Notification of public defence with Hugo Faber

Hugo Faber presents his thesis “Delaying Energy Transitions: Energy security, neoliberalism, and the social construction of fossil dependence”.

Doctoral thesis: “Delaying Energy Transitions: Energy security, neoliberalism, and the social construction of fossil dependence”.
Subject: Political Science
Research area: Politics, Economy and the Organisation of Society
Research school: The Baltic and East European Graduate School (BEEGS)
Language: English

Abstract

This dissertation explores how the economic decline of fossil and nuclear industries is resisted and delayed through new ways of representing them as necessary. It argues that energy policy is dominated by key experts and decision makers, and studies the discourse within these circles. Using poststructural policy analysis, the thesis studies three cases in three separate research articles through an empirical material consisting of 56 elite interviews and 91 policy documents. The cases consist of political decisions to manage the decline of three fossil and nuclear industries: the peat industry in Finland; the oil shale industry in Estonia; and the nuclear industry in Sweden. The cases are compared in this book. The findings contribute to scholarship on energy security, incumbent decline in energy transitions, and neoliberalism, and the dissertation argues for an increased dialogue between these bodies of literature.

The thesis shows how the representation of fossil and nuclear industries as necessary for a secure supply of energy can legitimize state support to delay their decline. It argues that geopolitics and external crises are neither sufficient nor necessary conditions for such representations to succeed, and always part of a larger picture including domestic interests and the complex reality of managing energy systems. The dissertation also argues that the portrayal of fossil and nuclear industries as necessary for energy security depends on technical assumptions about the reliability and the lack of alternatives to these industries. These assumptions should not be taken at face value as neutral or technical “facts,” as they downplay and highlight different technical risks, drawbacks, and advantages, where interests and politics are at play. The thesis argues that such technical assumptions are understudied but often decisive in decision-making and, consequently, that social scientists should pay closer attention to how they are constructed and to the contingent and political nature of expert knowledge.

The thesis also shows that the neoliberal rationality that prevails in the expert-dominated governance of energy can both enable and constrain the representation of fossil and nuclear industries as necessary, depending on the societal dependence on the industry in question. While this rationality precludes state support to uncompetitive industries in theory, it can give industries that control critical infrastructures political leverage in practice. Moreover, by handing over control of the infrastructure upon which energy security depends to commercial actors and the market, neoliberal logics limit the ability of the state to act strategically and pre-emptively. This, the thesis argues, can result in a state of semi-permanent crisis management where there appears to be no other options than preserving existing fossil capacities.

Public defence

The public defence with Hugo Faber takes place on October 16 at Södertörn University.