Beyond the EU Regulatory State

This is more than a reference book on energy security--it is a major contribution to understanding state-market relations, European integration and economic diplomacy in the 21st century. It is also unusual in building bridges across sub-disciplines and world-views. Rather than identifying tensions and contradictions, Prontera provides solutions: an original and constructive way to explain the hybridity of EU external energy policy. -- Anna Herranz Surrallés, Maastricht University

In this original and innovative book, Prontera charts the EU's shift from being a liberal 'regulatory' to a more interventionist 'catalytic' state. This is done through an in-depth and acute analysis of the EU's external energy relations and how the EU's concerns over energy security have gradually but surely embedded this more pro-active and interventionist approach -- Roland Dannreuther, University of Westminster

Prontera makes good use of emergent lines of theorizing on the EU as a catalyst for integration processes both within the EU and beyond. The result is a new opening into research on EU energy security and EU external relations in general, conceptualizing the Union as a Catalytic Power Europe. Prontera shows how Catalytic Power Europe overcomes some of the limitations of alternative conceptualizations such as Normative Power Europe, Europe as a Regulatory State, and Europe as a Market Power. This approach is significant as studies on EU energy security often either lack any firm theory or utilize standard conceptions used by international organisations such as the International Energy Agency. As a result, the book situates itself firmly into the emerging literature on innovative approaches to energy security. Of particular importance is how Prontera shows how the EU as a Catalytic Power not only builds and regulates the internal EU energy market, or the natural gas market that is Prontera's focus, but also shapes the operating environment of companies and other actors within and beyond the EU. In this way EU institutions, chiefly the Commission, help to form coalitions where EU bodies interact with Member States, EU's natural gas supplier states, energy companies within and beyond the Union, and so on. In other words, this book finds the EU not only the familiar market-maker, nor does it succumb to accusing the EU from lacking power in foreign economic relations, but rather, it analyses the EU as a facilitator. This observation has also important implications for our understanding of power in international relations and political economy. -- Pami Aalto, Tampere University

The book offers an analysis of European energy security policy going beyond the traditional realism vs. liberalism theoretical paradigm. It develops an innovative approach - focusing on the EU as Catalytic State - to investigate and understand the governance of energy policies at the European level, and in particular to assess the role of the EU as energy security actor in the regional and global scene. -- Nicolò Sartori,Istituto Affari Internazionali

Beyond the EU Regulatory State offers a fresh and compelling approach to conceptualizing the institutions of the European Union and understanding how they promote energy security. The catalytic state model developed here provides a welcome challenge to conventional approaches to characterizing the role of the EU and promises to find useful applications in other areas of European integration. -- John S. Duffield, Georgia State University

Andrea Prontera is Assistant Professor of International Relations and EU Institutions and Policies, Department of Political Science, Communication and International Relations, University of Macerata, Italy. She has published a number of articles on Italian Energy Security and has published a book entitled, The New Politics of Energy Security in the European Union and Beyond. States, Markets, Institutions with Routledge 2017.