became the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conser-
vation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB) in January 2014. As we collected our data during the previous
administration (17th legislative period), we use the old acronym (BMU) throughout this paper.
123

Energy policy participation through networks transcending cleavage 1489
Through the results of network analysis using GEPON (Global Environmental Policy
Network) data gathered from ministries, politicians, economic and environmental actors,
foundations, mass media organs, and other NGOs, Tsujinaka 1999 confirmed the high degree
of centrality of Keidanren (Japan Business Federation), TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power), and
MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry).
While it cannot be said that Japanese politicians were particularly concerned about envi-
ronmental policy up to and including the 1980s, from the beginning of the 1990s, a group of
politicians within the LDP led by Takeshita Noboru started to seriously study environmental
policy. However, with his resignation as prime minister in 1989 and the brief defeat of the
LDP in 1993, neither non-LDP- nor LDP-led coalition administrations have been able to
produce original environmental policy aims, and the influence of environment policy actors
has become weaker (Murai 2001).
2.2 Distinct features of Japan and Germany’s energy policy
Within Japan’s energy policy, as scholars have noted, nuclear energy policy has been heavily
promoted by the powerful sub-government (“iron triangle”) consisting of MITI, electrical
companies, and the LDP (Honda 2005;Yoshioka 2011). Distinctly different from Germany’s
BMU, for a long period in Japan, nuclear energy policy continued under MITI’s purview.
Even with the 2001 restructuring of national government ministries, including the transfor-
mation from MITI into METI (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) as well as the
abolishment of Japan’s Science and Technology Agency as an independent agency, certain
policy areas continued to be formulated through METI, thereby further increasing its influ-
ence. While the BMU in Germany is generally in charge of the Renewable Energy Act and
holds jurisdiction over nuclear energy and renewable energy power policies in cooperation
with the BMWi (Ministry of Economics and Technology), additional actors, including envi-
ronmental organizations and think tanks, are also capable of wielding distinctive influential
power in the political decision-making process in Germany. As for Japan, the METI only
holds jurisdiction over energy and industrial policies, which makes it difficult under the iron-
triangle structure for other actors to change energy policy by exerting influence on industry
and business organizations (Huenteler et al. 2012).
This situation is further reflected in the Basic Act on Energy Policy (Enerug¯ı kihon
keikaku), newly established in 2010, wherein similar to renewable energy, nuclear power
was located within the plans for “zero-emission power” and promoted as a means of dealing
with climate change. This interpretation contrasts that of Germany’s policy course, which
aims at the spread of renewable energy as an alternative to nuclear power.
2.3 Renewable energy legislation in Germany and Japan
Germany set the foundation to promote development of renewable energy technology for
electricity over two decades ago Bardt et al. 2012. In 1991, the German government passed
the Electricity Feed In Law (Stromeinspeisungsgesetz or StromEinspG) to promote the feed-
in of energy produced by renewable energy technologies into the grid for electricity suppliers.
This law evolved into the Renewable Energy Act (Erneuerbare Energien Gesetz), which came
into effect on April 1, 2000, through which the entire regulatory framework for renewable
energy technologies was revised and differentiated tariffs for each form of renewable energy
set the path for renewable energy development for the next decade. The Renewable Energy
Act’s general aim was to promote different types of renewable energy technologies in order
to ensure competitiveness among renewable energy sources and to increase electricity output
123

1490 M. Hartwig et al.
from renewable energy sources to 35% by 2020. The law mandates that renewable energy
companies receive a fixed amount of FIT for a specific period of time (usually 20 years),
individually calculated according to the type of energy. The law went through major revisions
in 2004, 2009, and again in 2012. The latest revision contained a major clause concerning
the regulatory framework on photovoltaic technology, including tariff degression, which was
not entirely supported by associations promoting solar energy. Since 2009, heat-factor con-
cerns have received more attention, and a framework addressing such concerns (Erneuerbare
Energien Wärme Gesetz or EEWärmeG) was passed. This issue is often referred to as the
CHP (combined heat and power).
The Japanese Feed-in Tariff Law for Renewable Electric Energy (former English title being
the Act on Special Measures concerning the Procurement of Renewable Electric Energy by
Operators of Electric Utilities) was passed by the Japanese Diet in August 2011, coming into
effect from July 2012. Yet the political background to its passage is worth noting as part of
the renewable energy debate in Japan.
Shortly after ousting the long-serving LDP in August 2009, Japan’s new prime minister
and leader of the DPJ (Democratic Party of Japan), Hatoyama Yukio, announced at the
United Nations Summit on Climate Change on September 22 that Japan will strive to achieve
a reduction of 25% in green-house gas emissions5as a midterm target. The full-amount-
purchase system became one device to achieve this goal.6Based on this background, a project
team was formed to investigate the full amount purchase of renewable energies in order to
determine the draft framework for the new system. The first draft of project team’s report
was tabled on March 11, 2011 for discussion in the Diet. Later in the year, the Renewable
Energy Act passed through the parliament after several revisions (Nakano and Nakanishi
2011). One key revision concerning the method used to determine purchase pricing changed
the focus of actors from “consulting the opinions of the Advisory Committee on Energy and
Natural Resources and later to be determined by METI” to “consulting the opinions of the
Procurement Price Calculation Committee and later to be determined by METI” in order to
be able to reflect potential annual changes in procurement prices.
2.4 Common issues in Germany and Japan
Regardless of the different contexts in both countries, such as Germany’s earlier adoption of
the committee system, the prevalence of renewable energy resources, and Japan’s institutional
focus, we identified certain common issues that played important roles throughout the political
process concerning renewable energy policy and related issues in both countries. Identifying
these common issues is a critical point in understanding the policy environment in Germany
and Japan as well as providing the framework for the methodological approach used in this
analysis.
As pointed out earlier, the BMU in Germany holds jurisdiction for renewable and nuclear
energy policies as well as being in charge of the Renewable Energy Act, and as such, the
BMU’s official ministerial proceedings of the 17th legislature period between 2009 and
2013 used for this research. For these official proceedings, invited specialists and scholars
representing certain points of interest have opportunities to make statements concerning the
topics under review, and representatives of political parties occupying seats in the Bundestag
may also make similar inquiries.
5Using figures from emission rates in the 1990s as benchmarks.
6Prime Minister of Japan and his Cabinet, 2009. “Statement by Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama at the
United Nations Summit on Climate Change.” http://www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/hatoyama/statement/200909/
ehat_0922_e.html (access date January 30, 2014).
123

Energy policy participation through networks transcending cleavage 1491
Due to this specific procedure, two important points need to be drawn out in order to
compare the German and Japanese procedures of qualitative data extraction for the identi-
fication of common issues. First, different from Japan’s METI, the BMU does not express
its opinion at official hearings and even political parties emphasize their opinion concerning
certain topics rather indirectly or passively, if at all. Second, invited specialists, scholars, or
other interest-group representatives are able to forego attendance and instead send in their
statements, which will be included in the overall procedural minutes by the BMU and made
openly accessible. Yet whether those indirectly submitted statements will be considered by
the government and opposition parties in their decision-making process remains unknown.
Based on the above, through our preliminary review of the committee proceedings and
background issues, we identified the following as important issues for Germany and Japan.
First, concerns about the negative influence of the Renewable Energy Act on consumers as
well as the potential impact to the economy due to the unavoidable increase in electric-
ity prices under Japan’s Renewable Energy Act were often voiced. Moreover, compared
with energy-surplus purchases (net metering) in Germany’s legislation, the Act contains few
incentives to motivate consumers to conserve energy. This raises questions about the most
suitable means for reducing GHG (greenhouse gas) and maintaining energy security. This
Act faced strong opposition in Japan, particularly until the DPJ achieved political power in
2009, because earlier drafts did not include net metering incentives such as solar energy sur-
plus purchases. Second, tariff degression, as a further means to offset the possible negative
influence of consumers’ burden and impact on the economy by the Renewable Energy Act,
was identified. Increased electricity charges brought about by the sudden rise of the renew-
able energy proportions in Germany became a serious issue, and Japan is facing the same
experience as Germany and Spain.
The third issue involves nuclear phase out. As pointed out above, the motives behind the
path selected for implementing renewable energy plans distinguishes Germany and Japan.
The German government has been gradually phasing out nuclear power, particularly since
the impact of contamination from the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. Conceptually similar but
chronologically different, calls for promoting alternativeenergy sources and reducing reliance
on nuclear power started to become especially vocal in Japan after the Fukushima Dai’ichi
Nuclear Plant incident.
Commensurate with the issue of reducing nuclear-power dependency is the topic of reduc-
ing fossil fuel dependency as well. Since the 1970s oil crisis, which was especially critical
in Japan, nuclear energy has been seen as an alternative for fossil fuels. The oil crisis also
had an impact on German energy policy, and Schreurs (2002) notes that this period marks
the starting point for formulating approaches towards the development of renewable and
sustainable energy sources as alternatives to nuclear energy and fossil fuels.
The fifth issue, namely the ETS (emission trade system) and climate change, is particularly
germane to Germany. While the ETS has not played an important role in Japan’s environ-
mental policy, it is an important instrument for European environmental policy and climate
protection, as well as a means for the development of renewable energy.7Closely connected
with payment exemptions for renewable energy under the Renewable Energy Act regulations
for industrial consumers in energy-intense industries, the emission trading system on the
European level is a critical point in the discussions to ease industry’s financial burdens and
fulfill emission reduction goals.
7Statement made by Umweltbundesamt:http://www.umweltbundesamt.de/daten/klimawandel/
der-europaeische-emissionshandel (Access date: March 1, 2014).
123

