Normative expectations of government as a policy actor: the case of UK steel industry decarbonisation

Abstract

The literature on technological expectations finds these to be performative: mobilising, coordinating and directing investment and decision-making. Expectations can involve conditionality and be normative, empirical or realist; that is, they may concern what should happen or what is considered likely. Expectations may also be of a form involving conditionality. Here we examine the interrelated role of normative, empirical and conditional expectations, their function in managing expectations relating to techno-science policy, and their implications for how stakeholders state that they perceive their agency and locus of control. Looking at UK steel industry decarbonisation, we show how stakeholders direct both their normative expectations and direct their locus of control towards the Government, as a form of strategic positioning. Commercial actors state the policy responses that they expect of the UK government mostly relate to reducing costs. We comment on actors’ arguably strategic appeals to normative expectations that displace responsibility from themselves, and the Government's potential role in terms of intervention.