2. Orthodoxies of Energy Governance

For two decades, in the production and accumulation of a growing social science literature, we seem to have witnessed a fundamental change in the ways of seeing government and decision-making under the burgeoning discussion of governance. In order to meet new policy challenges, new fragmented patterns of state-society relations, multi-information gathering, or even higher citizens’ expectations for better public services, public agencies have been given broader responsibilities when making decisions (Pierre and Peters 2000; Bevir et al. 2003a, b; Kooiman 2003; Rhodes 2007; Bevir 2009). They are no longer just asked to follow instructions passed down through traditional vertical levels. Instead, they are expected to undertake a more important external role in order to seek more effective policy outcomes, and so-called stakeholder engagement is regarded as key to promoting various types of public sector performance in a number of industrialised states (Rhodes 1997; Kjaer 2004; Bevir 2010). In the fields of energy, environment, and even in public affairs, it seems to be the case that conceptual changes in perceiving government’s role in providing public services proliferate, while, in the meantime, the concept of governance has become more and more dominant in the contemporary world. However, heterogeneous and ambiguous definitions, and the struggle over practice in the real world, are causing numerous academic debates. In this chapter, I will start conducting an investigation into the connotations of governance, from the broad concept to a discussion of the relations of governance in eco-politics for energy, so as to explore theoretical and practical controversies. The structure of the chapter is as follows. First, I will discuss the definition of governance. Then I will move into the literature of eco-politics, examining notions of sustainability with the changing relationship between participation and inclusiveness introduced before and after the Brundtland Report. I will also discuss the challenges that governance orthodoxy has encountered in real world settings.