1492 M. Hartwig et al.
Encouraging renewable energy generators to behave more like conventional generators
is the sixth issue. Biomass as a source of renewable energy is discussed frequently, especially
in connection with the issue of CHP (combined heat and power) in Germany. With greater
attention being focused on renewable energy resource, wood and forestry resources that
could be used for heating are assuming a more important role. With the 2009 revision in
Germany’s Renewable Energy Act, this trend was recognized by including special regulations
for the heating sector and promoting biomass energy resources. The BUND monitors the
environmental risks of the increased use of biomass as energy resource while the BBE
(Federal Association for Bioenergy) emphasizes the important role of biomass (including
wood) for renewable energy development and as a resource for electricity and heating. The
market premium model contained in the 2012 revision of the Renewable Energy Act is a
new instrument that was formulated by the BMU to promote market integration of renewable
energies. Suppliers benefit from this instrument if they decide to trade renewable energy
resources directly on the electricity market Fulton and Capalino 2012.Thisissueisoften
brought forward by interest groups representing the biomass production industry because
they have argued in the past that the 2011 draft revisions to the act contained clauses that were
discriminatory by offering fewer benefits for biomass resources within the market premium
model in comparison to traditional renewable energy sources. Related to alternative energy
resources as well is the seventh issue, namely, the PV (photovoltaic) bonus.Thisissueinvolves
boosting the diffusion rate of renewable energy for further growth of solar energy power in
terms of the self-consumption bonus for consumers in both countries who produce their own
electricity by photovoltaic technologies.
The eighth issue most commonly discussed is that of efficient power sources other than
renewable energy. This issue is an outgrowth of the GHG reduction and energy security
topics and spans discussions not only concerning alternative renewable energies but is also
connected to promoting energy efficiency. CHP is an approach that is often representative
of this issue in terms of energy policy because electricity-generating and heating energy
sources are major topics in industrialized countries and such energy utilization influences
GHG emission levels and energy security.
Industrial promotion, particularly in the domestic sector, is the ninth issue. Recent develop-
ments within the international solar photovoltaic industry led by China (the world’s foremost
exporter of photovoltaic panels) have caused serious problems for Germany’s domestic PV
producing industry. Thus, for Germany, strategies to promote domestic industries, which
develop and produce renewable energy resource technologies, is an important issue. In July
2013, the EU made its first agreement with China setting minimum limits for PV panel
imports into EU countries.
The tenth and eleventh issues are electricity liberalization and power system stabilization,
respectively. Liberalization has been an important means for realizing efficient electrical
power distribution throughout the 1990s and the first half of the 2000s, as it played a major
role in helping markets emerge in various countries, in addition to Japan and Germany
(Growitsch and Müsgens 2005a,b). Power system stabilization is a means of handling excess
renewable energy contained within electricity grids. As electricity companies do not want
to reject the purchase of electricity, measures for handling stabilization were included in the
Renewable Energy Act. However, in committee meetings, the issues of sharing the costs
for expanding facilities to be able to cope with such increases and efficiently implementing
renewable energy into the electricity grid have been discussed.
Thefinalissueisthatofexemptions from the Renewable Energy Act’s payment regulations.
Part of the discussions involving the Renewable Energy Act involved whether the burden
for corporate consumers in energy-intense industries that have fulfilled certain requirements
123

Energy policy participation through networks transcending cleavage 1493
should be exempt from payment regulations. According to the most recently available data on
German companies and industries that currently are either exempt or partially exempt from
the payment for renewable energies, as at February 11, 2014, 2,098 companies benefited from
this specific regulation. This shows a marked increase from the previous years, wherein 734
companies were exempt in 2012, and 1,716 companies were exempt in 2013. The focus on
this issue shows a shift in the burden for environmental and energy policy decisions from the
corporate sector to the consumer. Although the tariff degression regulations were originally
intended to decrease energy costs for consumers, their costs—as well as the number of
companies granted full or partial exemptions—have increased (BAFA 2012). For example,
according to BAFA (Federal Office of Economics and Export Control) data, paradoxically,
coal mining, petroleum oil, and gas-producing industries as well do not pay for renewable
energies in Germany (BAFA 2012).
The above noted issues were present both in our background research and the committee
meeting minutes and served as the basis for the content portion of our methodology. The
following methodology section describes our actor identification and attitude assessment
procedure, as well as the latent class and hyperlink network analyses undertaken in our study.
Despite the renewable energy legislation in both countries, two points become clear. First,
in Japan, as the abolishment of nuclear power is not tied to the Renewable Energy Act (dif-
ferent from the situation in Germany), the clash between organizations (actors) involved in
nuclear power generation and those who want to do away with nuclear power is not a key
factor in network formation. Second, while the predominance of economic actors in Japan
has been demonstrated, economic actors also act as a hub that unifies the network. How-
ever, in Germany, the inclusion of many different organizations (possibly including citizens’
organizations and groups) suggests that there may be key differences in the functions and
operations of the FIT system in Japan and Germany, as well as the intentions and inclination
of the actors involved in both countries.
In order to probe more deeply into these questions, we used a combination of content
analysis techniques (using committee meetings in both countries as our main data sources)
and hyperlink network analysis (based on the hyperlinks found on identified actor websites).
With the growing importance of link data to examine forms of online political communica-
tion for social researches, our combined methodology serves the approach of using online
data to analyze the potential influential power of online networks on political decision mak-
ing processes (Park 2012). The next section provides further discussion regarding this dual
methodological approach.
3 Methodology
3.1 Attitude-based networks and actors
In this research, we used an attitude-based network, analyzing the attitudes expressed in
committee proceedings as the data for describing the policy networks in the two countries. By
capturing collective action as a feature of the policy network and moving beyond analogies to
the description of actual entities (Dowding 1995), the aim is to reveal the independent variable
that grasps the political process (Carlsson 2000). While similar opinions are expressed in
committees, regardless of whether the organizations intend to actually cooperate with each
other, such statements can be regarded as a form of collective action for guiding legislation.
We identified the actors who presented opinions in the committees concerning these issues
and discovered 76 actors in Germany and 73 actors in Japan. Although we recognized that
123

