Why Energy Projects Survive or Fail: Modeling the Causal Link Between Community Trust and Infrastructure Durability

This paper develops a conceptual framework for community engagement and infrastructure durability that treats engineering innovation and socio-technical analysis as a single integrated design problem rather than as separate concerns addressed in sequence. The framework is motivated by a persistent pattern in which technically sound interventions falter in the field because the social and institutional conditions that govern their durability are neither measured nor designed for. In response, this paper articulates a model in which social variables, centrally the distinction between genuine power-sharing and performative consultation as a predictor of technical performance, are rendered explicit and brought into the design problem on the same footing as technical parameters. The contribution is conceptual: this paper sets out the foundations of the framework, specifies its components and the relationships among them, illustrates its reasoning, and derives design and policy implications, with the aim of supporting energy systems that are simultaneously technically efficient, economically accessible, socially responsive, and adaptable to developing and resource-dependent regions.