Nick Sitter

the Oxford Handbook of International Political Economy Doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198793519.001.0001

This chapter reviews the IPE scholarship in energy over the last few decades. It shows that there is a deep divide between two dominant schools of thought in IPE energy research: the liberal school and the realist school. While there is relatively little interaction between the two schools, and very few ontological or epistemological debates, scholars from each school, some of the problems that have driven the main IPE energy research agendas increasingly blur the boundary between trade and security. Liberal energy policy debates have moved from a focus on trade to market failures related to security and climate change; while some realist scholarship increasingly incorporates trade and economic competition with a shift the from geopolitics of energy to the geo-economics of energy. The chapter outlines four broad issues that may force more engagement between the two schools, and that in any case point to how energy research may contribute to IPE as a discipline: the changing utility of power in international relations, the challenges associate with different types of global policy regimes, the rise of state-capitalist China and Russia in the context of an energy self-reliant USA, and the possible trend toward a fragmented post-globalized intentional order.

ifo Schnelldienst 75(12) s. 12-15

Der Ukraine-Krieg, Höchstpreise bei Gas und Strom und ein strukturell angespannter Markt für Flüssiggas (LNG) fordern das liberale EU-Energiemarktmodell im Kern heraus. Zwei zentrale Elemente fallen dabei zusammen. Zum einen sind die Politik-Antworten auf die Energiekrise zutiefst interventionistisch und entwickeln Pfadabhängigkeiten. Damit stellt sich die Frage, ob das liberale Paradigma, das die Marktintegration über die letzten Jahrzehnte kennzeichnete, im zukünftigen Marktdesign weiterhin zentrale Bedeutung hat. Zum anderen »versicherheitlicht« die Krise die Energietransition. Statt Klimapolitik treibt nun das Ziel der nationalen Sicherheit Erneuerbare und Dekarbonisierung. Was sind die Optionen für die EU? Dieser Beitrag argumentiert, dass ein Weg zurück zum etablierten, »liberalen« Modell unwahrscheinlich ist. Stattdessen bleibt die Wahl zwischen Gradskalen von »mehr Staat« in der europäischen Energie-Governance. Beide sind jedoch mit wichtigen Güterabwägungen verbunden.

Social Democracy in the 21st Century s. 37-68 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1108/S0195-631020210000035003

It is often said that we live in a time of crisis for social democracy. Many of the West European centre-left parties that seemed the natural parties of government in the second half of the twentieth century are in decline. The most common long-term explanations centre on a shrinking working class, a widening gap between the party elite and their core voters, and the challenges from new populist parties and/or greens. Short-term policy factors include the failure to address the recent financial and refugee crises. None of these factors carry much explanatory weight for developments in Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic in the three decades since the transition from communism. We find that much of the explanation for the rise and the fall of the five social democratic parties in these countries lies in the dynamics of party competition and party system change. All parties face dilemmas of policy, electoral appeal and coalition-building. The Central European cases suggest that it is how social democrats handle such challenges and make difficult choices about strategy and tactics that ultimately shapes their longterm fate. Centre-left parties are stronger masters of their fortunes than much of the literature on the decline of social democracy suggests. Consequently, seeking a common structural explanation for the rise and decline of social democratic parties might be a double fallacy: both empirically misleading and a poor base for policy advice.

European Foreign Affairs Review 26(3) s. 127-144 Doi: https://doi.org/10.54648/EERR2021030

During the second half of the 2010s the governments of Poland and Hungary took a sharp turn away from liberal democracy and the rule of law. As they slipped down the international democracy rankings, the European Union initiated its procedures under Article 7 to investigate possible breaches of its fundamental laws and values. However, the two governments sought to distinguish between their conflict with the European Commission over the rule of law on one hand and their commitment to collective security on the other. The central question in this article is whether they managed to do this, and to what extent democratic backsliding poses security challenges for the EU by weakening its actorness in the field of security, defence and foreign policy. A comparative assessment of Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic suggests that democratic backsliding does indeed have security implications for the EU, but that this is only one of several factors driving differentiated integration in the Visegrád Four in this field. Developments in the region are part of a wider EU trend of re-nationalization of security policy. Indeed, in the security field, vertical differentiated integration (in the sense of different mixes of supranational and intergovernmental regimes) is a key factor in mitigating the consequences of horizontal differentiation (different Member State policies).

