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- Convenors:
-
Tom Lavers
(University of Manchester)
Barnaby Dye (University of York)
Fana Gebresenbet Erda (Institute for Peace and Security Studies)
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- Formats:
- Papers
- Stream:
- Infrastructure and energy
- Sessions:
- Thursday 1 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel examines the political economic factors—including power relations, institutions and ideologies—shaping electricity generation, transmission and distribution as countries and regions tackle the challenges of expanding access and meeting demand while shifting to renewable energy sources.
Long Abstract:
This proposed panel examines the political dynamics shaping the generation and distribution of electricity across the global south. Recent decades have seen a return to large-scale infrastructure construction, including for electricity generation and transmission. Yet, reduced costs of small-scale distributed energy solutions including solar panels and wind turbines present a potential alternative to the standard approach of centralised generation and grid expansion. Countries expanding generation capacity with a view to meeting the growing demand of urban centres, industrial expansion, rural connections and the potential for lucrative exports do so in an unsettled and changing context. This includes: changing sources of international and domestic finance; growing levels of indebtedness; climate change and the need to shift to renewable energy; contestation over the role for state and private sector actors; and a push towards regional integration in electricity supply. This panel aims to centre attention on the political economic factors shaping electricity generation and distribution. We welcome contributions employing diverse methodologies to explore the influence of power relations, institutions and ideologies on issues including:
• The evolving role of the state and private sector in investment and ownership;
• The changing energy mix between fossil fuels, hydropower and renewables;
• Access to and utilisation of new renewable technologies;
• The competing demands of domestic, industrial, export markets;
• Rural electrification and roles of grid and off-grid solutions.
• Power-trade agreements and regional power pools;
• National electricity exports targets and potential for oversupply; and
• International finance for electricity generation and transmission.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 1 July, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
This paper argues that the electricity sector is emblematic of the successes and limitations of the EPRDF’s ‘developmental state’. While electricity generation has increased significantly, the huge developmental ambitions of the political elite have undermined the planning process in the sector.
Paper long abstract:
This paper examines the political economy of electricity generation planning in Ethiopia during the EPRDF era (1991–2019), highlighting the importance of power relations between politicians and the bureaucracy, the political interests of the ruling party and the dominant ideas shaping politics and the electricity sector. To do this, the research draws on more than 100 key informant interviews with politicians, government officials, consultants and donors involved in the sector. The paper argues that the ruling party’s approach to electricity was emblematic of the successes and limitations of its ‘developmental state’ project pursued over the past 20 years. The increased supply of low-cost electricity is seen as a key input into industrial policy, a means of securing foreign exchange and a mechanism for legitimating the ruling party among the population. Moreover, the narratives used to justify massive investment in electricity generation mirror the party’s changing ideological reference points, from Marxism to the developmental state to a recent and tentative turn to liberalisation. Electricity supply has increased significantly over this period, with further large-scale projects nearing completion. However, the huge developmental ambitions of the political elite have at times undermined the planning process in the sector, leading to an emphasis on megaprojects to meet implausible estimates of future demand and questionable project design.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines two intersecting dynamics in Ethiopia’s electricity sector: the transition from the state’s dismissal of the private sector as ‘parasitic rent seekers’ to opening up to the private sector; and the attempt to diversify the energy mix to reduce hydropower dependence.
Paper long abstract:
This paper examines the political economy processes shaping two intersecting dynamics within Ethiopia’s electricity sector: the transition from the state’s dismissal of the private sector as ‘parasitic rent seekers’ to recent initiatives to open up space for private sector generation; and attempts to diversify the energy mix to reduce hydropower dependence. The paper focuses on the factors underpinning path dependence in the energy mix and the balance of public vs private provision, as well as processes leading to political rupture that enable such energy transitions. The analysis utilises a process tracing methodology to reconstruct the policymaking process, drawing on more than 100 key informant interviews with key politicians, government officials, consultants and donors. The paper finds that the main driver was the triggering of several IMF debt thresholds in 2015-16. Debt reclassification necessitated a turn to the private sector to continue expansion of generation capacity, while private sector involvement has necessitated a turn to renewables. The impact of debt reclassification has, though, been reinforced by donors pressing the government for long advocated reforms and the political transition within the ruling party from 2018. This transition removed many of the old guard who were ideologically resistant to private sector involvement, replacing them with a new cadre of advisors more amenable to a market-based strategy. Yet, this transition is far from complete, with many officials in the electricity sector, still committed to state investment in hydropower and sceptical of the benefits of private investment or renewable technology.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores institutional challenges for greening China’s Belt and Road Initiative in sub-Saharan Africa’s energy sector.
Paper long abstract:
Since the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative in September 2013, energy infrastructure projects are central elements of this ambitious multilateral development initiative. Also, the Chinese government has proposed a green BRI that would facilitate green energy transition among the BRI countries. Such political vision requires significant institutional changes of current Chinese financial-industrial complex in promoting its overseas energy sector that previously focused on large hydropower and fossil fuel infrastructure. Meanwhile, as most SSA countries face multiple challenges in transiting to a modern and sustainable energy system, institutional reforms in the energy sectors are also underway. How will these two sets of institutional changes affect the opportunities and challenges for greening the Chinese BRI in SSA’s energy sector? Using Ethiopia and South Africa’s wind energy projects as a comparative case study, we examine the direct and indirect interactions of two sets of institutional changes through the lens of activities of Chinese enterprises in the host countries. We argue that these Chinese project activities are not only manifestation of these institutional encounters but also the changing agents for continuous policy processes from both ends, particularly around areas of energy sector reforms, the deployment of renewable energy, and enhancement of rural electrification, and energy trading platforms in SSA. Our study reveals that the initiative of a greener BRI would tremendously benefit SSA countries on these fronts, however, more coordinated efforts between Chinese and African public and private partners along with the on-going domestic institutional reforms is the key to its success.
Paper short abstract:
This article analyses key drivers producing electricity crises and undermining ‘good governance’ reform. Ghana has lurched from unprecedented shortages to electricity over-abundance, entailing spiralling debt. I highlight the role of intense electoral competition and high modernist ideology.
Paper long abstract:
The 1990s good governance agenda created the ‘standard reform model’ for the electricity sector involving privatising utilities, creating markets and unbundling electricity-system functions into ‘formally-independent’, regulated units. After widespread adoption over three decades, electricity systems in many developing countries continue to suffer numerous crises. This article analyses key drivers producing such crises and undermining ‘good governance’ reform. It uses evidence from Ghana, chosen given its relatively-keen adoption of the ‘standard reform model’ and the presence of capitalist-democratic conditions identified as supporting such reform. In the last decade, Ghana has lurched from unprecedented shortages to electricity over-abundance, entailing spiralling debt. Rather than understand this through mainstream approaches focusing on formal institutions and democratic pressures, this detailed empirical research demonstrates the value of an alternative, heterodox examination of political power and ideology. Such analysis reveals the deeper structural political and societal roots behind these two recent crises and the limited success of reforms. The paper demonstrates how intense competition entailed an all-consuming short-termist focus on elections. Alongside high modernist ideological beliefs in the power of megawatts to produce industrialisation, this created Ghana’s crises of absence and abundance. This suggests that focusing on democratic institutions, the formal separation of policymaking and market motivations appears hopeless given the strength of countervailing political and ideological rationales that overwhelm reforms. Thus, studying the manifestation of political power is crucial for understanding the electricity sector’s crises and policymaking.