Markku Lehtonen
Biographic Data
| ID | 239680 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Markku Lehtonen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Markku |
| FAMILY NAME | Lehtonen |
| SIGNATURE | LEHTONEN M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Sussex |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2509-1554 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 30 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 80 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) in Latin America: Topics, problems, and challenges
Amid a global push to reduce carbon emissions and transform energy systems, small modular reactors (SMRs) are being promoted as multifunctional, cheaper, safer, and more flexible than large reactors. They are also less risky for investors, more compatible with decentralized networks, and complementary to renewable energies. In Latin America, however, SMRs development is in its infancy and faces structural obstacles. This article reviews 22 public…
Transdisciplinarity From Principles to Practice: Insights From EU Horizon Research Projects on Sustainability
Transdisciplinary research (TD) is widely invoked to tackle complex sustainable‐development challenges by integrating scientific and societal knowledge and fostering collaboration among researchers, decision‐makers, practitioners and affected publics. Yet we still lack a refined understanding of the conditions that enable TD to succeed in EU research settings. We address this gap by analysing in‐depth, semi‐structured interviews with Horizon proj…
Collective sustainability competences of universities as a nested institutional space
Sustainability action at universities is complex and requires engaging multiple competences that reside on different levels outside and inside the organisation. In addition to individual competences, social communities also possess collective resources and characteristics that do not translate into a sum of individual abilities. Based on a qualitative small‐n comparative study of four universities in Spain, Portugal, Finland and Romania, this pap…
Optimism and pessimism in nuclear technology promises: The legacies of three European EPR projects
Les mégaprojets dans une série de secteurs, y compris l’énergie nucléaire, souffrent souvent de « pathologies » telles que des retards quasi chroniques, des dépassements de budget et l’incapacité à tenir leurs promesses. S’appuyant sur le concept de promesse technoscientifique et sur la controverse entre les spécialistes des mégaprojets concernant le principe dit de la main cachée, cet article remet en question la notion quelque peu simpliste de …
The Hiding Hand controversy as an analytical approach in the study of urban megaevents
Despite growing public opposition, megaevents such as the Summer Olympics continue to proliferate both in the Global North and South, thus reshaping the built environment of cities and the living conditions of their inhabitants. This paper presents a novel analytical tool that expands the perspectives from which to explore urban megaevents. Building on the controversy among megaproject scholars around Albert Hirschman's Hiding Hand principle, we …
Social sciences and nuclear energy practitioners: Exploring Spanish perceptions and expectations of interdisciplinary work in a transdisciplinary world
The challenges of energy transitions, as reflected in current energy-sector research agendas, call for greater multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinarity, with particular emphasis on greater contribution from the social sciences. While recommendations abound on how to strengthen the role of the social sciences in energy-sector research, there is little empirical evidence on how the attitudes of energy-sector professionals might facilitate or constra…
Introduction to the special issue “Trust, mistrust, distrust, and trust-building in the nuclear sector: Historical and comparative experience from Europe”
Trust is essential for successful participatory policymaking in high-risk industries, such as nuclear energy and radioactive waste management. However, while efforts at building trust are omnipresent in policy practice, the downsides of excessive trust and the potential virtues of mistrust and distrust are poorly recognised by practitioners, and remain under-researched in social science scholarship. This special issue contributes to filling the r…
Brand New or More of the Same Nuclear? (De)Constructing the Economic Promise of the European Pressurised Reactor in France and the UK
Technological innovation needs construction of promises and expectations to mobilise resources and supportive networks, yet exaggerated promises risk leading to disappointment and undermining this very support. Drawing on an analysis of secondary literature and press articles, the concepts of hype cycle and Regimes of Economics of Techno-scientific Promises (ETP) are applied to examine the construction of the largely failed promise of the Europea…