Policy and Society: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Policy Research 40(4) s. 467-483 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/14494035.2020.1864100

Although IPE and GPP overlap conceptionally and empirically, there is a case for keeping GPP and IPE analytically distinct. To simplify: GPP tells us why we need international regimes for energy, while IPE tells us why we only have incomplete ones. Although many scholars draw on both sets of literatures, the two approaches to the study of energy market, regulation and politics entail asking different types of questions based on distinct theories and assumptions. The central propositions in this article are that i) in a rapidly changing world of energy scholars from both camps need to be aware of and open to insights from the other school; ii) that the distinction between market-focused liberal scholars on one hand and security-oriented or realist scholars on the other is increasingly important; and iii) that although IPE and GPP scholars can fruitfully accommodate insights from each others literature, the two approaches to the study of energy policy are best valued by their own analytical contribution – even as we grapple with new, cross-cutting issues such as the geopolitics and geo-economics of global energy transitions.

Perspectives on Politics 20(1) s. 22-37 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592720001292

In the academic literature, Hungary and Poland are often cited as paradigmatic cases of democratic backsliding. However, as the backsliding narrative gained traction, the term has been applied to the rest of the post-communist region, including the Czech Republic and Slovakia. We suggest that this diagnosis is in part based on conceptual stretching, and set out to rescue the concept as an analytical tool. We then assess the extent of backsliding in the four Visegrád countries, explaining backsliding (and the relative lack of it) in terms of motive, opportunity, and the strength or weakness of opposing or constraining forces. We conclude that the situation is not as desperate as some commentators would have it: democratic backsliding in Hungary and Poland was contingent on a few exceptional factors, and EU leaders therefore need not be paralysed by the fear of contagion when they contemplate forceful action against backsliding member states.

Journal of European Integration 42(1) s. 111-127 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/07036337.2019.1708341

This paper investigates contestation of authority in EU energy policy, with a focus on natural gas. It argues that the main challenge centers on the EU’s goals and means of energy security policy, not the location and scope of authority. The contested choice is between an across-the-board approach to regulation (Regulatory Power)- and a strategy that opens for the use of regulatory tools for geo-political purposes (Market Power). Competing claims of authority and competing views on how the European Commission should wield its regulatory power reflect both geography (North-Western versus (South-Eastern Europe) and the policy paradigm (market versus geo-politics). The Commission’s traditional strategy in energy policy – power-sharing and compromise – only works if there exists a consensus on the ultimate purpose of regulation. However, when the contested issue is whether the Commission should use is regulatory power to pursue market integration or geo-political goals, this presents a genuine policy dilemma.

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics Doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.1476

Comparative Constitution Making s. 408-426 Doi: https://doi.org/10.4337/9781785365263.00027

Handbook of the International Political Economy of Energy and Natural Resources s. 23-32 Doi: https://doi.org/10.4337/9781783475636.00009

New Political Economy of Energy in Europe. Power to Project, Power to Adapt s. 49-72 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93360-3_3

New Political Economy of Energy in Europe. Power to Project, Power to Adapt s. 27-47 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93360-3_2

Palgrave Macmillan

Energy Union: Europe's New Liberal Mercantilism? s. 223-236 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59104-3_13

Dreyer Forlag A/S

Angrepene på regjeringskvartalet og Utøya 22. juli 2011 satte terrorisme og bekjempelse av terrorisme på dagsorden i Norge på en helt ny måte. Etter et tiår med fokus på Al-Qaida, var dette en sterk påminnelse om at terrorisme er et mangfoldig fenomen. I mer enn halvannet århundre har det vært en utfordring for demokratier å bekjempe denne formen for politisk vold. Moderne terrorisme begynte for alvor etter at Alfred Nobel oppfant dynamitten i 1867. Denne nye teknologien gjorde det mulig å drepe eller skade i et mye større omfang enn angrep med skytevåpen. Når dette ble kombinert med nye radikale ideologier og en kommunikasjonsrevolusjon i form av masseproduserte aviser, ble det mulig for små grupper å nå et stort publikum. Hovedtemaene i boken er hva som motiverer terrorister, hva terroristgrupper forsøker å oppnå, og ikke minst, hvordan terrorisme best kan bekjempes. Boken tar for seg en rekke eksempler fra Europa, USA, Sør-Afrika og Midtøsten for å belyse mangfoldet i terrorisme som strategi, så vel som styrker og svakheter med forskjellige måter å bekjempe terrorisme på. Nesten alle terrorister forsøker å provosere stater til å overreagere – men historien viser at det finnes smartere alternativer.

