Seminar series The shape of democracy Jurisdiction boundaries and the siting of renewable energy infrastructure Add to calendar 2025-12-11 17:00 2025-12-11 18:30 Europe/Rome The shape of democracy Seminar Room 2 Badia Fiesolana YYYY-MM-DD Print Share: Share on Facebook Share on BlueSky Share on X Share on LinkedIn Send by email Scheduled dates Dec 11 2025 17:00 - 18:30 CET Seminar Room 2, Badia Fiesolana Organised by Department of Political and Social Sciences In the context of the Comparative Politics Seminar Series, this session features a presentation by Asya Magazinnik, a Professor of Social Data Science at Hertie School. Political science has long studied how the size and shape of jurisdictions influence representation and governance, but much less is known about their effects on policy outcomes. This paper addresses that gap by examining how local jurisdictional structure shapes the siting of wind turbines—a critical challenge for the green energy transition. We develop a theoretical model which predicts how the division of voters into local jurisdictions influence the siting of wind turbines (or which predicts how the geographical distribution of voters within local jurisdictions influence the siting of wind turbines). Using data on all Danish wind turbines built between 2007 and 2021, and exploiting Denmark’s 2007 municipal reform, which changed local boundaries while leaving the landscape unchanged, we show that shifts in local electorates strongly affect turbine siting. These results highlight how the political geography of local governments shapes renewable energy deployment, raising concerns about equity, efficiency, and democratic legitimacy in decentralised climate policy. Related events