PhD Title: “Energy Transition in Germany. Explaining the development, determinants and trade-offs in the power sector”
Dr. Christina Köhler-Tschirschnitz was a PhD Candidate at Trier University. She studied Political Science and Sociology in Würzburg and Heidelberg with a focus on Policy Analysis in the areas of climate, sustainability and energy policies. In 2015, she obtained her M.A. in Political Science from Heidelberg University. Since January 2017 she has been receiving a PhD scholarship from the Reiner Lemoine Stiftung.
In her dissertation, Dr. Christina Köhler-Tschirschnitz analyzed the development and governance of the energy transition in Germany since the drastic changes of 2011. For the success of the energy transition in the power sector, continuous and coherent progress in the key areas of renewable energies, coal energy and grid expansion is crucial. However, the development of energy transition policy since 2011 has revealed significant differences between different policy-areas, which raise the question of the causes of these divergent policy developments and the differences regarding the capacity for reform. Against this background, the dissertation aims to analyse the development, the impacts and determinants of Germany’s energy transition policy in the power sector. It also identifies success factors and problems resulting from the specific governance that influence the implementation of the energy transformation. The findings of the dissertation project can contribute to a better understanding of the consequences of the policy-making and conditions for success of the transformation process.
The PhD project investigated the following research questions: How can the German energy transition policy after the nuclear phase-out in 2011 be explained? Which determinants promote or hinder the energy transition? In order to explain the energy transition policy the theoretical approaches of comparative public policy research are employed, which are extended by introducing sociocultural factors and integrated in a complementary way in a theoretical analytical framework.