The Art of Being Ethical and Responsible: Print Media Debate on Final Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel in Finland and Sweden
After decades of preparation, the final disposal of spent nuclear fuel has reached the construction stage in Finland, and the neighboring Sweden is likely to soon follow in the footsteps. These Nordic countries rely on a similar technical concept based on passive safety, advocated as a means of minimizing the burden to future generations. The scholarly literature on the ethics of nuclear waste management has thus far paid little attention to the …
Healthy mistrust or complacent confidence? Civic vigilance in the reporting by leading newspapers on nuclear waste disposal in Finland and France
Trust and confidence have been identified as crucial for efforts at solving the conundrum of high‐level radioactive waste management (RWM). However, mistrust has its virtues, especially in the form of “civic vigilance”—healthy suspicion towards the powers that be. This article examines civic vigilance in the form of “watchdog journalism,” as practiced by the leading Finnish and French newspapers—Helsingin Sanomat (HS) and Le Monde (LM)—in their R…
The emergence of mistrustful civic vigilance in Finnish, French, German and Spanish nuclear policies: Ideological trust and (de)politicization
High levels of public trust in institutions and generalised interpersonal trust in “the unknown other” are generally seen to facilitate decision-making on nuclear energy and waste. However, earlier research has highlighted the potential virtues of mistrustful “civic vigilance” and politicisation as means of enhancing the robustness of policy decisions. Drawing on expert and stakeholder interviews as well as secondary material, this article examin…
Trust, mistrust and distrust as blind spots of Social Licence to Operate: Illustration via three forerunner countries in nuclear waste management
The notion of social licence to operate (SLO) has become a widely applied concept for companies in mining and resource extraction industries to manage their social and community relations, in the face of local criticism and opposition. SLO literature and practice have highlighted earning the trust of the local community as a key requirement for an SLO. This article addresses three weaknesses in how the current SLO literature addresses trust. The …
Ecological Economics and Opening up of Megaproject Appraisal: Lessons From Megaproject Scholarship and Topics for a Research Programme
The critical Swedes and the consensual Finns: Leading newspapers as watchdogs or lapdogs of nuclear waste repository licensing
The roles of the state and social licence to operate? Lessons from nuclear waste management in Finland, France, and Sweden
The concept of social licence to operate (SLO) is an increasingly popular tool for companies to manage their relations with the local communities. SLO is very seldom used in the nuclear sector, which has nevertheless applied similar approaches, under notions such as partnership and participatory governance. This article explores the specific challenges that the application of SLO faces in the nuclear waste management (NWM) sector, by applying an …
Community energy and the virtues of mistrust and distrust: Lessons from Brighton and Hove energy cooperatives
Socioeconomic Evaluation of Megaprojects: Dealing with uncertainties
This chapter proposes investigating the efforts of current institutions to answer a simple, modest, and low-profile question: Does the project fit within the budget? It traces how this simple question is answered when it comes to the governance of a peculiar material: nuclear waste. It proposes approaching financial evaluations that are conducted within the context of the North-American nuclear waste programme as spaces in which the political and…
The multiple roles of sustainability indicators in informational governance: Between intended use and unanticipated influence
Inovação responsável através de fronteiras: Tensões, Paradoxos E Possibilidades
Este artigo explora as tensões, paradoxos e possibilidades da inovação responsável em contextos transnacionais. Argumenta-se que a inovação responsável, embora apresente um potencial transformador, enfrenta desafios significativos quando aplicada em diferentes culturas e sistemas de governança. O artigo destaca a importância de considerar as especificidades locais e a necessidade de abordagens flexíveis e adaptativas para promover a inovação resp…
Responsible innovation across borders: Tensions, paradoxes and possibilities
In March 2014 a group of early career researchers and academics from São Paulo state and from the UK met at the University of Campinas to participate in a workshop on ‘Responsible Innovation and the Governance of Socially Controversial Technologies’. In this Perspective we describe key reflections and observations from the workshop discussions, paying particular attention to the discourse of responsible innovation from a cross-cultural perspectiv…
