Global Environmental Politics· 2013Q1
Fragmentation in Global Energy Governance: Explaining the Creation of IRENA
- 194citations
- Q1SCImago
- 2013year
Short summary
States created the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) in 2009 as an institutional hedging strategy to counter the IEA's perceived bias towards fossil fuels, driven by domestic preferences for renewable energy options.
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Key points
- IRENA was created in 2009 by IEA member states, adding to global energy governance fragmentation.
- The creation is explained by domestic preferences and institutional capture, specifically an 'institutional hedging strategy'.
- Germany and allied states spearheaded IRENA to counter the IEA's perceived bias towards fossil and nuclear energy.
- Creating a new institution can be less costly than reforming an existing one, depending on domestic preferences.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
In 2009, a group of member countries of the International Energy Agency (IEA) spearheaded the creation of a new international organization, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), despite the fact that the IEA had been working on renewables for decades. Why would states create an overlapping organization, thus advancing the overall degree of fragmentation? Drawing on the work of Mansfield and Moravcsik, this article provides an explanation based on domestic preferences and institutional capture. Viewed thus, IRENA was part of an institutional hedging strategy instigated by domestic actors in Germany and allied states to counter the IEA's alleged normative bias toward the fossil and nuclear energy industries with a wider set of alternative energy options. The article suggests that, depending on the domestic preferences of a set of states capable to innovate, the transaction costs associated with institutional reform may surmount those of institutional creation.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Global Environmental Politics, 2013 · DOI ↗
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Field: General Energy
General EnergyEnergy