A very public mess: Problematizing the “participative turn” in energy policy in Chile

Nowadays, a growing number of initiatives are being enacted to increase direct public participation on energy policymaking, a move that is seen as almost automatically granting more effectiveness and social acceptance to energy policy. Seeking to establish a counterpoint to such enthusiasm, this paper argues that there is nothing simple and automatically rewarding in the practical enactment of such “participative turn” in energy policy. As the current critical literature on the challenges of enacting public engagement shows, public participation is beset with all kind of risks and uncertainties, usually producing results that are quite different from the ones expected. In order to ground this point, this paper analyzes the case of a participative policy carried out by the Ministry of Energy in Chile. The rather messy results of such initiative will be used to show how the proper materialization of the “participative turn” in energy policy needs policymakers to radically change their notions about what public participation is, who are the ones participating, and what could be expected from them.