Paper short abstract:

How might injustices of infrastructure be addressed by democratising its ownership and governance? We explore how democratic possibilities of new energy technologies are shaped and limited by existing relations of infrastructure, finance and power in South Africa.

Paper long abstract:

Where material infrastructure is associated with injustice, critical scholarship is often concerned with how infrastructure can be democratised. Yet, the relationship between democracy and infrastructure is underexplored. This paper explores how infrastructure is entwined with democratic participation and rule by analysing distributed electricity generation in South Africa. Decentralised solar power is often assumed to enhance democratic control of energy systems by empowering citizens as owners of infrastructure and material participants in governance. We describe a more complex relationship between infrastructural and democratic change, of who and what are governed by whom, and how. First, we describe changes in South Africa’s model of entrepreneurial urban governance, in how tensions between the social and commercial imperatives of local government are managed through infrastructure and space. Second, we describe the new political subjectivity of the ‘prosumer’ (producer-consumer), shaped by the governmental tools of infrastructural gatekeepers that coordinate grid access and electricity exchange. We find democratic possibilities shaped by the incorporation of new technologies and subjects into existing relations of infrastructure, finance and power. We conclude by considering the prospect of material participation in democratic politics that not only places technology in the hands of businesses and residents but transforms socio-material relations that maintain injustices of infrastructure.

Paper short abstract:

In 2015 the war in Yemen led to the collapse of the public grid. After a short period of a massive adoption of Solar PV people shifted to the emerging commercial micro-grids CGs (neighbourhood-diesel generators). This paper will look at the political and social implications of the spread of CGs.

Paper long abstract:

In 2015 the war in Yemen led to the collapse of the public electricity grid. After a short period of a large-scale adoption of Solar PV people shifted to newly emerging commercial micro-grids (CGs), which tend to be diesel-powered generators serving neighbourhoods. This paper is based on ongoing research on the political and social implications of the spread of CGs in the context of Yemen’s ongoing conflict. Notwithstanding the role CGs play in lessening the scope of the current electricity crisis, their emergent and likely permanent establishment within the configuration of the electricity system carries considerable risks socially, politically, and economically. For a start, they compete with other more sustainable alternatives using renewable energy technologies (Mehigan et al., 2018). The exorbitant membership fees and high tariffs burden subscribers, leaving some to choose between energy and other needs(World Bank, 2017). This contributes to the widening inequality gap and the empowerment of a group of private actors who have their vested interest in keeping the status quo. In turn, these shifts in interests and institutional power have fed back into the dynamics of the conflict, leading to entrenching and legitimizing key actors within the conflict. To illuminate the political economy of CGs in Yemen, I develop a model of technology diffusion within the structures and dynamics of the conflict to identify key moments of realignment and emergence both within the socio-political system and the energy system.

Paper short abstract:

Lebanon’s electricity sector is corrupt and dysfunctional. However, one local utility – Electricity du Zahle (EDZ) – has managed to provide a high quality and sustainable service. We explore how EDZ’s success has depended on clever navigation of Lebanon’s complex sectarian political settlement.

Paper long abstract:

The Lebanese electricity sector’s dysfunction and inefficiency mask deeper political economy challenges, including rampant rent-seeking, captured institutions and a fractured state. Over decades, corruption and mismanagement in Lebanon’s electricity sector has contributed to the draining of public finances and has deprived the Lebanese people of their right to reliable and affordable electricity.

Amidst the poor general state of the sector, one area of Lebanon has managed to operate a private utility that provides a reliable and high-quality electricity service – Électricité de Zahle (EDZ) – which covers the city of Zahle and 16 surrounding villages. EDZ’s technical losses stand at only 5%; it collects 100% of bills and is profitable while providing electricity at an overall cost no higher than that paid by households reliant on private generators.

Our study explores how it has been possible to establish EDZ’s functional, but problematic, service provision within the complex sectarian political context of Lebanon. We draw on a framework provided by Khan et al. (2019) to understand the rents and types of corruption in the sector and how the changes implemented by EDZ have been consistent with the nature of Lebanon’s political settlement.

Paper short abstract:

Should electricity be depoliticised and treated as a regulated commodity or should we understand electricity as politicised, with citizens claiming it as a right? We explore the short and long-term effects of this divide on the distribution of electricity-system benefits.

Paper long abstract:

The literature on the role of democracy in development, and specifically the electricity sector, is divided. Disagreement lies in whether democracy is understood as enabling depoliticised decision making, or whether it deepens debate and political treatment of electricity distribution. One school is rooted in the 1990s triumphalist ‘end of history’ narrative: the liberal-capitalist model ‘won’ the Cold War, ushering in an era where the challenge was governance, not politics; a technical process of ‘getting the markets and institutions right’. This informed the ‘good governance’ agenda and its application to the electricity sector, the standard reform model, which is premised on turning electricity into a regulated commodity. Conversely, an increasing body of empirical work demonstrates that the politicisation of electricity produces claims to electricity as a citizenship right, and that this, not market mechanisms, produces rapid electrification and reliable supply. This paper analyses this divide in the case of Ghana. We demonstrate that electricity was made accessible and affordable through a combination of intense electoral politics (the need to win elections by promising, and delivering, electricity) alongside influential historically-embed narratives of electricity as modernity; the bringer of progress. However, we argue that whilst democratic pressures drive the delivery of these immediate populist measures, Ghana’s unstable, intensely-competitive democratic environment undermines long-term decision making. Highly competitive elections drive up their expensiveness, in turn incentivising rent-seeking, including from generation contracts and a deal to manage distribution. Such activity, given its fiscal implication, harms the electricity sector in the long-term.