Geopolitics of Energy: Turbulence, Trade, and Transition

Access to energy is essential for almost all kinds of human activity, heating, cooling, cooking, light, transportation, industrial production, and if necessary, military operations. It follows that a secure and affordable energy supply is high on the domestic and international political agenda. On the other hand, political turbulence can have immediate consequences for energy markets and thus for energy security. 

The Covid-19 pandemic caused severe disturbances in global supply chains, a vital element in the global free-trade system. This system is under pressure from the introduction of competing tariffs between the major trading partners: the US, Europe, and China. In Europe, the European-Russian gas relation that emerged in the 1970s was a case of beneficial economic interdependence. The conflicts in Ukraine—beginning with the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas in 2014 and then the full-scale Russian invasion of 2022 revised the perception of Russian gas from an economic benefit to a geopolitical liability. Across the Atlantic, as the US became a net energy exporter in recent years, it has also rearticulated its stance on global energy trade towards a much more assertive position, visible both in Biden’s “Inflation Reduction Act” and Trump’s “energy dominance” doctrine. These events come on top of the political ambition to combat climate change, which will require an unprecedented and rapid transformation of the global energy system. 

This thematic issue aims to capture the interactive cause-and-effect relationship between (geo)political turbulence, energy markets, and energy transition. Dedicated to an interdisciplinary approach, we will apply the analytical perspectives on energy turbulence, trade, and transition from International Relations, International Political Economy, security studies, public policy, and (geo)economics. The issue should attract scholars from all these areas, and policymakers and energy stakeholders interested in empirical analysis of present geopolitical changes, energy markets, energy transitions, and climate change.

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