1494 M. Hartwig et al.
there were ranges in actor attitudes, we classified their opinions into four categories, namely,
“agree,” “disagree,” “other,” 8and “no remarks.”
Regardless of the various differences between Germany and Japan, we define common
issues and identify actors’ attitudes toward them in both countries. We analyze the attitudes
with LCA (Latent Class Analysis) (Hagenaars and McCutcheon 2002) and classify actors
statistically. We recognized that there may be a situation wherein this attitude-based network
may be merely a depiction of a fragmented relationship that is limited to discussion about
legislation.
In response to the difficulties in assessing change in policy networks, identified by Rhodes
(2006), qualitative approaches such as using ACF (Advocacy Coalition Framework) (Sabatier
1988) and “discourse coalitions” (Bulkely 2000) have been used to ameliorate this problem.
However, these approaches are not appropriate for this research, as they lack a common
standard, and thus, a dual quantitative network approach was used in this study.
An important step in our methodological process involved identifying keywords used in
committee hearings in Germany and Japan. Gautam et al. (2014) used a similar approach
as part of their study on joint bibliometric analysis of patents and publications in cross-
disciplinary projects. Such research results demonstrate the multiple applications of a mixed
method approach of identifying actors and keywords as well as show how network analyses
can be refined to gain enhanced understanding of networked relationships. Our research
within draws also on bibliometric data, yet aims to broaden the scope to cross-national
comparisons as well as introduce aspects of civil society involvement.
For these reasons, we have evaluated influential actors through network analyses of
attitude-based and hyperlink networks. Given that a hyperlink network can be regarded as a
general network, its depiction should supply evidence that influential actors in general tend to
be central in attitude-based networks. Are the actors around whom discussion was centered
in committee meetings the same as those who form the center of the hyperlink network? Is
there a tendency associated with certain actors connecting to each other? We believe that
the answers to such questions may demonstrate differences between Japan and Germany’s
energy sector politics.
3.2 Data sources
We identify actors’ attitudes toward FIT using sources from Germany and Japan. For Ger-
many, we used the publicly available proceedings for meetings held at the BMU during
the 17th legislature period (September 2009 to September 2013).9Unlike Japan, and its
establishment into the general governmental issues since 2000, no specific subcommittee or
research groups established to debate revisions to FIT in Germany, and public debate con-
cerning revisions has been ongoing since the Renewable Energy Act’s initial establishment
in 2000 and is bind to the BMU’s authority. We focus on this particular date range to ensure
source data compatibility with that of Japan. We understand that it is entirely possible that
there may have been other government-level meetings, however, such discussions were not
included because of their closed nature and inaccessibility to a variety of actors.
8When agreement or disagreement was unclear from the actor statements, we classified these comments as
“other.” Furthermore, in the case of multiple sub-issues, we identified a single main issue thread and categorized
the comments to summarize the different arguments in Japan and Germany. This classification resulted in some
sub-issues being categorized as “agree” and others as “disagree.” In this situation, we categorized the overall
comment thread as “other.”
9The proceedings, divided by topics as well as in a combined archive are publicly available at http://dipbt.
bundestag.de/dip21.web/bt (access date October 11, 2013).
123

Energy policy participation through networks transcending cleavage 1495
For Japan, we focus on the period of 2009 to 2013, a five-year period immediately prior
to and following the Great East Japan Earthquake (2011). The source for our data is the pro-
ceedings of committees and meetings that met to discuss the actual development and revision
process for FIT. In Japan, there are four committees that were launched in the Agency for
Natural Resources and Energy to discuss the establishment of Japan’s Renewable Energy
Law: The Payback System Subcommittee, a subcommittee within the New Energy Subcom-
mittee under the Advisory Committee on Natural Resources and Energy (S¯og¯oshigenenerug¯ı
ch¯osakai shin enerug¯ı bukai denkijigy¯o bunkakai kaitori seido sh¯oiinkai), the Project Team
for an All-quantity Buyback System for Renewable Energy (Saisei kan¯oenerug¯ınozenry¯o
kaitori ni kansuru purojekuto ch¯ımu), the Subcommittee for Institutional Arrangements on
New Energy, part of the Subcommittee of the Advisory Committee on Natural Resources
and Energy (S¯og¯o shigen enerug¯ıch¯osakai shin enerug¯ı bukai denkijigyô bunkakai seido
kanky¯osh¯oiinkai), and the Procurement Price Calculation Committee (Ch¯otatsu kakakut¯o
santei iinkai). All four committees met for a total of 37 times, and we also included 10 meet-
ings held by a Diet Committee on Economy, Trade and Industry (Keizai sangyo iinkai)that
also discussed revisions concerning FIT.10
For both countries, we identified the actors involved based on those proceedings and com-
mittees and classified them into the topic categories based on each actors’ self-represented
information: Economy and Industry, Society and Politics, Education and Science, Labor,
Agriculture, Leisure and Culture, Media, Political Party and Quasi-government. Environ-
mental organizations are represented in the Society and Politics category, and actors active
politically as political parties are represented in the Political Party category.
3.3 Latent class analysis (LCA)
LCA is an analytical method that extracts an unobservable categorical variable from observ-
able categorical variables (McCutcheon 1987;Hagenaars and McCutcheon 2002). This unob-
servable variable is referred to as a “latent class” variable, and similar objects are classified
into the same classes. In our analysis, we classified actors with similar opinions into the same
class, surmising that actors in the same class exhibit similar preferences towards legislation.
In other words, with regard to agreement or disagreement with the legislation, we expected
them to have similar objectives concerning enactment or revision. We adopted maximum
likelihood estimation with robust as the estimator and accelerated EM algorithm for opti-
mization. We decided the number of the classes according to SABIC (Sample-Size Adjusted
Baysian Information Criterion), concluding that the four-class model is the best SABIC.11
3.4 Hyperlink network analysis
In order to provide a more complete understanding of the dynamics of the policy network, this
research incorporates hyperlink network analysis (Park 2003) as a more stable network repre-
senting policy communities. Hyperlink networks can be regarded as socio-communicational
10 The proceedings are publicly available at http://www.meti.go.jp/committee/kenkyukai/energy_
environment.html (the Project Team), http://kokkai.ndl.go.jp/ (the Diet) and http://www.meti.go.jp/
committee/gizi_8/index_old.html (others). The source language is Japanese, and the access date is November
31, 2013.
11 The two-class model should be adopted if BIC were used as the criterion while AIC also chooses the same
four-class model. The first class is composed of “100% of class 1 and 66.1 % of class 2,” and the second class
consists of “the remaining items of class 2, class 3 and class 4.” However, we adopted a four-class model since
this two-class model only distinguishes between remarking or not and does not provide information about
actors’ attitudes.
123

1496 M. Hartwig et al.
networks (Park and Thelwall 2008) and may show actual communication and information
flows in social movements and interorganizational communication (Park and Thelwall 2003),
demonstrate credibility and expertise (Park et al. 2002), suggest collective action (Shumate
and Lipp 2008), as well as discuss public agendas (Kim et al. 2010).
While the attitude-based network shows the actual alliances in the committees, hyperlink
network is a good metaphor to express the policy community. Marsh and Rhodes (1992)
suggest that different networks show a continuum, moving from policy communities at one
end to issue networks at the other. There is the possibility that attitude-based networks can
engage policy networks that are close to the issue networks that specialize in the specific
legislation or bill. Thus, it is expected that hyperlink networks can capture the stable network
relationships that are part of the regular policy communities. Through this comparison, it
is possible to examine the influence of stable relationships on the debate concerning the
proposed legislation in the Renewable Energy Act in both countries. The targets are the
websites of the organizations that have expressed their opinions in committee meetings. In
addition, we added Germany’s BMU in order to facilitate comparison with Japan’s METI.
We crawled two levels from the top pages using an original script written in Perl.12
The hyperlink network analysis represents the overall inter-institutional relationship con-
cerning specific aspects of confrontational collaborative relationships. Jiang (2013)usesa
similar approach through the macro structure of bilateral hyperlink connections to analyze the
flow of international students. We employed the same macro structure to draw the attitude-
based network in our current study. Each organization differs in its attitude towards the main
aspects, as each organization wants to maximize outcomes regarding their interests through
the decision- making process. The policy network can be seen as an attitude network accord-
ing to Rhodes (2006), but frequently, a policy community showing common connections with
other actors beyond the known political communicative structures emerges. Those qualitative
differences are determined by each country’s institutionalized relations in the political struc-
ture, and we can evaluate the influence of the political structure by comparing the hyperlink
and attitude-based networks.
3.5 Drawing networks
We used the Kamada–Kawai Algorithm for graphical drawing, as it is one type of a force-
directed graph drawing and actors connected with each other tend to be placed closely. The
size of the nodes is proportional to the PageRank that expresses centrality.
There are certain differences between the attitude-based networks and hyperlink networks.
The edges of the former indicate that the actors have similar attitudes, and the width of the
edges is proportional to the number of similar attitudes. In other words, the networks are
undirected and weighted; by comparison, hyperlink networks are directed and unweighted.
4 Results: renewable energy policy network analysis in Germany and Japan
4.1 LCA results
The LCA results showed four distinct groups. The first group (the “general group”) expressed
general statements about topics including nuclear energy, and liberalization of the electricity
12 We identified links written in HTML (.html and .htm) and Javascript (.js). The program script corresponds
to a cookie and identifies such links. However it cannot analyze links that are produced dynamically within
Javascript’s parameters. The script also does not count redirect commands and frames as transitions of web
pages.
123

