Legitimacy is key for new technologies
A recent study on biogas in Germany shows that technologies might be confronted with legitimacy problems even in later stages of development, after they have matured and expanded successfully.
The paper by Jochen Markard, Steffen Wirth and Bernhard Truffer explores, why biogas technology in Germany lost legitimacy, and finally also political support. Drawing on insights from institutional theory and technological innovation systems, the paper introduces a framework for studying legitimacy at the technology level. Loss of technology legitimacy in the case of biogas is explained by conflicting 'institutional demands' in two context sectors, agriculture and energy. The findings are based on the analysis of qualitative and quantitative data on the German biogas industry from 1990 to 2012.
The paper can be found Download here