Can Indicators Bridge the Gap between Science and Policy? An Exploration into the (Non)Use and (Non)Influence of Indicators in EU and UK Policy Making
This article examines the various roles that indicators, as boundary objects, can play as a science-based evidence for policy processes. It presents two case studies from the EU-funded POINT project that analyzed the use and influence of two highly different types of indicators: composite indicators of sustainable development at the EU level and energy indicators in the UK. In both cases indicators failed as direct input to policy making, yet the…
Evaluating megaprojects: From the ‘iron triangle’ to network mapping
Evaluation literature has paid relatively little attention to the specific needs of evaluating large, complex industrial and infrastructure projects, often called ‘megaprojects’. The abundant megaproject governance literature, in turn, has largely focused on the so-called ‘megaproject pathologies’, i.e. the chronic budget overruns, and failure of such projects to keep to timetables and deliver the expected social and economic benefits. This artic…
Transformation, innovation and adaptation for sustainability. Integrating natural and social sciences »: Compte rendu de conférence (Ljubljana, Slovénie, 29 juin-2 juillet 2009)
L’European Society for Ecological Economics (ESEE)1 avait choisi, pour la premiere fois depuis sa creation en 1996, d’organiser sa 8e conference internationale dans un Etat d’Europe centrale et orientale. Plus de 250 participants venus de 33 pays differents ont participe a cette rencontre qui s’est deroulee a la Faculte de biotechnologie de l’Universite de Ljubljana2. Le choix – notable – du pays d’accueil, ainsi que le nombre croissant de partic…
OECD organisational discourse, peer reviews and sustainable development: An ecological-institutionalist perspective
Mainstreaming sustainable development in the OECD through indicators and peer reviews
The OECD sustainable development indicators are being used in the various OECD peer reviews so as to ‘mainstream’ sustainable development. This article examines the ways in which the sustainable development indicators in the OECD economic surveys and environmental performance reviews (EPRs) have been used, and the types of learning they have engendered in the reviewed countries. Largely because of the deficiencies in the process of designing the …
The multiple roles of sustainability indicators in informational governance: Between intended use and unanticipated influence
Community energy and the virtues of mistrust and distrust: Lessons from Brighton and Hove energy cooperatives
Trust, mistrust and distrust as blind spots of Social Licence to Operate: Illustration via three forerunner countries in nuclear waste management
The notion of social licence to operate (SLO) has become a widely applied concept for companies in mining and resource extraction industries to manage their social and community relations, in the face of local criticism and opposition. SLO literature and practice have highlighted earning the trust of the local community as a key requirement for an SLO. This article addresses three weaknesses in how the current SLO literature addresses trust. The …
The roles of the state and social licence to operate? Lessons from nuclear waste management in Finland, France, and Sweden
The concept of social licence to operate (SLO) is an increasingly popular tool for companies to manage their relations with the local communities. SLO is very seldom used in the nuclear sector, which has nevertheless applied similar approaches, under notions such as partnership and participatory governance. This article explores the specific challenges that the application of SLO faces in the nuclear waste management (NWM) sector, by applying an …
Evaluating megaprojects: From the ‘iron triangle’ to network mapping
Evaluation literature has paid relatively little attention to the specific needs of evaluating large, complex industrial and infrastructure projects, often called ‘megaprojects’. The abundant megaproject governance literature, in turn, has largely focused on the so-called ‘megaproject pathologies’, i.e. the chronic budget overruns, and failure of such projects to keep to timetables and deliver the expected social and economic benefits. This artic…
OECD Environmental Performance Review Programme: Accountability (f)or Learning
The growing interest in evaluation as a new form of environmental governance stems from two developments: the movement towards New Public Management, and the search for new policy instruments for managing complexity, uncertainty and plurality of values in the pursuit of sustainable development. The former holds increasing accountability as the main purpose of evaluation, while the latter stresses the importance of learning. These approaches are o…
