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The convergent development of (renewable) distributed electricity sources, storage technologies (e.g., batteries), 'big data' devices (e.g., sensors, smart meters), and novel ICT infrastructure matching energy supply and demand (smart grids) enables new local and collective forms of energy consumption and production. This socio-technical evolution has been accompanied by the development of citizen energy communities that have been supported by EU energy governance and directives, adopting a political narrative of placing the citizen central in the ongoing energy transition. But to what extent are the ideals that motivate the energy community movement compatible with those of neoliberalism that have guided EU energy policy for the last four decades? Using a framework inspired by Michel Foucault's idea of governmentality, we analyze the two political forms from three dimensions: ontological, economic and power politics. For the ontological and the economic dimensions, neoliberal governmentality is flexible enough to accommodate the tensions raised by the communitarians. In the dimension of power politics however, the communitarian logic does raise a fundamental challenge to neoliberal governmentality in the sense that it explicitly aims for a redefinition of the 'common good' of society's energy supply based on democratic premises.

In the original article an entire section of text was erroneously repeated. The duplicate section starts on page 3 'Neoliberal EU energy governmentality.…' and ends on page 6 '….sense of increased competition'. The original article has been corrected.

The convergent development of (renewable) distributed electricity sources, storage technologies (e.g., batteries), 'big data' devices (e.g., sensors, smart meters), and novel ICT infrastructure matching energy supply and demand (smart grids) enables new local and collective forms of energy consumption and production. This socio-technical evolution has been accompanied by the development of citizen energy communities that have been supported by EU energy governance and directives, adopting a political narrative of placing the citizen central in the ongoing energy transition. But to what extent are the ideals that motivate the energy community movement compatible with those of neoliberalism that have guided EU energy policy for the last four decades? Using a framework inspired by Michel Foucault's idea of governmentality, we analyze the two political forms from three dimensions: ontological, economic and power politics. For the ontological and the economic dimensions, neoliberal governmentality is flexible enough to accommodate the tensions raised by the communitarians. In the dimension of power politics however, the communitarian logic does raise a fundamental challenge to neoliberal governmentality in the sense that it explicitly aims for a redefinition of the 'common good' of society's energy supply based on democratic premises.

AbstractThis paper aims to open up high-level waste management practices to a political philosophical questioning, beyond the enclosure implied by the normative ethics approaches that prevail in the literature. Building on previous insights derived from mediation theory (in particular the work of Verbeek and Dorrestijn), Foucault and science and technology studies (in particular Jasanoff's work on socio-technical imaginaries), mediation theory's appropriation of Foucauldian insights is shown to be in need of modification and further extension. In particular, we modify Dorrestijn's figure of "technical determination of power relations" to better take into account the (literal and figurative) aspects of imagination, and complement Dorrestijn's work with the figures of techno-scientific mediation, and the inherently political figures of socio-technical and state-technical mediation, both based on Foucault's notion of governmentality. Our analysis implies that the practical implementation of a high-level nuclear waste (HLW) management strategy will require the "stitching together" of these different mediations, which is an inherently political task.

This paper aims to open up high-level waste management practices to a political philosophical questioning, beyond the enclosure implied by the normative ethics approaches that prevail in the literature. Building on previous insights derived from mediation theory (in particular the work of Verbeek and Dorrestijn), Foucault and science and technology studies (in particular Jasanoff's work on socio-technical imaginaries), mediation theory's appropriation of Foucauldian insights is shown to be in need of modification and further extension. In particular, we modify Dorrestijn's figure of "technical determination of power relations" to better take into account the (literal and figurative) aspects of imagination, and complement Dorrestijn's work with the figures of techno-scientific mediation, and the inherently political figures of socio-technical and state-technical mediation, both based on Foucault's notion of governmentality. Our analysis implies that the practical implementation of a high-level nuclear waste (HLW) management strategy will require the "stitching together" of these different mediations, which is an inherently political task.

AbstractThe three-tenet model, which focuses on 'distributional justice', 'procedural justice', and 'justice as recognition', has emerged as the most influential framework in the field of energy justice. Based on critical reviews of the three-tenet model, we identify three challenges that the model currently still faces: (i) a normative challenge on the grounding of the three-tenet model in philosophical theories; (ii) an 'elite' challenge on the justification of the use of power in energy-related decision; and (iii) a practical challenge on the application of the three tenets in situations of conflicting justice demands. In this article, we provide the basic contours of a three-step pluralist and pragmatic dialogue model for questions of energy justice that addresses the three challenges, based on the 'commonwealth model' of Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot. The model proposes to create moral legitimacy in the face of plural demands for energy justice by engaging actors in an inclusive dialogue based on an explicit recognition of Boltanski and Thévenot's commonwealth model. We thereby make three contributions to the existing literature on energy justice. First, the commonwealth model's rootedness in normative political theory provides a stronger philosophical underpinning than was available up till now in the literature (challenge 1). Second, it allows one to go beyond the (almost exclusive) focus on injustices perpetrated on disempowered or marginalised groups, to include questions on the justified exercise of power (challenge 2). Third, the commonwealth model shows us practical ways out of situations where conflicting demands for justice are being made (challenge 3).

Section 1-Introduction -- Chapter 1-Where are we now? justice and energy transitions -- Chapter 2-Ethics without borders-world ethics, comparative philosophy, intercultural ethics for energy transitions -- Section 2-African Philosophy -- Chapter 3-Exploring marginalisation and exclusion in renewable energy development in Africa -- Chapter 4-South Africa's renewable energy independent power producer procurement programme -- Chapter 5-The role of energy technology in quality of life and well being in North Africa -- Section 3-Asian philosophy -- Chapter 6-Chinese energy evaluations -- Chapter 7-Energy ethics and Indian philosophical traditions -- Chapter 8-A question of energy ethics-the creative orthodoxy of Buddhist monks in Mongolia -- Section 4-European ethics -- Chapter 9-Contemporary European approaches to energy ethics -- Chapter 10-Energy ethics in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands -- Section 5-South America -- Chapter 11-Latin American principles and environmental ethics -- Chapter 12-Native Americans and energy development -- Section 6-Theistic traditions -- Chapter 13-(Energy) justice in theistic traditions -- Section 7-Conclusion

This paper makes a conceptual inquiry into the notion of 'publics', and forwards an understanding of this notion that allows more responsible forms of decision-making with regards to technologies that have localized impacts, such as wind parks, hydrogen stations or flood barriers. The outcome of this inquiry is that the acceptability of a decision is to be assessed by a plurality of 'publics', including that of a local community. Even though a plurality of 'publics' might create competing normative demands, its acknowledgment is necessary to withstand the monopolization of the process of technology appraisal. The paper presents four ways in which such an appropriation of publicness takes place. The creation of dedicated 'local publics', in contrast, helps to overcome these problems and allows for more responsible forms of decision-making. We describe 'local publics' as those in which stakeholders from the different publics that are related to the process of technology implementation are brought together, and in which concerns and issues from these publics are deliberated upon. The paper will present eight conditions for increasing the effectiveness of such 'local publics'.