Energy/power as a tool that disciplines and reproduces the energy order and as a critical-analytical perspective on energy policy

• Published in: Energy policy 2022-02, Vol.161, p.112750, Article 112750
• Main Authors: Żuk, Piotr, Żuk, Paweł
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aspiration; Civic energy sector; Companies; Control systems; Corporations; Distribution; Emancipation; Empowerment; Energy distribution; Energy industry; Energy policy; Energy transition; Energy/power; International economic relations; Political control; Political power; Political systems; Politics; Power; Power elite; Social control; Social power; Social structure; State; Technological change
• ISSN: 0301-4215; 1873-6777
• DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2021.112750

In addition to the climate and energy aspects, energy transition also includes the political dimension: influencing changes in energy production and distribution, and technological changes may infringe the interests of state and corporate institutions dominant in the energy sector. At the same time, it can be an impulse to awaken social aspirations for empowerment in the energy sphere. Due to these tensions, the ruling energy and political system uses various mechanisms of social control, which are called energy/power in this article, whose task is to defend the position of the power elite in the energy system. The article outlines the concept of energy/power as a set of political control systems, which uses the energy policy of the state and corporations to establish the order of knowledge, procedures and economic relations, on both an individual and social level, supporting the mechanisms of the ruling system of power and preserving the existing social structures. However, energy/power also defines the areas of possible emancipation in the sphere of energy policy and a map of the main tensions between the state and the market on the one hand, and the civil energy sphere, on the other, which will accompany energy transition. •The dominant model of the energy system can be used as an external tool to social control.•The ruling energy and political system uses various mechanisms of social control, which are called energy/power.•The concept of energy/power is shown as a micro and macro mechanism which uses energy policy to reproduce a social order.•Energy/power also defines the areas of possible emancipation in the sphere of energy policy.