This chapter offers a comparative assessment of the shale gas policy regimes in Poland, Bulgaria and Romania and argues that the three cases exhibit important differences regarding the power arrangement, the organizational arrangement and the policy paradigm. While Poland is characterized by a strong policy regime, the latter is weak in Bulgaria and Romania. In addition to confirming the importance of policy regimes for explaining policy divergence, the chapter suggests that this allows drawing three key conclusions on the social license underpinning shale gas policy. First, the social license in unconventional gas is multi-level, comprising the local level (where the impact of exploring for unconventional gas is most tangible) but also the federal level, where broader societal consensus needs to emerge around whether shale gas is desirable at first place. Second, it primarily relates to an (informal) agreement between core social constituents and the government on the socio-economic prospects and consequences of unconventional energy production. Third,it results from trusted procedures and practices, shared normative principles and policy goals, and legitimate frameworks governing unconventional gas as a contested policy issue.