Energy Union: Europe's New Liberal Mercantilism? s. 185-200 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59104-3_11

Energy Union: Europe's New Liberal Mercantilism? s. 13-26 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59104-3_2

Moderne Forretningsjus III s. 323-334

Terrorism and Political Violence 28(2) s. 197-216 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2015.1112277

ARTICLE + three replies by Rapoport, Townshend and Kaplan). David Rapoport's concept of Four Waves of terrorism, from Anarchist terrorism in the 1880s, through Nationalist and Marxist waves in the early and mid-twentieth century, to the present Religious Wave, is one of the most influential concepts in terrorism studies. However, this article argues that thinking about different types of terrorism as strains rather than waves better reflects both the empirical reality and the idea that terrorists learn from and emulate each other. Whereas the notion of waves suggests distinct iterations of terrorist violence driven by successive broad historical trends, the concept of strains and contagion emphasizes how terrorist groups draw on both contemporary and historical lessons in the development of their tactics, strategies, and goals. The authors identify four distinct strains in total—Socialist, Nationalist, Religious, and Exclusionist—and contend that it is possible to trace each strain back to a “patient zero” active in the 1850s.

The European Union's Foreign Policy in Comparative Perspective: Evaluating and generating hypotheses on 'actorness and power'

EU Leadership in Energy and Environmental Governance: Global and Local Challenges and Responses Doi: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137502766_3

Review of International Political Economy 22(5) s. 941-965 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290.2015.1008547

International security debates surrounding the European Union (EU) energy supply challenge commonly invoke the need for more EU hard power – e.g. getting tough on Russia or engaging directly with other exporters. This article investigates whether what might be labelled ‘soft power with a hard edge’ instead amounts to a consistent policy strategy for the EU. The central argument is that the EU has turned a weakness into strength, and developed a set of tools that sharpen the way soft power is exercised in the energy sector. The article explores how soft power affects companies that ‘come and play’ on the EU market: the rules of the Single European Market (SEM) and how they affect external firms. It also assesses the long reach of the SEM: both the gravitational ‘pull’ the SEM exerts in the ‘near aboard’, and the EU's ‘push’ to facilitate the development of midstream infrastructure and upstream investment. The conclusion is that the EU regulatory state is emerging as an international energy actor in its own right. It limits the ways states like Russia can use state firms in the geopolitical game; and it exports its model into the near abroad, thus stabilizing energy supply and transit routes.

Journal of European Integration 37(3) s. 319-334 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/07036337.2014.953947

Since the Single European Act the EU has brought many ‘public’ policy sectors characterised by heterogeneity under the umbrella of the Single Market. Consequently, some of the tools employed to shelter these sectors from supranational governance — unanimous decision-making, limited Commission competence and ‘ring fenced’ national regimes — are no longer fully relevant. The member states and the Commission have therefore developed a series of additional measures to accommodate heterogeneity. The central questions here are: as integration proceeds, what can member states reasonably demand in order to safeguard their interests? And, how can the Commission offer the necessary flexibility? The literature on policy implementation and differentiated integration provides a point of departure for generalisations about changes to mechanisms of intergovernmental governance. The present paper uses developments in the EU gas sector to explore and elaborate how the adoption of new measures changes the mechanisms of intergovernmental governance.

Demokrati - historien og ideene s. 590-603

Science based activism. Festschrift to Jørgen Randers s. 143-156

East European Politics 31(1) s. 1-22 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/21599165.2014.959661

Thirty-nine parties have crossed the electoral threshold in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary since the collapse of communism. Twenty-three of them subsequently failed. Of these, only two parties managed to return on their own. Another survives in an electoral alliance. The rest have merged, ceased to exist, or maintain a ‘zombie-like’ existence. We map and analyse the fate of failed parties, and explore why some close down quickly while others soldier on. The core factors are the opportunity structures (potential alliances or new homes for the elite), alternative arenas for competition, and the organisational strength of the party.

Oxford University Press

Journal of European Public Policy 21(10) s. 1452-1472 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2014.912251

This article investigates the European Commission's external energy policy through the lens of the regulatory state. It argues that because of the nature of its institutions, policy tools and resources, the Commission remains a liberal actor even as the world leaves the benign pro-market environment of the 1990s and becomes more mercantilist – or ‘realist’. The article tests seven hypotheses related to two key challenges as perceived by the Commission: building energy markets, and making them work. It finds that the Commission seeks to project the single market beyond its jurisdiction to deal with transit infrastructure problems; extend international regimes to cover energy trade; deal with monopolists such as Gazprom through classical competition policy; and fix global energy market failures with clear regulatory state tools. Importantly, however, some actions by the Commission can be seen as an attempt to counterbalance external actors, or as second-best efforts to address energy market failures.

Ukraine at Crossroads: Prospects of Ukraine's Relations with the European Union and Hungary s. 20--25

Global Policy 5(2) s. 159-168 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12058

East European Politics 29(2) s. 208-225 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/21599165.2013.786702

During the first two decades after the collapse of communism 37 political parties won representation in the Czech, Slovak or Hungarian Parliaments. By 2012, 22 of these parties had failed in the sense that they have fallen below the five-percent electoral threshold at least once. This set of failed parties includes a wide range of parties, from the far right and nationalist flanks to unreconstructed communists, including centre, green, agrarian, Christian and social democrat parties. Some were represented in parliament for one term only, others were in parliament for two decades. In this article we explore how and why these parties fell out of parliament. Beyond the obvious answer – that they failed to win enough votes – five factors involve particularly high political risk for political parties. Two system-level factors are somewhat beyond the control of the smaller parties: changes in the salience of cleavages and the electoral system. However, the other three are directly linked to the parties’ strategies for competition: whether they participate in coalition government as a junior partner, how they manage internal dissent, and the party’s organisational strength.

