Re-Shaping Energy Politics: Actors, Interests and Roles

Abstract

For quite some time already, the arena of energy politics has been undergoing profound changes in both its structure and the elements that constitute it. As energy policy merges with climate policy, the scope of the issues covered by energy policies grows substantially and the primacy of domestic politics is challenged by increasingly important international and supranational cooperation on the mitigation of climate change. In policy-making, a variety of new actors such as NRAs and TSOs have emerged as the result of deregulation and market liberalization. At energy markets, traditional roles are being questioned as large energy companies face the necessity to reinvent their business models and as decentralized renewable energy sources turn energy consumers into producers. Finally, our perceptions of what problems energy policies should address and how are changing too, as emerging perspectives such as the concepts of “Energy Democracy” or “Energy Justice” have reformulated traditional energy policy dilemmas. The panel seeks to address this ongoing paradigm shift in energy politics. It adopts an actor-centered perspective and discusses the roles the emerging energy policy actors have brought into the arena, the changes in the roles that were traditionally played be the established actors as well as the new roles they need to learn to play.