Energy policy participation through networks transcending cleavage 1497
market, however, they did not express definitive statements concerning fundamental provi-
sions. The second group did not express any opinions about nuclear energy, however, the range
of actors in this group is quite broad. The renewable energy industry network, which on the
surface does not strongly express opinions against tariff degression, was included in the main
stream of the photovoltaic group. As it set the main emphasis for renewable energy devel-
opment, this second group can be called the “new-energy-implementation group.” The third
group does not necessarily express an attitude directly against the Renewable Energy Act,
although throughout the committee proceedings, whenever the topics of nuclear energy and
new energy arose, this group expressed a more passive attitude than other groups towards the
Renewable Energy Act. Thus, this group can be called the “renewable-energy-act-passive
group”. The tendencies of the fourth group are somehow difficult to identify. With topics
ranging from reducing fossil fuels to approval of the CHP system, this group could be identi-
fied as the “energy-security-reinforcement” group. Compared to the other groups, this group
demonstrates a tendency to express various opinions throughout the proceedings on a broad
range of issues. Table 2shows the resulting classes and their LCA percentages.
4.2 Attitude-based network Germany
Among the actors in the German renewable energy policy community, the observer group
(67.1 %) and the new-energy-implementation group (31.6%) are the largest groups in terms of
overall percentage. Besides those two groups, one distinguishing characteristic for Germany
is the general absence of a significant number of actors whose stance towards the Renewable
Energy Act is passive. While we could identify differences among the actors in the four
categories in terms of how actively they generally support the implementation of renewable
energies as well as variations in their focus on specific renewable resources, there were no
contradictory attitudes towards the RenewableEnergy Act overall by any actors. This suggests
that among members of the German commission, there is a generally positive attitude towards
the implementation of new energy.
Tab l e 2 Classes by latent class analysis in %
Class 1 (N= 64) Observer
(statements regarding nuclear
energy in Germany)
Class 2 (N= 60) new energy
development
Agree Disagree Other No remarks Agree Disagree Other No remarks
Renewable Energy Act 0.00.06.393.853.30.01.745.0
Tariff degression 7.80.00.092.230.05.028.336.7
Nuclear phase-out 10.97.812.568.83.30.00.096.7
Fossil fuels 0.00.01.698.421.70.01.776.7
ETS, etc. 6.30.09.484.40.00.038.361.7
Other than PV 3.16.36.384.463.36.720.010.0
PV bonus 0.01.60.098.415.023.328.333.3
Other technology 3.10.00.096.911.70.03.385.0
Industrial promotion 4.71.60.093.818.30.00.081.7
Liberalization 9.43.11.685.96.70.03.390.0
Stabilization 0.00.00.0 100.01.70.011.786.7
Exemptions 1.60.03.195.38.33.31.786
.7
123

1498 M. Hartwig et al.
Tab l e 2 continued
Class 3 (N = 16) Negativereac-
tion to the Renewable Energy
Act (Japan only)
Class 4 (N= 9) Active state-
ments
Agree Disagree Other No remarks Agree Disagree Other No remarks
Renewable Energy Act 18.843.831.36.355.60.022.222.2
Tariff degression 93.80.00.06.344.40.044.411.1
Nuclear phase-out 0.012.531.356.333.333.311.122.2
Fossil fuels 31.30.031.337.5 100.00.00.00.0
ETS, etc. 0.012.575.012.511.10.066.722.2
Other than PV 0.031.350.018.877.811.111.10.0
PV bonus 56.30.031.312.566.722.20.011.1
Other technology 18.818.80.062.544.40.033.322.2
Industrial promotion 25.00.031.343.866.722.20.011.1
Liberalization 25.00.012.562.522.222.211.144.4
Stabilization 37.56.318.837.533.322.244.40.0
Exemptions 43.818.825.012.511.122.233.333
.3
Tab l e 3 Attitude-based network Germany
Agree Disagree Other No remarks
Renewable Energy Act 2.60.01.396.1
Tariff digression 21.11.314.5 63.2
Nuclear phase-out 10.56.611.8 71.1
Reduction of fossil fuel reliance 2.60.01.396.1
ETS 2.60.06.690.8
Renewable energy other than PV 18.45.313.2 63.2
PV bonus 5.311.813.2 69.7
Effective technology other than renewable energy 7.90.00.092.1
Industrial promotion 2.62.60.094.7
Liberalization 10.52.62.684.2
Power system stabilization 1.30.01.397.4
Exemption from the Renewable Energy Act 1.32.61
.394.7
Figures in bold highlight percentages greater than 10%
Tabl e 3shows the attitudes towards several issues in terms of the German actors who
participated in the specified committees. Even though there are several actors who did not
express any opinions about specific issues throughout the committee hearings, for example,
about renewable energies other than PV or tariff degression (which could be due to the
general procedures for conducting the hearings), in general, there is mutual agreement about
liberalization, renewable energies other than photovoltaic and tariff degression. In contrast,
slightly over 10% of the associations disagree with the PV bonus, and nuclear phase-out
appears to be the only issue towards which actors had range of comments (agree, disagree,
other, or no remarks).
Since the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, nuclear phase-out became a frequently
discussed issue within the attitude-based network throughout different categories and gen-
erally many actors in the economy and industry, quasi-government, and society and politics
sectors agreed with this issue (Table 4). However, actors within the education and science
category only expressed their disagreement with topics discussed within nuclear phase-out.
123

Energy policy participation through networks transcending cleavage 1499
Tab l e 4 Attitudes about nuclear phase-out in Germany in % (various categories)
Agree Disagree Other No remark N
Agriculture 0.0 0.0 0.0 100.0 1
Economy and industry 4.8 4.8 9.5 81.0 21
Labor 33.3 0.0 0.0 66.7 3
Education and science 7.7 15.4 15.4 61.5 13
Leisure and culture 0.0 0.0 100.0 0.0 1
Media 0.0 0.0 0.0 100.0 1
Other professional 0.0 50.0 0.0 50.0 4
Quasi-government 50.0 0.0 0.0 50.0 2
Ruling party 0.0 0.0 0.0 100.0 2
Largest opposition party 0.0 0.0 0.0 100.0 1
Other political parties 0.0 0.0 0.0 100.0 2
Society and politics 21.4 0.0 14.3 64.3 14
Other 9.1 0.0 18.2 72.7 11
Figures in bold highlight percentages greater than 10%
Fig. 1 Attitude-based network in Germany
While 20% disagreed, 10 % of education and science agreed. In general, the results show
mutual agreement concerning nuclear phase-out in the German energy policy network, which
can be seen as one key difference compared to Japan. However, even after the government
set a goal for complete nuclear phase-out to be achieved by 2022, the issue remains whether
it is possible or advisable to withdraw from nuclear energy completely by 2022, especially
in terms of energy security.
Figure 1shows the attitude-based network which we drew from the proceedings. The
colors show the four classifications that were formed by the latent analysis: Blue denotes the
disinterested-observation group, green denotes the new-energy-implementation group, red
denotes the renewable-energy-act-passivity group, and orange denotes the energy-security-
reinforcement group. As pointed out earlier, as there are no groups with a passive attitude
123

