The German government presented the decision to phase out nuclear energy as a nationally accepted rebalancing of inequality in the energy sector. We expose how this radical change was delivered through a myriad of change agents, most notably through the rise of small energy companies. Critical junctures, in this case the Chernobyl disaster rather than Fukushima, offer moments in time when national policy systems are destabilized. They provide opportunities for changing policy in a perceived pro-energy justice direction if a new consensus can be forged. The paper concludes with a discussion on how energy scholars must engage more with policy analysis frameworks if long-term effective solutions are to be found to persistent energy inequalities.

Simple indicative factors such as political populism and resource abundance cannot fully explain the Scottish Government's anti-nuclear energy policy. To grasp the current policy stance, it is necessary to pay attention to the wider contextualisation of policy framing and specifically the dynamic of story-telling and frame-bridging that ultimately feeds into governmental policy. The Scottish Government's decisive NO to a new nuclear fleet can be better understood by considering the underlying (and deliberate) bridging of policy frames that is noticeable between environmental, pacifist, and Scottish independence actors. This bridging not only affects the individual sets of story-telling but also develops a dynamic that reinforces individual stories and transcends well beyond the groups' original remit and objectives. With the help of policy framing analysis, research interviews and documentary analysis, the article explores the dynamic connections between anti-nuclear and independence activists and their causes in Scotland. The article highlights their triangular bridges in terms of personnel, language and story-telling and argues that these are instrumental in shaping the Scottish Government's anti-nuclear energy policy.

Whilst Scottish environmental policies feature many characteristics typical for modern systems of governance, addressing similar environmental challenges and wicked problems of the twenty-first century, many environmental policy responses in Scotland are nevertheless distinctly contextual and often driven by the ongoing constitutional debate whilst also being ambitious, if not pioneering. This is not to say that Scotland leads in environmental politics on all fronts; where coalition networks and other factors may not promise the desired results, Scottish decision makers shy away from a determined green approach. This chapter therefore argues that in order to understand green politics in Scotland as a whole we need to study environmental policies carefully and individually and take into consideration a number of factors (or parameters) such as resource availability and, more importantly, the strategic consideration of whether or not a co-framing between green ambitions and national identity can be achieved successfully.

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