Towards an Energy Politics In‐Against‐and‐Beyond the State: Berlin's Struggle for Energy Democracy

Abstract

Social movements in struggle around energy are currently developing an imaginary of "energy democracy" to signify the emancipatory energy transitions they desire. Deploying a scholar-activist perspective, this paper contributes to debates around the concretisation of the energy democracy imaginary by exploring the relationship of energy democracy movements to the state. To do so, I focus on the experiences of the Berliner Energietisch campaign, which in 2013 forced (and lost) a referendum aiming to extend-and democratise-the local state's role in Berlin's energy governance. Drawing on relational theories of the state, I argue that it is productive to read Berliner Energietisch as enacting an energy politics in-against-and-beyond the state. In making this argument, I draw out implications for theoretical and strategic debates around the commons and the state.

Linear Parks and the Political Ecologies of Permeability: Environmental displacement in São Paulo, Brazil

“…Graham and Marvin, ; Holston, ; Truelove, ; Carse, ; Furlong, ; Silver, ; Barnes, ; Anand, ) through a consideration of how the urban socio‐natural landscape is held together through processes of maintenance and repair that cut across binaries of water and land (Thrift, ; Graham and Thrift, ; Mathur and da Cunha, ; Mandelman, ; Barnes, ). In doing so, the article engages with the nature of contemporary governance in São Paulo and calls for further attention into what Angel and Loftus () provocatively refer to as the ‘the set of socio‐ecological relations that goes by the name of the state’ (see also Angel, ; Harris, ).…”

Resilience through electric microgrid policy : drivers, democracy, and learning

“…Energy democracy, despite its relatively short history, has much to offer to energy transition and democratic governance advocates (Antal 2015;Becker and Naumann 2017;Burke and Stephens 2017;Hess 2018;Szulecki 2018). Some of the literature applies the concept to specific campaigns or coalitions with the intent of advancing multi-coalition energy transition efforts, while others focus on the relationships between civil and governmental actors in energy democracy (Angel 2017;Hess 2018). The fact that there are multiple definitions and typologies of energy democracy potentially further complicates the methodology of future analyses utilizing the framework (Becker and Naumann 2017;Burke and Stephens 2017;Szulecki 2018).…”

“…The distinctions between centralized and decentralized energy systems, public and cooperative vs. private ownership, and community scale vs. state management of systems as envisioned in energy sovereignty substantively distinguish elements of possible approaches to energy democracy. There is also a relative dearth of comparative in-practice energy democracy analyses vertically, horizontally, and internationally as Burke and Stephens (2017) explicitly highlight (Angel 2017;Burke and Stephens 2017;Hess 2018;Stephens et al 2018). Stephens et al (2018) concludes that the lack of focus on distributed ownership in Vermont's energy democracy initiatives represents an opportunity for future innovation for both that state and beyond .…”

“…This study of energy democracy and electric microgrid policies uses the resist, reclaim, and restructure framework articulated in Burke and Stephens (2017) and applied to Vermont in Stephens et al (2018) (Burke and Stephens 2017;Stephens et al 2018). The intent of the study is to analyze policy; frameworks that focus on the politics, models, coalitions, and narratives of energy democracy do not align well with the study's purpose (Angel 2017;Becker and Naumann 2017;Burke 2018;Burke and Stephens 2018;Hess 2018). The framework articulated in Szulecki (2018) also focuses on analyzing and measuring energy democracy policies, but its indicators require the projects be completed to quantify properly, and many of the microgrids in the cases studied here are unfinished (Szulecki 2018).…”

“…While policymakers in both of these cases are striving to achieve high levels of support for vulnerable communities with these projects, operationalizing energy democracy in practice is an ongoing process and struggle between policymakers, constituents, and civil society stakeholders. Future studies could address the critique that most energy democracy studies focus on European and American settings, thus under-examining how energy democracy may work in other countries with different economic conditions and governmental structures (Angel 2017;Hess 2018 Smith and Ton 2013;Vine, Attanasio, and Shittu 2017;H. Yin, Xiao, and Lv 2015;Zamuda et al 2013).…”