“Democracy” in Energy

• In Event: Keywords of Environmental Reparation: Restoration, Democracy, and Rights

Abstract

Recently, the term “energy democracy” has been gaining traction as a political stance that forefronts the connections between climate change and social justice. The ideals encompassed in energy democracy - e.g., universal access, renewable resources and a transition away from fossil fuels, non-profit and democratic ownership of utilities, fair labor practices, etc. - are also at work in calls for a Green New Deal, and one could make the argument that the recent coinage and promotion of the subfield of “Energy History” comes from a similar ideological place. As I will discuss in this paper, explicit political linkages between energy and democracy are not new. Debates about the design and ownership of energy infrastructure since the turn of the twentieth century have equated energy access with political power. However, the democratic dividends of the resulting sociotechnical systems have been less clear. This paper will question whether energy is the right place to look for democracy (and other forms of social and environmental justice). Tracing the intellectual history of democracy rhetoric in energy projects shows how “energy” is a category of practice that has always contained social desires. This convergence has enabled material and landscape changes that in turn have redefined the possibilities for democratic engagement. The paper will consequently question what categories are implicitly evoked in calls for “energy democracy” and will examine whether and in what ways tethering environmental history inquiries to the idea of “energy” limits our analytical gaze as historians.

Author

• Abby Spinak, Harvard University