1500 M. Hartwig et al.
Tab l e 5 Attitude-based network PageRank Germany
Organization PageRank
1 Bundesverband der Deutschen Energie- und Wasserwirtschaft e.V. (BDEW) 0.050
2 Bundesverband Erneuerbare Enerige e.V. (BEE) 0.033
3 Bundesverband BioEnergie e.V. (BBE) 0.033
4 Solarenergie—Förderverein Deutschland e.V. (SFV) 0.028
5 Grundgrün Energie GmbH 0.027
6 Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ) 0.026
7 Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI) 0.026
8 ENERTRAG AG 0.026
8 Institut für Lebensmittel und Ressourcenökonomik (ILR) University 0.026
8 Nordwestdeutsche Forstliche Versuchsanstalt (NW FVA) 0.026
11 PV Crystalox Solar 0.024
12 Biogasrat e.V. 0.024
13 Fachverband Biogas e.V. 0.024
13 Thüringer Landesanstalt für Landwirtschaft (TLL) 0.024
15 PHOTON 0.023
16 University Environment Energy 0.023
17 Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschlands (BUND) 0.022
18 FDP 0.021
19 Zentralverband der Deutschen Elektro- und Informationstechnischen Handwerke (ZVEH) 0.020
20 TenneT TSO 0.020
21 BELECTRIC 0.018
22 Prognos 0.018
23 Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband e.V. (vzbv) 0.017
24 RWE AG 0.017
24 Dusseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE) 0.017
24 CONSENTEC GmbH 0.017
24 Frontier Economics Ltd. 0.017
24 Energy University 0.017
29 Bundesverband Wind Energie e.V. (BWE) 0.017
30 LB Bank Baden-Württemberg 0.016
31 Institute for Applied Ecology 0.016
32 Verband kommunaler Unternehmen e.V. (VKU) 0.016
33 Deutsche Unternehmensinitiative Energieeffizienz (DENEFF) 0.016
34 Energy Consumers 0.015
35 E.ON 0.014
36 SPD 0.012
37 Juwi Holding AG 0.012
37 Fraunhofer Institute für Solare Energiesysteme (ISE) 0.012
39 IG-Metall 0.012
40 CDU/CSU 0.011
41 Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT) 0.010
41 Natur Freunde Deutschlands 0.010
41 Nuclear Safety Research Agency 0.010
41 Gesellschaft für Anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit (GRS) 0.010
41 University 0.010
46 Sachverständigenrat für Umweltfragen (SRU) 0.010
46 Deutsche Umwelthilfe e.V. (DUH) 0.010
46 Deutsche Energieagentur (dena) 0.010
46 Greenpeace Deutschland 0.010
46 Green Cross Russia 0.010
towards the Renewable Energy Act at all, the new-energy-implementation group (green) and
the observation group (blue) dominate the figures. Furthermore, Fig. 1shows that the energy-
security-reinforcement group is located at the center, while disinterested-observation group
stands at the periphery.
123

Energy policy participation through networks transcending cleavage 1501
The attitude-based network of Fig. 1in association with Table 5shows a strong tie between
the economy and industry groups for renewable energy, such as BDEW (Bundesverband der
Deutschen Energie- und Wasserwirtschaft) as rank 1 in PageRank, which represents the
energy-security-reinforcement group and actors of the new-energy-implementation group
with research institutions such as UFZ (Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research) (rank
6 in PageRank) and the Fraunhofer Institute (rank 7 in PageRank). The network we drew
from the data that we extracted from the proceedings confirmed the notable presence of econ-
omy and industry as well as education and science actors. However, the hyperlink network
represents a (slightly) different network than the attitude-based network.
4.3 Attitude-based network Japan
As pointed out above, the Latent Class Analysis revealed four different types of groups: the
disinterested-observation group which generally does not express their opinion; the new-
energy-implementation group, which puts effort into the main aspects of renewable energies,
the renewable-energy-act-passivity group which represents arather negative attitude towards
the Renewable Energy Act, and the energy-security-reinforcement group.
The largest group in Japan is the new-energy-implementation group with 49.3%, followed
by the Renewable Energy Act-passivity group with 21.9%, the disinterested-observation
group with 17.8 %, and the energy-security-reinforcement group with 11.0 % (N= 73). When
we look at their main associations, in the first group, direct interests correspond to small
regional political groups and the media, electricity, iron, and steel groups, as well as groups
outside the educational industry, think tanks and universities. Actors corresponding to the
renewable-energy-act-passivity group, which is limited to Japan, are economic and indus-
trial associations connected to Keidanren, consumers’ associations, chemical, iron and steel
groups, as well as electric power companies. Possibly because energy-intense consumers are
part of the network, expressions of cautious attitudes towards the Renewable Energy Act are
inevitable. Furthermore, the fourth group is huge in Japan, and the LDP, DPJ, Tokyo Gas,
FEPC (Federation of Electric Power Companies) and universities correspond to this group.
Investigating the attitudes of political actors regarding specific issues, Table 6shows com-
parisons among issues in Japan’s Renewable Energy Act to the attitudes of actors-participants
in the committee proceedings. On the whole, there are many actors who do not express their
opinion (“no comment”), but most actors agree with the Renewable Energy Act itself, effi-
Tab l e 6 Attitude-based network in Japan % (N = 73)
Agree Disagree Other No remark
Renewable Energy Act 52.19.615.1 23.3
Tariff digression 35.62.713.7 47.9
Nuclear phase-out 5.56.86.880.8
Reduction of fossil fuel reliance 34.20.08.257.5
ETS 4.12.757.5 35.6
Renewable energy other than PV 46.612.320.5 20.5
PV bonus 27.411.016.4 45.2
Effective technology other than renewable energy 16.44.16.872.6
Industrial promotion 30.11.46.861.6
Liberalization 11.02.75.580.8
Power system stabilization 12.34.117.8 65.8
Exemptions from the Renewable Energy Act 17.86.812.3 63.0
Figures in bold highlight percentages greater than 10%
123

1502 M. Hartwig et al.
Tab l e 7 Attitudes about nuclear phase-out in Japan in % (various categories)
Agree Disagree Other No remark N
Economy and industry 0.0 7.5 5.0 87.5 40
Education and science 7.7 7.7 7.7 76.9 13
Labor 0.0 0.0 100.0 0.0 1
Media 0.0 0.0 0.0 100.0 2
Other professional 0.0 0.0 0.0 100.0 1
Ruling party 100.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1
Largest opposition party 0.0 100.0 0.0 0.0 1
Other political parties 66.7 0.0 0.0 33.3 3
Society and politics 0.0 0.0 0.0 100.0 6
National ministries and agencies 0.0 0.0 100.0 0.0 1
Other 0.0 0.0 0.0 100.0 4
Figures in bold highlight percentages greater than 10%
cient technology other than renewable energy, exemptions from the Renewable Energy Act,
industrial promotion, liberalization, reduction of fossil fuel reliance, and tariff degression.
Especially, more than half of the associations are in mutually agreement concerning the
Renewable Energy Act itself and political actors appear to express a positive stance towards
the implementation of renewable energies. On the other hand, tendencies are observable that
most attitudes within the associations differ regarding the PV bonus and renewable energy
other than PV. While 46.6% of the associations agree with the PV bonus, 12.3 % of the asso-
ciations disagree. From these results, we can say that even though Japan’s political actors
approve of the implementation of renewable energy and the Renewable Energy Act itself,
opinions about the general method differ among the associations.
Similar to Germany, in Japan’s attitude-based network, nuclear phase-out became one
central issue for energy policies after the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011. Table 7
shows attitudes concerning this issue by each category. At first, one can see a variability
of attitudes among the categories. To look at the attitudes of political parties, during the
analyzed time period, the ruling party (DPJ) agreed with other political parties, yet the
largest opposition party disagreed. It is noteworthy that energy-intense consumers within the
economy and industry group disagreed, and they appear to have a cautious attitude towards
nuclear phase-out. Furthermore, actors within the education and science category express
antagonistic statements, and actors who agree and disagree both represent approximately
7.7%.
Figure 2represents the attitude-based network that we drew from the proceedings in Japan.
Situated in the center of Japan’s attitude-based network is the new-energy-implementation
group (green) and the energy-security-reinforcement group (orange), yet at the periphery lie
the actors of the disinterested-observation group (blue). The cautious group regarding the
Renewable Energy Act (red) participates in the committee proceedings. Composed mainly
of government-related entities, including Keidanren, political parties such as the New Komei
Party, and electrical power companies, their presence lies between the center and the periphery
(Table 8).
4.4 Hyperlink network analysis in Germany
Rather than concrete policies, we turn now to examining the constant (regular) interorga-
nizational networks derived from the hyperlink analysis in terms of the actors’ hyperlink
PageRank, represented in Fig. 3and in Table 9. The colors used are similar to those for the
123

