A political economy of niche-building: Neoliberal-developmental encounters in photovoltaic electrification in Kenya

Abstract

International agreements on energy access and climate change, formulated according to neoliberal orthodoxy, will drive significant finance to developing countries for clean technology investments. But critics call for more active state intervention-a developmental approach-arguing that free markets alone will not deliver what is required. This creates the potential for confrontation between contradictory ideologies in national policymaking and implementation: neoliberalism in global agreements versus developmentalism in national policy. The Kenyan photovoltaics (PV) market has long-experienced neoliberal-developmental policy interactions, reflecting on which can illuminate how such encounters might unfold in the future. We construct a new 'niche political economy' theoretical framework to analyse these past interactions, constituting one of three contributions we offer. The second is empirical, showing how PV practitioners, national policymakers and global development actors have negotiated their policymaking encounters over time. Our third contribution offers reflections on the issues explored, discussing what this might mean for future neoliberal-developmental encounters. We find that action on the ground will emerge from messy negotiated interactions between competing ideologies rather than be determined by powerful neoliberal actors. As such, realising global energy and climate ambitions becomes even more uncertain unless long-term active nichebuilding resources are secured in international agreements.

Can Pay-As-You-Go, Digitally Enabled Business Models Support Sustainability Transformations in Developing Countries? Outstanding Questions and a Theoretical Basis for Future Research

“…That said, in the case of political economy theory, examples do exist of scholars who have successfully acknowledged the value of innovation capabilities (a core tenet of innovation systems thinking) in their analysis (see [60]). And, as demonstrated in a recent special issue (see [30]), it seems to be increasingly common in the contemporary, critical social science literature on energy access to find examples of scholars using social practice, innovation systems, or political economy theory (the latter also including the work by Newell and Phillips [56] and Byrne et al [16] mentioned in Section 5.3 above) to drill down in more detail on specific aspects of the multi-level perspective [38] that has been so influential in socio-technical transitions thinking.…”

“…The latter casts analytical attention on the ways technology and innovation co-evolve with social practices and broader social institutions, creating dominant socio-technical regimes and path dependency that new niches of sustainable technology struggle to compete with and influence in new, sustainable directions. Importantly, as several authors have now shown in relation to energy access (e.g., [8,16,[39][40][41][42]), these socio-technical regimes can look different in remote areas of low-income countries to those studied in the Global North; the latter being the empirical context within which the majority of the socio-technical transitions literature has emerged to date (as analysed, for example, in a recent special issue, see [43,44]). Nevertheless, as demonstrated by the aforementioned recent contributions, these low-income contexts are still subject to similar dynamics, where everyday practices and powerful economic and political interests align with dominant socio-technical regimes (e.g., in the supply of kerosene for cooking and lighting), or with potentially unsustainable alternatives (e.g., expanding grid-connected, coal-fired electricity supply), implying continued utility for socio-technical transitions perspectives within low-income contexts.…”

“…Firstly, they fail to properly attend to social practices at the level of the lived, daily realities of poor and marginalised women and men. Secondly, whilst politics is, to some extent, acknowledged in the idea of socio-technical regimes, their analysis is, by their own admission (both in their 2017 monograph and a recent paper, see [16]), left wanting in its attention to politics and, in particular, the powerful political economic dynamics at play.…”

“…This includes work on the political economy of climate change and energy in Kenya, where Newell and Phillips [56] have demonstrated how political economy perspectives can add depth to understanding what transitions scholars would refer to as the "landscape" level of analysis. Byrne et al [16] have also sought to elaborate on how political economy dynamics shape the building of socio-technical "niches" and their potential to influence socio-technical "regimes". Furthermore, authors looking across the piste of SDG-relevant innovation and development questions have increasingly begun to emphasise the critical importance of politics and political economy in defining and shaping sustainability transformations [14,15].…”

“…At all times, in line with our definition and position on what constitutes sustainability articulated above, we foreground attention to issues of inclusivity, with a consistent focus on who gains, who loses, and how and why, and how this might change in ways that are more inclusive in the future (cf. [14][15][16]). In this way we are fundamentally interested in how PAYG business models might contribute to rapid transitions, or 'transformations', in ways that foreground issues of environmental sustainability and social justice and do not underplay the deeply socio-cultural and political nature of transformation (cf.…”