Nationalism & Ethnic Politics 19(1) s. 38-57 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13537113.2013.761884

Analyzing European Union Politics s. 505-544

Norsk statsvitenskapelig tidsskrift 28(4) s. 213-240

I 1995 fastslo EU-domstolen at profesjonell fotball var en del av det indre marked. Dette førte til sterke negative reaksjoner fra fotballklubber og -forbund i hele Europa. Bosmandommen presset samtidig EU-kommisjonen til å klargjøre fotballens status som kommersiell aktivitet. De tre mest sentrale temaene var ordningene for spillernes overgang mellom klubber, kvoter for utenlandske spillere, og salg av medierettigheter. I denne artikkelen ser vi på norske reaksjoner på dommen, og utviklingen av et nytt regime for profesjonell fotball i de påfølgende år. Den første reaksjonen fra norsk fotball var at EUs krav utgjorde en trussel. Den videre utviklingen ble imidlertid preget av en dialog mellom EU-kommisjonen og UEFA. Denne prosessen førte frem til et kompromiss som ivaretok både EUs konkurranseregler og verdier som står sentralt i norsk og europeisk fotball. Norsk representasjon i UEFAs ledelse ga nasjonale fotballaktører informasjon og innsikt i lokale tilpasningsmuligheter. Artikkelen illustrerer en form for europeisering preget av gjensidig tilpasning som har fått relativt lite oppmerksomhet i studier av europeisering.

European Disunion: Between Sovereignty and Solidarity s. 267-283 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137271358_18

Høyreeksstremisme: Ideer og bevegelser i Europa s. 285-319

20 Years since the Fall of the Berlin Wall. Transitions, State Break-Up and Democratic Politics in Central Europe and Germany s. 249-268

Ùj képlet: A 2010-es választások Magyarországon s. 43-57

Nations and Nationalism 16(1) s. 1-5

Managing Global Transitions 8(2) s. 145-166

Nations and Nationalism 16(1) s. 49-67

Political Studies 58(3) s. 410-426 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.2009.00783.x

Referendums and representative democracy : responsiveness, accountability and deliberation s. 77-97

Political economy of energy in Europe: forces of integration and fragmentation s. 63-84

P. Taggart & A. Szczerbiak (eds), Opposing Europe? The Comparative Party Politics of Euroscepticism

Journal of Common Market Studies 46(Annual Review) s. 183213-183213

Elisabeth Bakke, Einar Berntzen og Knut Heidar (red), Politikk i Europa: Partier, regjeringsmakt, styreform s. 19-19

P. Taggart & A. Szczerbiak (eds), Opposing Europe? The Comparative Party Politics of Euroscepticism

K. A. Eliassen & J. From, The Privatization of European Telecommunications

Journal of Common Market Studies 45(September, Supplemen) s. 183-211

Journal of European Integration 28(4) s. 313-330

E. Bakke (ed.), Sentral-Europa og Baltikum etter 1989

D. Reynié (ed.), L'opinion européenne 2006

Journal of Common Market Studies 44 s. 171-198

West European Politics 29(3) s. 573-580 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/01402380600620700

EPERN Election Briefings

Europe's Nascent State: Public Policy in the European Union, Essays in Honour of Kjell A. Eliassen , J. From & N. Sitter (eds)

Democratization 12(2) s. 183-201

M. P. van der Hoek (ed.), Handbook on Public Policy and Administration in the EU

Sussex European Institute EPERN Election Briefings

P.Magnette (ed.): La Grande Europe

European Journal of Political Research 43(4) s. 523-546

? 32(3) s. 239-252

Scandinavian Political Studies 26(2) s. 125-144

P. Lewis & P. Webb (eds.): Pan-European Perspective on Political Parties

M. Campanella & S. Eijffinger (eds.): EU Economic Governance and Globalization

E. Bakke (red): Politisk utvikling i Sentral-Europa og Baltikum siden 1989

Perspectives on European Politics and Society 3(3) s. 425-451

Central European political science review 3(7) s. 75-96

Central European political science review 2(3) s. 67-91

Making policy in Europe/Svein Andersen og Kjell Eliassen (eds.)

West European Politics 24(4) s. 22-39

European Telecommunications Liberalisation