“Fracking democracy”: Issue management and locus of policy decision-making in the Marcellus Shale gas drilling debate

•Two year study of hydraulic fracturing debate in the Marcellus Shale region.•Focused on how advocates on both sides legitimized government decision makers.•Both sides sought to legitimize state-level legislators and regulators.•Activists favored federal-level intervention as legitimate; the energy industry did not.•Energy industry sought to limit local governments’ ability to ban new wells.

This study examined a two-year period in which natural gas development in the Marcellus Shale region of Pennsylvania expanded rapidly, as did public policy proposals meant to deal with the myriad legal, economic, and environmental issues that accompanied this growth. Focusing on the use of legitimacy strategies during the critical phase of the issue of hydraulic fracturing, the study examined how activists and energy industry advocates argued that different levels of government policy making – local, state, and federal – should be the locus of policy decisions. Both the “fractivists” and the energy industry sought to legitimize state-level legislators and regulators. Activists viewed federal-level intervention as legitimate leverage for their work in the state, while the energy industry saw federal regulators as redundant and restrictive. Finally, while both sides viewed local authorities as legitimate actors, the energy industry sought to limit their ability to act against the development of new wells.