Energy policy participation through networks transcending cleavage 1503
Fig. 2 Attitude-based network Japan
attitude-based network showing the LCA results: The first group (observers) is shown in
blue; the second group that promotes new energy is shown in green; the Renewable Energy
Act-passive (third) group is shown in red; and the fourth group, comprised of energy security
and actors considered to be important is shown in orange.
Environmental organizations rather than economic and industrial organizations appear to
be major actors in the attitude-based network, and research institutes play an important role
in the policy network in terms of energy policy. However, industry actors play a significant
role and appear to be generally accepted throughout the policy network.
4.5 Hyperlink network analysis in Japan
The attitude-based network reveals the same results as the LCA: the disinterested-observation
group (blue), the new-energy-implementation group (green), the Renewable Energy Act-
passivity group (red), and the energy-security-reinforcement group (orange). The main char-
acteristic for Japan’s hyperlink network (Fig. 4) is the high centrality of the renewable-
energy-act-passivity group. Generally speaking, the constituents of this group are METI,
electrical companies (TEPCO and KEPCO) and one university. At the periphery of the
passivity group stand actors in the new-energy-implementation group such as MHI (Mit-
subishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.), AIST (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and
Technology), JPEA (Japan Photovoltaic Energy Association), JWPA (Japan Wind Power
Association), and JYURI (Jukanky¯o Research Institute Inc.) (Table 10).
4.6 Attitude-based networks and hyperlink networks in Germany and Japan
As the LCA for Germany showed, the disinterested-observation group is the largest with
58.7%, followed by the new-energy-implementation group with 39.1% (N = 46). And there
123

1504 M. Hartwig et al.
Tab l e 8 Attitude-based network PageRank in Japan
Organization PageRank
1 The University of Tokyo (Utokyo) 0.025
2 Political Party DPJ (DPJ) 0.025
3 Gov. METI (METI) 0.024
4 Tokyo Gas Co., Ltd. (Tokyo Gas) 0.023
5 Ritsumeikan University (Ritsumeikan) 0.023
6 Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) 0.023
7 National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) 0.023
8 Hitotsubashi University (HIT-U) 0.022
9 Japan Photovoltaic Energy Association (JPEA) 0.022
10 Japan Wind Power Association (JWPA) 0,021
11 Jukanky¯o Research Institute Inc. (JYURI) 0.020
12 The Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI) 0.019
13 Electric Power Development Co., Ltd. (J-POWER) 0.019
14 JX Nippon Oil and Energy Corporation (JX) 0.019
15 The Japan Electrical Manufacturers’ Association (JEMA) 0.019
16 Public Electric Utility Enterpriser Forum (K¯oeidenki) 0.019
17 ENNET Corporation (Ennet) 0.019
18 Japan Association on the Environmental Studies (JAES) 0.018
19 The Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan (FEPC) 0.018
20 Political Party LDP (LDP) 0.018
21 PV Owner Network, Japan (PV-Net) 0.018
22 Japan Geothermal Developers’ Council (JGDC) 0.017
23 Japan Geothermal Association (JGA) 0.017
24 The Kansai Electric Power Co., Inc. (KEPCO) 0.017
25 The Federation of Elected Power Related Industry Worker’s Union of Japan (Denryoku Soren) 0.017
26 Japanese Association for Water Energy Recovery (J-WatER) 0.016
27 National Federation of Forest Owners’ Co-operative Association (Jforest) 0.016
28 Japan Organics Recycling Association (JORA) 0.016
29 Nippon Steel Corporation (NSC) 0.016
30 Waseda University (Waseda) 0.016
31 Keidanren 0.016
32 Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies (ISEP) 0.016
33 Japan Small Wind Turbines Association (JSWTA) 0.016
34 Political Party Your Party (Your Party) 0.015
35 Softbank 0,015
36 Tokyo Electric Power Company, Incorporated (TEPCO) 0.015
37 Political Party Komei (New Komeito) 0.015
38 Japan Federation of Raw Material Production Cooperatives (ZENSOKYO) 0.015
39 Biogas Process Council (BioGas) 0.014
40 The Japan Iron and Steel Federation (JISF) 0.014
40 Japan Consumers’ Association (JCA) 0.014
42 Nippon Association of Consumer Specialists (NACS) 0.014
43 Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth (RITE) 0.013
44 Law Firm 0.013
45 Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) 0.012
46 Biomass Industrial Society Network (BIN) 0.012
47 Petroleum Association of Japan (PAJ) 0.011
48 The First Energy Service Co., Ltd. (FeSco) 0.011
49 Wind Power Developers’ Association (WPDA) 0.010
50 Soft Energy Project (SEP) 0.010
is no group that expresses resistance towards the Renewable Energy Act in general. The
new-energy-implementation group is not only composed of economic and industrial actors,
but also civic and educational associations.
123

Energy policy participation through networks transcending cleavage 1505
Fig. 3 Hyperlink network in Germany
The attitude-based network for Germany shows at first a high centrality of the new-
energy-implementation group, surrounded by the disinterested-observation group. Further-
more, mainly the members of the new-energy-implementation group express their opinions in
the committee proceedings (centrically). On the other hand, the hyperlink network produces
a somewhat different impression. The group with the highest centrality is the disinterested-
observation group, and the new-energy-implementation group stands on the periphery.
In fact, those two groups, the observer group and the new-energy-implementation group,
are connected with the political process regarding the German Renewable Energy Act. It
can be said the new-energy-implementation group has a central role that is limited to the
Renewable Energy Act. It cannot be said that they are hugely influential at all times, but
they repeat important statements in the proceedings regarding the Renewable Energy Act. In
general, the German Renewable Energy Act was formed through a cooperative network of
the disinterested-observation group and the new-energy-implementation group for which the
implementation of new energy is of mutual interest and concern. The formation of the new-
energy-implementation group in particular suggests possibilities for a triple-helix partnership
of industry, academia, and government.
The hyperlink network for Germany reveals a strong environmental actor network within
the political system. However, these actors are categorized mainly as observers. Their insti-
tutionalized existence in the political system and ability to penetrate and influence political
decision-making processes is an important factor for German environmental (renewable)
energy and nuclear policies.
Turning to Japan, as the LCA showed, the new-energy-implementation group with 49.3 %
is the largest in Japan, followed by the Renewable Energy Act-passivity group with 21.9 %, the
disinterested-observation group with 17.8%, and the energy-security-reinforcement group
with 11.0% (N =73). The Japanese committee proceedings are not only attended by those
within the new-energy-implementation group, but by committee members from prudent fac-
tions as well.
123

1506 M. Hartwig et al.
Tab l e 9 Hyperlink network PageRank in Germany
Organization PageRank
1 Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation,
Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB)
0.111
2 Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschlands (BUND) 0.069
3 Naturschutzbund Deutschland e.V. (NABU) 0.055
4 Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ) 0.042
5 Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband e.V. (vzbv) 0.042
6 Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI) 0.034
7 Germanwatch e.V. 0.034
8 Sachverständigenrat für Umweltfragen (SRU) 0.033
9 Deutsche Umwelthilfe e.V. (DUH) 0.030
10 SPD 0.027
11 WWF Deutschland 0.026
12 Deutsche Energieagentur (dena) 0.024
13 Bundesverband der Deutschen Energie- und Wasserwirtschaft e.V. (BDEW) 0.024
14 Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT) 0.023
15 Greenpeace Deutschland 0.021
16 Natur Freunde Deutschlands 0.020
17 BUND Bavaria 0.019
18 Bundesverband Erneuerbare Energie e.V. (BEE) 0.018
19 atmosfair 0.018
20 Vattenfall Europe 0.018
21 Bundesverband Wind Energie e.V. (BWE) 0.015
21 Ökopol Institut für Ökologie und Politik GmbH 0.015
23 Independent Institute for Environmental Issues (UfU) 0.015
24 Prognos 0.013
25 Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) 0.013
26 Verband kommunaler Unternehmen e.V. (VKU) 0.012
27 ENERTRAG AG 0.011
28 Juwi Holding AG 0.010
29 Fachverband Biogas e.V. 0.010
30 IG-Metall 0.010
31 RWE AG 0.008
32 Solarenergie—Förderverein Deutschland e.V. (SFV) 0.008
33 Biogasrat e.V. 0.007
34 Bundesverband BioEnergie e.V. (BBE) 0.007
35 Deutsche Unternehmensinitiative Energieeffizienz (DENEFF) 0.007
36 Solarpraxis 0.005
37 GRÜNE 0.005
38 Grundgrün Energie GmbH 0.005
38 Fraunhofer Institute für Solare Energiesysteme (ISE) 0.005
40 PHOTON 0.005
41 International Physicians For The Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) 0.005
42 Bundesverband der Deutschen Fluggesellschaften (BDF) 0.004
42 Kommunikation und Projektsteuerung GmbH (BZL) 0.004
42 Dusseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE) 0.004
42 Deutscher Industrie- und Handelskammertag (DIHK) 0.004
42 Institut der Deutschen Wirtschaft Köln (IDW) 0.004
42 Institut für Lebensmittel und Ressourcenökonomik (ILR) University 0.004
42 LB Bank Baden-Württemberg 0.004
42 Nuclear Safety Research Agency 0.004
All the other organizations are also 0.004 (rank 42)
123

