Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on contributors
- One Depoliticisation, governance and the state
- Two Rethinking depoliticisation: beyond the governmental
- Three Depoliticisation, governance and political participation
- Four Depoliticisation: economic crisis and political management
- Five Repoliticising depoliticisation: theoretical preliminaries on some responses to the American fiscal and Eurozone debt crises
- Six Rolling back to roll forward: depoliticisation and the extension of government
- Seven (De)politicisation and the Father’s Clause parliamentary debates
- Eight Politicising UK energy: what ‘speaking energy security’ can do
- Nine Global norms, local contestation: privatisation and de/politicisation in Berlin
- Ten Depoliticisation as process, governance as practice: what did the ‘first wave’ get wrong and do we need a ‘second wave’ to put it right?
- Conclusion Thinking big: the political imagination
- Index
Eight - Politicising UK energy: what ‘speaking energy security’ can do
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 March 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on contributors
- One Depoliticisation, governance and the state
- Two Rethinking depoliticisation: beyond the governmental
- Three Depoliticisation, governance and political participation
- Four Depoliticisation: economic crisis and political management
- Five Repoliticising depoliticisation: theoretical preliminaries on some responses to the American fiscal and Eurozone debt crises
- Six Rolling back to roll forward: depoliticisation and the extension of government
- Seven (De)politicisation and the Father’s Clause parliamentary debates
- Eight Politicising UK energy: what ‘speaking energy security’ can do
- Nine Global norms, local contestation: privatisation and de/politicisation in Berlin
- Ten Depoliticisation as process, governance as practice: what did the ‘first wave’ get wrong and do we need a ‘second wave’ to put it right?
- Conclusion Thinking big: the political imagination
- Index
Summary
Introduction
A growing body of work has recently emerged that applies depoliticisation as an analytical concept, often to explain developments in monetary and financial policy making (Burnham, 2001; Buller and Flinders, 2005; Flinders and Buller, 2006; Hay, 2007; Jenkins, 2011). It argues that responsibility for economic policy making has been passed away, by various means, from government to either quasi or wholly independent bodies resulting in lower degrees of political contestation and less active collective representation of public bodies by majoritarian institutions (Hay, 2007; Jenkins, 2011; Mügge, 2011). This chapter moves beyond the empirical realms of economic policy by exploring UK energy governance through the lenses of (de-) politicisation. UK energy policy making is understood here as having been subject to very deliberate depoliticising processes during the 1980s and 1990s. By some contrast, however, by the late 2000s energy had become somewhat re-politicised and subject to higher degrees of contestation and formal political deliberation. New government institutions had been established in order to steer energy policy towards the achievement of new objectives, of energy security and climate change mitigation.
These changes are notable in that they mark energy policy out from other areas of economic policy making in the UK, and elsewhere, where depoliticising trends arguably continue. Through the application of insights from a second conceptual frame, that of speaking security, it is argued here that energy was politicised partly through the impact of narratives of national energy supply (in-)security. These processes took place at the time of mounting political support for climate change mitigation, Russian energy policy restructurings, the emergence of China as a powerful energy actor, of rising oil and gas prices, and of the Russia–Ukraine gas transit disputes. In addition, the UK was on the brink of becoming an importer of oil and gas after decades as a net exporter. The specific argument here, however, is that renewed public and political interest in energy security, alongside the apparent failure of existing energy institutions to anticipate, explain or address energy security issues, highlighted a need for institutional change.
Combining conceptual insights from literatures on depoliticisation and securitisation may be novel, but it is also not entirely unproblematic.
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- Tracing the PoliticalDepoliticisation, Governance and the State, pp. 161 - 180Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2015
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