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Towards an Energy Politics In‐Against‐and‐Beyond the State: Berlin's Struggle for Energy Democracy
Author(s) -
Angel James
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
antipode
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.177
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 1467-8330
pISSN - 0066-4812
DOI - 10.1111/anti.12289
Subject(s) - the imaginary , politics , referendum , democracy , state (computer science) , sociology , argument (complex analysis) , political science , energy (signal processing) , political economy , law , psychology , biochemistry , algorithm , computer science , psychotherapist , chemistry , statistics , mathematics
Social movements in struggle around energy are currently developing an imaginary of “energy democracy” to signify the emancipatory energy transitions they desire. Deploying a scholar‐activist perspective, this paper contributes to debates around the concretisation of the energy democracy imaginary by exploring the relationship of energy democracy movements to the state. To do so, I focus on the experiences of the Berliner Energietisch campaign, which in 2013 forced (and lost) a referendum aiming to extend—and democratise—the local state's role in Berlin's energy governance. Drawing on relational theories of the state, I argue that it is productive to read Berliner Energietisch as enacting an energy politics in‐against‐and‐beyond the state . In making this argument, I draw out implications for theoretical and strategic debates around the commons and the state.