Energy policy participation through networks transcending cleavage 1507
Fig. 4 Hyperlink network in Japan
Japan’s attitude-based networkreveals a high centrality by the new-energy-implementation
group and the Renewable Energy Act-passivity group in equal measures, while within the
hyperlink network, the renewable-energy-act-passive group’s centrality dominates. In fact,
the holding power of statements throughout the committee proceedings suggest that the
passivity group holds constant and strong political power.
If we look at the associations that comprise each group in particular, the relevant associa-
tions forming the Japanese renewable-energy-act-passive group are central ministries, as well
as economic and industrial associations such as METI, Keidanren, TEPCO, JEMA (The Japan
Electrical Manufacturers’ Association), the JCCI (The Japan Chamber of Commerce and
Industry), MHI, JPEA, JWPA and J-Power (Electric Power Development Co., Ltd.), think-
tanks such as AIST and JYURI, and civic associations. The new-energy-implementation
group also contains think-tanks and while each group contains many economic and indus-
trial associations, those within each group appear to hold contradictory opinions. In Japan as
well, these networked collaborations suggest potential formations of triple-helix collabora-
tions.
Within the political process surrounding the Japanese Renewable Energy Act, the central-
ity of the new-energy-implementation group and the renewable-energy-act-passive group is
high, and the opinions among those group networks differ. However, as it turns out, adversary
relationships within the economic and industrial associations appear to be getting stronger.
The proportion for Japan’s new-energy-implementation group is 49.0 %, which is 10 %
higher than the figure for Germany (39.1%). While the renewable-energy-act-passive group
for Japan has 21.9 %, this group does not appear at all in Germany. In fact, compared with Ger-
many where only the new-energy-implementation group and the disinterested-observation
group have significant proportions, in Japan, in addition to the new-energy-implementation
group, there appears to be a level of association with a cautious position regarding Renewable
Energy Act implementation.
123

1508 M. Hartwig et al.
Tab l e 1 0 Hyperlink network PageRank in Japan
Organization PageRank
1 Government METI (METI) 0.171
2 The Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan (FEPC) 0.051
3 Keidanren 0.042
4 Tokyo Electric Power Company, Incorporated (TEPCO) 0.040
5 The Japan Electrical Manufacturers’ Association (JEMA) 0.036
6 The Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI) 0.031
7 National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) 0.030
8 The Kansai Electric Power Co., Inc. (KEPCO) 0.027
9 Tohoku Electric Power Co.,Inc. (Tohoku) 0.025
10 The University of Tokyo (Utokyo) 0.025
10 Tokyo Metropolitan Government (Govt. Tokyo) 0.025
12 Japan Chemical Industry Association (JCIA) 0.023
13 IEE Japan (IEE) 0.022
14 The Japan Iron and Steel Federation (JISF) 0.022
15 JX Nippon Oil and Energy Corporation (JX) 0.020
16 Kyoto University (Ky¯odai) 0.019
17 Japan Photovoltaic Energy Association (JPEA) 0.018
18 Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth (RITE) 0.018
19 Tokyo Gas Co., Ltd. (Tokyo Gas) 0.017
20 Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) 0.017
21 Petroleum Association of Japan (PAJ) 0.015
22 Nippon Steel Corporation (NSC) 0.015
23 Mizuho-IR 0.015
24 Electric Power Development Co., Ltd. (J-POWER) 0.014
25 National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) 0.012
25 Japan Paper Association (JPA) 0.012
25 Nippon Association of Consumer Specialists (NACS) 0.012
28 Japan Wind Power Association (JWPA) 0.011
29 Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, Inc. (JAMA) 0.010
30 Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun Ltd. (BusinessLine) 0.009
31 Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) 0.009
32 Eurus Energy Holdings Corporation (Eurus Energy) 0.009
33 Political Party Komei (New Komeito) 0.007
34 Japan Foundry Society, Inc. (JFS) 0.007
35 Political Party LDP (LDP) 0.006
35 Toyo University (Toyo) 0.006
37 Political Party DPJ (DPJ) 0.006
38 National Federation of Forest Owners’ Co-operative Association (Jforest) 0.006
39 Japan Consumers’ Association (JCA) 0.006
40 Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies (ISEP) 0.006
41 PV Owner Network, Japan (PV-Net) 0.006
42 Biogas Process Council (BioGas) 0.005
43 The First Energy Service Co., Ltd. (FeSco) 0.005
44 Political Party JCP (Japanese Communist Party) 0.005
44 Your Party (Your Party) 0.005
44 The Sankei Shimbun (Sankei) 0.005
47 Softbank 0.005
48 Jukanky¯o Research Institute Inc. (JYURI) 0.005
49 Japan Organics Recycling Association (JORA) 0.005
49 Japan Wood Pellet Association (JPA) 0.005
Throughout the attitude-based networks, the differences for both countries in each group’s
alignment become less prominent. Compared to the high centrality of Japan’s new-energy-
implementation group and renewable-energy-act-passive group, Germany’s new-energy-
123

Energy policy participation through networks transcending cleavage 1509
implementation group has a high centrality as well. That means, regarding the given condition
to implement renewable energies within the German political process as mandated by the
Renewable Energy Act, the implementation group (formed from economic and industrial
associations as well as civic associations) stands in the center of the network. While on
the other hand, Japan’s implementation and observer group, formed out of economic and
industrial associations in which opinions differ, has a similar high centrality.
Taking a closer look at the relationships among actors, the main characteristic for Ger-
many’s attitude-based network is that except for education and science, there is no con-
tradictory group classification. This is particularly relevant when considering actors from
the society and politics group that generally approve of new energy. It is worth noting that
many energy-intense consumers from the economy and industry group approve of the imple-
mentation of renewable energy as well. In fact, while we discovered that the economy and
industry group actually approves of nuclear phase-out, while it may have been easy for them
to turn against it, we can infer that attitudes against this issue was mostly agreed upon in a
harmonious manner.
The attitude for each classification differs in Japan’s attitude-based network. For example,
while the DPJ and other parties approve of one issue, the LDP opposes it as shown by the
attitudes of the political parties. Especially worth noting is that economic and industrial
associations, which are the main renewable energy users, take a cautious position concerning
renewable energy. In general, in order to strongly demand secure energy prices and secure
distribution, they are against pulling away from nuclear energy, in which fluctuations in
energy amounts due to time and season do not occur. In general, without the appearance
of harmonious attitudes among political actors, we identified that the characteristics of the
largest consumers’ associations and economic and industrial associations show a complete
turn to the opposite.
As the LCA for Germany showed, none of the groups expressed resistance towards
the Renewable Energy Act in general. The new-energy-implementation group with 39.1 %
(N= 46) is not only composed of economic and industrial actors, but also civic and educa-
tional associations. However, in Japan, such civic and educational associations have been
traditionally weak and somewhat ineffective in advocating political positions (Tsujinaka
and Pekkanen 2007). As thus, the comparison of the political networks, exemplified by the
hyperlink and attitude-based networks between Germany and Japan, possibly highlights an
institutional or political process difference between the two countries. As Japan traditionally
appears to have a lack of social diversity, as characterized by many scholars, and democracy
benefits from diverse input by network diversity, our findings question the impact of the
influence of (Japan’s) homogenous social structure versus (Germany’s) heterogeneous social
structure on the informal and formal political networks formed in both countries (Ikeda and
Richey 2009).
5Conclusion
Germany’s FIT laws were the blueprint for Japan’s regulations. The Fukushima Dai’ichi
Nuclear Plant accident had a major impact on the legislation, and there were expectations
that the FIT system would play a role in promoting renewable energy as an alternative to
nuclear power. However, as briefly discussed, there are significant differences in the historical
background of energy policy in the two countries. Assessing whether FIT performs the same
in the two countries requires an investigation of this background and an analysis of actors’
intentions and preferences in each country.
123

