Paradigms, Policy and Governance: the Politics of Energy Regulation in the UK Post-2000
Overall aims
This study considers the debate around energy policy and government regulation in the UK, considering Dieter Helm’s idea that the current period can be conceptualised as a distinct ideological paradigm in the same way that both nationalisation and privatisation were enmeshed within particular political and economic goals. Drawing on the work of Catherine Mitchell, the study explores Helm’s observations on the link between ‘paradigms and policy’ in order to consider whether a more radical shift in direction and thinking is needed than the framework for the UK Government’s more recent targets on reducing carbon emissions and ensuring energy security.
Context
The energy economist Dieter Helm argues that the current period of energy regulation in the UK can be conceptualised as a distinct ideological paradigm in the same way that both nationalisation and privatisation were enmeshed within particular political and economic goals. He reasons that the first of these policy paradigms was based on nationalisation and had the purpose of bringing vital services under public ownership. The second of these paradigms, he reasons, was constructed around the premises of liberalisation and privatisation. The work explores Helm’s hypothesis on the link between ‘paradigms and policy’, and their application to UK energy regulation, to suggest that the failings of a market-based approach to addressing climate change and energy security, suggest that a move radical shift in direction and thinking is needed. In particular, it is argued that the UK Government’s more recent targets on reducing carbon emissions have prompted the need for an energy policy agenda that is more clearly de-linked from the current emphasis on market solutions and associated political thinking. It is argued in particular, that such a transition in policy would need to revolve around Thomas Kuhn’s pre-conditions of a ‘gestalt switch’ – indicated in both previous UK regulatory approaches to energy. The paper suggests that, in much the same way as the dominant scientific consensus structured Kuhn’s original conception of a paradigm, such a shift in policy will involve a ‘gestalt switch’, and a politically led shift away from the influence of thinking which currently remains rooted in previous infrastructural and ideological legacies.
Research Questions & Methods
The work involved an extensive literature review of the political economy of energy regulation in the UK 1945-2010, considering the influence of dominant interests and associated ideologies in consolidating particular policy agendas.
Results
Whilst Helm suggests that the new energy paradigm consists of the working out of a more flexible set of market initiatives, Mitchell argues that the ‘regulatory state’ is itself a distinct paradigm – one which has yet to evolve into an effective political framework for policy making. While the RESOLVE analysis suggests that both arguments serve to highlight some important issues in the UK energy policy agenda, it is argued that Mitchell provides a more incisive analysis of a ‘political bottleneck’ which favours consolidation rather than innovation. The paper suggests that, as with the scientists in Kuhn’s original observations regarding the pursuit of ‘truth’ and ‘knowledge’, the machinery of governance in the UK currently remains ‘locked-in’ to a design which is out of synch with the requirements of a more sustainable energy policy framework. In particular, the paper suggests that, while the proposition of a ‘low-carbon future’ continues to be framed within the parameters of the market – alongside the dominant discourse of accompanying vested interests – it will invariably eschew wider, ideological questions on the UK’s political economy in favour of ‘commodifying’ the environment; ring-fencing economic growth; and promoting a continued commitment to cheapest option energy security.
Implications
Therefore, the paper suggested that Mitchell’s ideas around the politics of the ‘regulatory state paradigm’ provide for a more convincing analysis of the post-2000 energy agenda in the UK, and why it remains locked-in to a market agenda, where competing frameworks of knowledge – such as a greater role for wind, solar, biomass and wave in meeting the UK’s energy requirements – remain at the margins and energy markets currently remain characterized by unconvincing economic and political ‘trade-offs’.
It was suggested that the more recent objectives of the Climate Change Act pose the challenge that a real paradigm shift in energy policy might require a broader vision than at present, driven largely by a political ‘gestalt switch’ from the significant actors involved in creating, shaping and implementing policy. It remains to be seen whether the UK government will be prepared – or able – to move beyond this present consolidation or whether the increasingly pressing agendas of climate change and energy security will influence such a shift.
Output
Fudge, S, M Peters, Y Mulugetta and T Jackson 2011. Paradigms, policy and governance: the politics of energy regulation in the UK post-2000. Environmental Policy and Governance 21 (4): 291-302.
Fudge S, L Hunt, T Jackson, Y Mulugetta and M Peters 2008. The political economy of energy regulation 1945-2007. RESOLVE Working Paper Series 02-08. Guildford: University of Surrey.
Fudge S 2008. The political economy of energy regulation in the UK 1945-2007: paradigms and policy’.7th BIEE Academic Conference: The New Energy Challenge: Security and Sustainability.24-25 September 2008. St John’s College, Oxford.
Fudge S, Y Mulugetta, T Jackson and M Peters (2012). Paradigms, policy and governance: the politics of energy regulation in the UK post-2000. In T Jackson and I Christie (Eds) Lifestyles, Values and the Environment. London: Earthscan/Taylor and Francis (forthcoming).