Environmental policy integration through OECD peer reviews: Integrating the Economy with the environment or the environment with the Economy
Impacts of OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) environmental and economic country reviews are compared in light of their capacity to enhance environmental policy integration (EPI). Employing a policy-making network perspective, genuine EPI is presumed to require complex learning –'paradigmatic change'. Impacts of reviews on four functions of EPI – agenda-setting, horizontal communication, capacity-building, and policy-le…
The emergence of mistrustful civic vigilance in Finnish, French, German and Spanish nuclear policies: Ideological trust and (de)politicization
High levels of public trust in institutions and generalised interpersonal trust in “the unknown other” are generally seen to facilitate decision-making on nuclear energy and waste. However, earlier research has highlighted the potential virtues of mistrustful “civic vigilance” and politicisation as means of enhancing the robustness of policy decisions. Drawing on expert and stakeholder interviews as well as secondary material, this article examin…
The critical Swedes and the consensual Finns: Leading newspapers as watchdogs or lapdogs of nuclear waste repository licensing
Deliberative Democracy, Participation, and OECD Peer Reviews of Environmental Policies
Deliberative democracy has attracted increasing attention in political science and has been suggested as a normative ideal for evaluation. This article analyzes to what extent evaluations carried out in a highly government-driven manner can nevertheless contribute to deliberative democracy. This potential is examined by taking the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s environmental performance reviews as an example of an expert…
Introduction to the special issue “Trust, mistrust, distrust, and trust-building in the nuclear sector: Historical and comparative experience from Europe”
Trust is essential for successful participatory policymaking in high-risk industries, such as nuclear energy and radioactive waste management. However, while efforts at building trust are omnipresent in policy practice, the downsides of excessive trust and the potential virtues of mistrust and distrust are poorly recognised by practitioners, and remain under-researched in social science scholarship. This special issue contributes to filling the r…
Mainstreaming sustainable development in the OECD through indicators and peer reviews
The OECD sustainable development indicators are being used in the various OECD peer reviews so as to ‘mainstream’ sustainable development. This article examines the ways in which the sustainable development indicators in the OECD economic surveys and environmental performance reviews (EPRs) have been used, and the types of learning they have engendered in the reviewed countries. Largely because of the deficiencies in the process of designing the …
Social sciences and nuclear energy practitioners: Exploring Spanish perceptions and expectations of interdisciplinary work in a transdisciplinary world
The challenges of energy transitions, as reflected in current energy-sector research agendas, call for greater multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinarity, with particular emphasis on greater contribution from the social sciences. While recommendations abound on how to strengthen the role of the social sciences in energy-sector research, there is little empirical evidence on how the attitudes of energy-sector professionals might facilitate or constra…
The environmental?social interface of sustainable development: Capabilities, social capital, institutions
The environmental–social interface of sustainable development: Capabilities, social capital, institutions
OECD Environmental Performance Review Programme: Accountability (f)or Learning
The growing interest in evaluation as a new form of environmental governance stems from two developments: the movement towards New Public Management, and the search for new policy instruments for managing complexity, uncertainty and plurality of values in the pursuit of sustainable development. The former holds increasing accountability as the main purpose of evaluation, while the latter stresses the importance of learning. These approaches are o…
Deliberative Democracy, Participation, and OECD Peer Reviews of Environmental Policies
Deliberative democracy has attracted increasing attention in political science and has been suggested as a normative ideal for evaluation. This article analyzes to what extent evaluations carried out in a highly government-driven manner can nevertheless contribute to deliberative democracy. This potential is examined by taking the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s environmental performance reviews as an example of an expert…
Environmental policy integration through OECD peer reviews: Integrating the Economy with the environment or the environment with the Economy