1510 M. Hartwig et al.
Within this paper, we compared Germany and Japan by examining the energy actor net-
work with particular focus on the FIT system and extracting the actor attitudes regarding
energy development and described two types of networks: First, the attitude-based networks,
which we drew through a content analysis involving FIT and, second, the hyperlink networks
of those actors, involved in the political discussions about FIT. We found indications among
those networks regarding collaborations and cleavages between political actors in different
aspects. The comparison of those two networks clarifies whether a structural cleavage, shown
in the hyperlink networks, has influenced renewable energy policies as well as whether the
cleavage could be resolved. Doing so enabled to identify the following differences in energy
policy formulation in the two countries.
First, with regards to the network of actors involved in FIT, we discovered that in Germany,
economic and industrial associations, civic associations, and educational associations form a
cooperative network that later becomes a hub. As noted above, this formation suggests link-
ages not unlike triple-helix frameworks of industry, academia, and government relationships.
Determining the actors involved and showing their fundamental relationships in terms of a
triple-helix involving universities, industry actors, and various governmental levels is also an
approach taken by Phillips (2014) with regard to innovation and economic development. As
our findings suggest that Japan’s potential triple helix dynamic appears to differ from that of
Germany, its effect on the outcomes of renewable energy promotion policies is an area that
we will explore in future papers.
Compared to Germany, economic and industrial associations in Japan form a hub and
reveal a rather confrontational network. In general, Japan and Germany differ in terms of
three major areas. The first is the participant statements through the Renewable Energy Act’s
political process (pros and cons concerning new energy implementation). The second is the
types of associations formed associations based on these statements, wherein the focus is
on economic and industrial associations, as well as other associations. Finally, the types of
groups with high centrality (new- energy-implementation group or the “other” group) also
differ.
One key difference between Germany and Japan is the general acceptance of nuclear
phase-out in Germany through various actors, while this issue was not discussed in Japan at
all. However, even after the German government established the obligation to total nuclear
phase-out by 2022, the issue remains whether it is possible or advisable to withdraw from
nuclear energy completely by 2022, especially in terms of energy security. In particular,
Japanese economic and industrial associations demand secure energy supplies if they shift
from nuclear energy, while this tendency did not appear in the analysis of Germany. We
were able to confirm concretely the differences in attitudes with regards to the focus and
development nuclear power development among actors within the German and Japanese
environmental promotion networks. As a result, regardless of the FIT system and similar
policies, our results suggest that differences are embedded within the design the institutional
system that affect the level of adoption of natural energy and the challenges of development.
References
Bardt, H., Niehues, J., Techert, H.: Die Förderung erneuerbarer Energien in Deutschland. Wirkungen und Her-
ausforderungen des Erneuerbare Energien Gesetz EEG [The promotion of renewable energies in Germany.
Effects and challenges of the Renewable Energy Act] (in German), Cologne, IDW Köln (2012)
Bulkely, H.: Discourse coalitions and the Australian climate change policy network. Environ. Plan. C: Gov.
Policy. 18, 727–748 (2000)
Carlsson, L.: Policy networks as collective action. Policy Stud. J. 28(3), 502–520 (2000)
123

Energy policy participation through networks transcending cleavage 1511
Dowding, K.: Model or metaphor? A critical reviewof the policy network approach. Polit. Stud. 43(1), 136–158
(1995)
Federal Office of Economics and Export Control (BAFA).: Besondere Ausgleichsregelung [Special compensa-
tion scheme] (in German). http://www.bafa.de/bafa/de/energie/besondere_ausgleichsregelung_eeg/index.
html (2012). Accessed 8 March 2014
Fulton, M., Capalino, R.: The German feed-in tariff: recent policy changes. Deutsche Bank Group DB Climate
Change Advisors, Frankfurt, Germany (2012)
Gautam, P., Kodama, K., Enomoto, K.: Joint bibliometric analysis of patents and scholarly publications from
cross-disciplinary projects: implications for development of evaluative metrics. J. Contemp. East. Asia
13(1), 19–37 (2014)
Growitsch, C., Müsgens, F.: Die Liberalisierung des deutschen Strommarktes - ein Erfolgsmodell? [Liberal-
ization of German electricity market—model for success?] (in German). Wirtschaft im Wandel 12(2005),
383–387 (2005a)
Growitsch, C., Müsgens, F.: Privatkunden sind die Verlierer des freien Strommarktes [Private cus-
tomers are the losers in the free electricity market] (in German). http://www.tagesspiegel.de/
wirtschaft/15-jahre-liberalisierung-privatkunden-sind-die-verlierer-des- freien-strommarktes/7671640.
html (2005b). Accessed 8 March 2014
Hagenaars, J.A., McCutcheon, A.L.: Applied latent class analysis. Cambridge University Press, New York
(2002)
Honda, H.: Datsu genshi ryoku no undou to seiji: nihon no enerugii seisaku no tenkan [Anti-nuclear power
movement and politics: Japan’s energy policy shift] (in Japanese). Hokkaido University, Sapporo (2005)
Huenteler, J., Schmidt, T.S., Norichika, K.: Japan’s post-Fukushima challenge-implications from the German
experience on renewable energy policy. Energy Policy 45, 6–11 (2012)
Ikeda, K., Richey, S.: The impact of diversity in informal social networks on tolerance in Japan. Br. J. Polit.
Sci. 39, 655–668 (2009)
Jacobsson, S., Lauber, V.: The politics and policy of energy system transformation, explaining the German
diffusion of renewable energy technology. Energy Policy 34(3), 256–276 (2009)
Jiang, K.: International student flows between Asia, Australia, and Russia: a network analysis. J. Contemp.
East. Asia 13(1), 83–98 (2013)
Kim, J.H., Barnett, G.A., Park, H.W.: A hyperlink and issue network analysis of the United States Senate: a
rediscovery of the web as a relationship and topical medium. J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol. 61(8), 1598–1611
(2010)
Marsh, D., Rhodes, R.A.W.:Policy communities and issue networks. Beyond typology. In: Marsh, D., Rhodes,
R.A.W. (eds.) Policy networks in British government, pp. 249–268. Clarendon Press, Oxford (1992)
McCutcheon, A.L.: Latent class analysis. Sage, Newbury Park, CA (1987)
Murai, K.: Jimint¯oshinkanky¯o zoku no keisei to h¯okai: zoku giin no baraethi [Creation and collapse of the
LDP’s new environmental policy group: variations among member politicians] (in Japanese). Kokusai seiji
keizai kenky¯u [Int. Polit. Econ. Res.] 7, 133–156 (2001)
Park, H.W.: Hyperlink network analysis: a new method for the study of social structure on the web. Connections
25(1), 49–62 (2003)
Park, H.W.: How do social scientists use link data from search engines to understand Internet-based political
and electoral communication? Qual. Quant. 46, 679–693 (2012)
Park, H.W., Thelwall, M.: Hyperlink analyses of the World Wide Web: a review. J. Comput. Med. Commun.
8(4) (2003)
Park, H.W., Thelwall, M.: Link analysis: Hyperlink patterns and social structure on politicians’ Web sites in
South Korea. Qual. Quant. 42, 687–697 (2008)
Park, H.W., Barnett, G.A., Nam, I.Y.: Interorganizational hyperlink networks among websites in South Korea.
Netw. Commun. Stud. 16(3–4), 155–174 (2002)
Phillips, F.: Triple helix and the circle of innovation. J. Contemp. East. Asia 13(1), 57–68 (2014)
Rhodes, R.A.W.: Policy network analysis. In: Goodin, R.E. (ed.) The Oxford handbook of public policy, pp.
425–447. Oxford University Press, Oxford (2006)
Sabatier, P.A.: An advocacy coalition framework of policy change and the role of policy-oriented learning
therein. Policy Sci. 21(Fall), 129–168 (1988)
Schreurs, M.A.: Environmental politics in Japan, Germany, and the United States. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge (2002)
Shumate, M., Lipp, J.: Connective collective action online: an examination of the hyperlink network structure
of an NGO issue network. J. Comput. Med. Commun. 14(1), 178–201 (2008)
Tsujinaka, Y.: Gendai nihon no rieki dantai to seisaku nettowaku - chikyu kankyo seisaku ni kansuru hoko
tsuki no nettowaku [Interest Associations and Policy Networks in Contemporary Japan - Directed Network
of Global Environmental Policy ] (in Japanese). Senkyo. 52(8), 13–25 (1999)
123

1512 M. Hartwig et al.
Tsujinaka, Y., Pekkanen, R.: Civil society and interest groups in contemporary Japan. Pac. Aff. 80(3), 419–437
(2007)
Yoshioka, H.: Shinpan genshiryoku no shakaishi: sono nihon teki tenkai [A social history of nuclear power:
Japan’s evolution (New edition)]. Asahi Shimbun Shuppan, Tokyo (2011)
123