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Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses historical patterns around changing energy systems and their socio-political and economic impact. It argues that in periods of changing energy systems, political grievances emerge that shape the rise of nationalism in the 19th century as they did the far right in the 21st.

Paper long abstract:

Discussions around the killing of the internal combustion engine in the current political climate signal significant socio-political changes to unfold, as in the case of the historical precedents. This paper argues that in periods of changing energy systems, political grieves form or surface and generate political crises, from the rise of nationalism in the 19th century to the far-right in the 21st. By analysing historical patterns shaped around changing energy systems and their socio-political and economic impact, this paper underlines the current debate on shifting from fossil fuel to electric as another change in energy systems and highlights expected political consequences. It hopes to call other scholars to develop further discussions seeking solutions to the rise of the far-right around changing energy systems.

From coal to fossil fuels, the 19th-century energy systems change shaped industrialisation, labour movements, protectionist measures and deindustrialization around the concerns on exploitation, labour rights, free trade imperialism, and various forms of Islamisms around the Persian Gulf and the greater Mediterrenean. The discovery of oil deepened this chasm. While economic imperialism deepened socio-political grievances between industrialised Western Europe and the emerging Modern Middle East, it also deepened socio-political grievances in industrial economies, heightening the existing class conflict and uneven development. Layers of inequality shaped in times of changing energy systems had global and domestic implications, requesting reevaluation of what globalisation is in the context of change in the energy systems and the economic and socio-political integration and disintegration it formed.