Energy Policy, Politics and Governance

Energy has become a central issue for societies already in the early 1900s, but the inevitable systemic transformation in response to the global energy “dilemmas” (Bradshaw 2013) or “challenges” (Kuzemko et al. 2015) is what will make it one of the fundamental political problems in the 21st century. Despite this, much of the political science disciplinary mainstream has been reluctant and late in acknowledging the salience of energy policy studies. Recently, energy-oriented political science research has been following in the footsteps of environmental policy studies and elbowing its way to recognition as an empirically rich and theoretically diverse research agenda. While most energy studies in political science is informed by positivist methodologies and a rationalist perspective, remaining in intensive dialogue with economics and often eager to engage in policy debates, we can also see the emergence of more interpretivist and post-structuralist takes on energy issues, drawing on the well-established inter-disciplinary Science and Technology Studies (STS), and open to inspiration from innovation studies, sociology and cultural anthropology. Due to the significance of the ongoing and approaching energy transition to the political economy of all states, critical and normative approaches to energy are also emerging. This Section is an attempt to illustrate that diversity, take stock of the progress made in recent years both in terms of empirical research and theoretical grounding in different larger political science currents. The proposed Panels are therefore organized in a way that combines major empirical issues (EU energy policy, global energy politics, energy security, emerging energy regions, links to climate and environmental politics) with broader reflection on the angles from which energy is, can and should be approached in the discipline (International Relations, International Political Economy, Comparative Regionalism, Public Policy and Governance studies, Security studies). The opening Panel, envisaged as a Roundtable discussion with key figures in energy policy studies, should provide a useful introduction into the general issue area, while each of the remaining Panels explores one field in detail. Panels: 1. Energy studies in political science: Taking stock and looking ahead Chair: Kacper Szulecki (Uni. Oslo) This Roundtable discussion will gather 5-6 established and influential political scientists working on energy topics in different sub-disciplines: IR, public policy, comparative politics. Discussion topics are related to the emergence and evolution of energy studies, their status – still somewhere between marginalization and recognition, and the most important research programs, theoretical advancements and substantive topics that should shape this agenda in years to come. 2. International Political Economy of Energy Chair: Dag Harald Claes (Uni. Oslo) This Panel will look at the changes in global energy markets of oil, gas and renewables, addressing questions of governance and the way old and new institutions (like OPEC, IEA, IRENA, G7 and G20…) have been trying to regulate them. 3. Comparative energy regionalism Chair: Andreas Goldthau (Royal Holloway, University of London) Scholarly works on comparative regionalism have grown significantly over the past 10 years. While earlier scholarship focused on specific regions, more recent work looks at issue areas and governance structures across regions, finding, exploring, and explaining variations and consistencies between and among world regions. The 2016 Oxford Handbook on Comparative Regionalism brings together a wide variety of this scholarship, but energy is one of the substantive issues missing. To fill this gap the Panel, growing out of earlier workshops held in Berlin, Hamburg and an ISA panel, will look at formal regional organizations focusing on energy, as well as examples of informal regionalism and regionalization. 4. Climate and energy: EU renewable policy in comparison Chair: Elin Lerum Boasson (Uni. Oslo) Renewable energy deployment is at the core of the ongoing revision of EU polices. Yet subsidy-driven growth has been challenged by new EU state aid regulation, as well as different national developments. To what extent and how have national renewables policy portfolios been shaped the EU policy mix, what are the other forces in play? 5. Energy security: Theoretical lessons from security studies Chair: Andrew Judge (Uni. Glasgow) The Panel welcomes theoretical contributions on the different approaches to energy security, informed both by traditional strategic and security studies, securitization theory and other critical security approaches, as well as post-structuralist and post-modern analyses of the critical geopolitics and biopolitics of energy. This Panel continues a discussion initiated at the ECPR General Conference in Glasgow and continued in Prague. 6. Conflict and Cooperation in Russia-Europe Energy Relations Chair: Jan Osička (Masaryk University Brno) Ensuring energy security has been now for some time among at the center of both European and Russian politics. This holds especially for natural gas which is due to its limited availability, difficult transport and economic importance seen as a tool of strategic considerations. The Panel aims to provide a critical reflection of the issue and focuses on rapidly evolving and vulnerable regions: CEE, Balkans, and Caspian Sea. Kacper Szulecki – Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science, Uni. Oslo. Previously he was Dahrendorf Fellow at the Hertie School of Governance, Berlin, and a researcher at the Cluster of Excellence EXC16 "Cultural Foundations of Integration" at Uni. Konstanz. He is also a visiting fellow at the Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies at EUI Florence, and has been a visiting researcher at the Dept. of Climate Policy, German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) in Berlin, as well as director at the Environmental Studies and Policy Institute in Wroclaw. He holds a PhD from Uni. Konstanz and an MS. from VU University Amsterdam. He has published numerous articles in peer reviewed journals, including “Governance”, “East European Politics and Societies” and “Global Policy”, and has recently been a guest editor in a special issue of “Climate Policy” on EU energy governance beyond 2020. He is editing a book on European energy securitization, forthcoming in late 2017 with Palgrave. He has organized and chaired seven Panels at international conferences, including EISA, CEISA, BASEES and two at ECPR General Conferences in Glasgow (2014) and Prague (2016).