Impacts of OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) environmental and economic country reviews are compared in light of their capacity to enhance environmental policy integration (EPI). Employing a policy-making network perspective, genuine EPI is presumed to require complex learning –'paradigmatic change'. Impacts of reviews on four functions of EPI – agenda-setting, horizontal communication, capacity-building, and policy-le…
Mainstreaming sustainable development in the OECD through indicators and peer reviews
The OECD sustainable development indicators are being used in the various OECD peer reviews so as to ‘mainstream’ sustainable development. This article examines the ways in which the sustainable development indicators in the OECD economic surveys and environmental performance reviews (EPRs) have been used, and the types of learning they have engendered in the reviewed countries. Largely because of the deficiencies in the process of designing the …
OECD organisational discourse, peer reviews and sustainable development: An ecological-institutionalist perspective
Transformation, innovation and adaptation for sustainability. Integrating natural and social sciences »: Compte rendu de conférence (Ljubljana, Slovénie, 29 juin-2 juillet 2009)
L’European Society for Ecological Economics (ESEE)1 avait choisi, pour la premiere fois depuis sa creation en 1996, d’organiser sa 8e conference internationale dans un Etat d’Europe centrale et orientale. Plus de 250 participants venus de 33 pays differents ont participe a cette rencontre qui s’est deroulee a la Faculte de biotechnologie de l’Universite de Ljubljana2. Le choix – notable – du pays d’accueil, ainsi que le nombre croissant de partic…
Responsible innovation across borders: Tensions, paradoxes and possibilities
In March 2014 a group of early career researchers and academics from São Paulo state and from the UK met at the University of Campinas to participate in a workshop on ‘Responsible Innovation and the Governance of Socially Controversial Technologies’. In this Perspective we describe key reflections and observations from the workshop discussions, paying particular attention to the discourse of responsible innovation from a cross-cultural perspectiv…
Can Indicators Bridge the Gap between Science and Policy? An Exploration into the (Non)Use and (Non)Influence of Indicators in EU and UK Policy Making
This article examines the various roles that indicators, as boundary objects, can play as a science-based evidence for policy processes. It presents two case studies from the EU-funded POINT project that analyzed the use and influence of two highly different types of indicators: composite indicators of sustainable development at the EU level and energy indicators in the UK. In both cases indicators failed as direct input to policy making, yet the…
Evaluating megaprojects: From the ‘iron triangle’ to network mapping
Evaluation literature has paid relatively little attention to the specific needs of evaluating large, complex industrial and infrastructure projects, often called ‘megaprojects’. The abundant megaproject governance literature, in turn, has largely focused on the so-called ‘megaproject pathologies’, i.e. the chronic budget overruns, and failure of such projects to keep to timetables and deliver the expected social and economic benefits. This artic…
The multiple roles of sustainability indicators in informational governance: Between intended use and unanticipated influence
Inovação responsável através de fronteiras: Tensões, Paradoxos E Possibilidades
Este artigo explora as tensões, paradoxos e possibilidades da inovação responsável em contextos transnacionais. Argumenta-se que a inovação responsável, embora apresente um potencial transformador, enfrenta desafios significativos quando aplicada em diferentes culturas e sistemas de governança. O artigo destaca a importância de considerar as especificidades locais e a necessidade de abordagens flexíveis e adaptativas para promover a inovação resp…
Socioeconomic Evaluation of Megaprojects: Dealing with uncertainties
This chapter proposes investigating the efforts of current institutions to answer a simple, modest, and low-profile question: Does the project fit within the budget? It traces how this simple question is answered when it comes to the governance of a peculiar material: nuclear waste. It proposes approaching financial evaluations that are conducted within the context of the North-American nuclear waste programme as spaces in which the political and…
Ecological Economics and Opening up of Megaproject Appraisal: Lessons From Megaproject Scholarship and Topics for a Research Programme
The critical Swedes and the consensual Finns: Leading newspapers as watchdogs or lapdogs of nuclear waste repository licensing
The roles of the state and social licence to operate? Lessons from nuclear waste management in Finland, France, and Sweden
