220274 History of Global Energy Governance (S) (SoSe 2025)

The seminar offers a global perspective on energy production, consumption and their spatially divergent benefits. It aims not only to gain a better understanding of continuity and change in energy governance, but also of the energy-related production of inequality. While acknowledging the centrality of fossil fuels in the second half of the 20th century, we will focus on the global entanglements of renewable energy, especially in relation to UN policies, developmentalism and the notion of energy coloniality.

The seminar is divided into four parts. The first introduces the history of energy and the source material we will examine in Historical Contextualisation. We will discuss why the history of energy is important and what kind of questions we can ask using energy as an empirical phenomenon. It will conclude with a workshop with writer Berit Glanz on how to write short and concise academic texts for a wider audience. The second part focuses on global energy entanglements and dependencies, the third on the climate-energy nexus. The fourth and final part will look at the production of energy inequality, discussing energy colonialism, petromasculinity and the many pitfalls of energy justice. In the final session, students will present posters on the themes of their written assignments in a poster gallery walk.

Requirements for participation, required level

Students will be expected to participate actively and regularly in class, as the overall assessment will be based on a portfolio of different contributions.

Bibliography

Andreas Goldthau (ed.), The Handbook of Global Energy Policy, Chichester 2013.

Daniela Russ: Speaking for the "World Power Economy". Electricity, Energo-Materialist Economics, and the World Energy Council (1924-78),” in: Journal of Global History 15 (2020), 311–329.

Thijs Van de Graaf, Thijs / Benjamin K. Sovacool: Global Energy Politics, London 2020.