Rethinking Energy Geopolitics

Towards a Geopolitical Economy of Global Energy Transformation

Bibliographic Data

ID7154606
AuthorsCaroline Kuzemko (0000-0001-6356-4573, University of Warwick), Maria Blondeel (0000-0002-3232-5817, University of Amsterdam), Mathieu Blondeel (Free University of Amsterdam), Michael Bradshaw (0000-0001-8842-3953, University of Warwick), Gavin Bridge (0000-0003-1145-4895, Durham University), Erika Faigen (0000-0002-9898-9691, University of Vienna), Louis Fletcher (0000-0002-6049-1353, University of Warwick, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume30
Issue2
Pages531-565
Publication date2025-03-15
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGeopolitics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1465-0045 • E-ISSN: 1557-3028
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14650045.2024.2351075
OpenAlexW4396870074
LanguageEN
Citations received23
References cited100

We are in the midst of a global energy system transformation (GEST) which is rewiring the world economy, opening new axes of political contestation, and revolutionising the energetic basis of human civilisation.Energy geopolitics has not yet reconciled itself to this challenge.The field has traditionally been preoccupied with the dependence of Western states on cross-border flows of fossil fuels.More recently, efforts have been made to prospectively map out what the geopolitics of a fully renewable world might look like.What both literatures miss, however, is the very fact of the GEST: that we are living through a changing and contested process of global transformation, across interacting high-and low-emissions systems, whose contours are open and actively constructed over time.In this paper, we start to develop a provisional framework to make sense of the GEST, that is able to capture the full scale of the transformation, and its dynamic, contingent, constructed nature.We attend to three areas of geopolitical economy: the wide-ranging material dimensions of the transformation, its geographical spacemaking, and its conflict-ridden political economy.We then apply this framework to two case studies, one looking at the fraught role of fossil gas as a 'transition fuel', the other at lithium-ion batteries

Economic geography · Economic system · Economics · Economy · Geopolitics · Physics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Global Energy and Sustainability Research · Global Energy Security and Policy · Law · Russia and Soviet political economy

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