The concept of social licence to operate (SLO) is an increasingly popular tool for companies to manage their relations with the local communities. SLO is very seldom used in the nuclear sector, which has nevertheless applied similar approaches, under notions such as partnership and participatory governance. This article explores the specific challenges that the application of SLO faces in the nuclear waste management (NWM) sector, by applying an …
Community energy and the virtues of mistrust and distrust: Lessons from Brighton and Hove energy cooperatives
Healthy mistrust or complacent confidence? Civic vigilance in the reporting by leading newspapers on nuclear waste disposal in Finland and France
Trust and confidence have been identified as crucial for efforts at solving the conundrum of high‐level radioactive waste management (RWM). However, mistrust has its virtues, especially in the form of “civic vigilance”—healthy suspicion towards the powers that be. This article examines civic vigilance in the form of “watchdog journalism,” as practiced by the leading Finnish and French newspapers—Helsingin Sanomat (HS) and Le Monde (LM)—in their R…
The emergence of mistrustful civic vigilance in Finnish, French, German and Spanish nuclear policies: Ideological trust and (de)politicization
High levels of public trust in institutions and generalised interpersonal trust in “the unknown other” are generally seen to facilitate decision-making on nuclear energy and waste. However, earlier research has highlighted the potential virtues of mistrustful “civic vigilance” and politicisation as means of enhancing the robustness of policy decisions. Drawing on expert and stakeholder interviews as well as secondary material, this article examin…
Trust, mistrust and distrust as blind spots of Social Licence to Operate: Illustration via three forerunner countries in nuclear waste management
The notion of social licence to operate (SLO) has become a widely applied concept for companies in mining and resource extraction industries to manage their social and community relations, in the face of local criticism and opposition. SLO literature and practice have highlighted earning the trust of the local community as a key requirement for an SLO. This article addresses three weaknesses in how the current SLO literature addresses trust. The …
Introduction to the special issue “Trust, mistrust, distrust, and trust-building in the nuclear sector: Historical and comparative experience from Europe”
Trust is essential for successful participatory policymaking in high-risk industries, such as nuclear energy and radioactive waste management. However, while efforts at building trust are omnipresent in policy practice, the downsides of excessive trust and the potential virtues of mistrust and distrust are poorly recognised by practitioners, and remain under-researched in social science scholarship. This special issue contributes to filling the r…
Brand New or More of the Same Nuclear? (De)Constructing the Economic Promise of the European Pressurised Reactor in France and the UK
Technological innovation needs construction of promises and expectations to mobilise resources and supportive networks, yet exaggerated promises risk leading to disappointment and undermining this very support. Drawing on an analysis of secondary literature and press articles, the concepts of hype cycle and Regimes of Economics of Techno-scientific Promises (ETP) are applied to examine the construction of the largely failed promise of the Europea…
The Art of Being Ethical and Responsible: Print Media Debate on Final Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel in Finland and Sweden
After decades of preparation, the final disposal of spent nuclear fuel has reached the construction stage in Finland, and the neighboring Sweden is likely to soon follow in the footsteps. These Nordic countries rely on a similar technical concept based on passive safety, advocated as a means of minimizing the burden to future generations. The scholarly literature on the ethics of nuclear waste management has thus far paid little attention to the …
Social sciences and nuclear energy practitioners: Exploring Spanish perceptions and expectations of interdisciplinary work in a transdisciplinary world
The challenges of energy transitions, as reflected in current energy-sector research agendas, call for greater multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinarity, with particular emphasis on greater contribution from the social sciences. While recommendations abound on how to strengthen the role of the social sciences in energy-sector research, there is little empirical evidence on how the attitudes of energy-sector professionals might facilitate or constra…
Political science (26 works) · Sociology (20 works) · Economics (13 works) · Law (11 works) · Business (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Public relations (9 works) · Sustainable development (9 works) · Geography (8 works) · Risk Perception and Management (8 works)