Political Transformations of Energy and the Environment

Bildinfo

Pipeline near to Sines, in Portugal, Foto: Traroth, Quelle: wikimedia commons, Lizenz: CC BY-SA 3.0

Economic processes always involve the consumption or conversion of energy. Historically, the composition of primary energy sources has changed significantly. Since the emergence of the environmental movement and mounting concerns about global resource limits in the 1970s, the relation between economy and ecology has become a central social and political concern. Recently, its relevance has become even more pronounced due to the effects of climate change. How did national governments and international organizations try to ensure sufficient energy supplies? How did they, as well as non-governmental organizations, try to control and mitigate the negative ecological consequences of energy consumption?

Projektverbünde

Expecting Limits and Limiting Expectations – Economic Expertise, Environmental Policy and Consumption, 1970-2000

Research project
Project-Leader: Prof. Dr. Rüdiger Graf
Within the DFG Priority Program on “Experience and Expectation: Historical Foundations of Economic Behavior,” the project analyzes the importance of economic expertise for environmental policy-making. Two sub-projects will examine the work of the expert councils on the environment and the strategies to influence environmental behavior, especially energy consumption.

Projekte

Mario Bianchini

The Production and Dissemination of Energy Knowledge in the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic from 1949 to 1989/90

Research project

The German-German comparison demarcates the political elements of energy knowledge by comparing how this field was created and disseminated in both a planned economy system with a state-controlled public sphere and a liberal economic order.

Thomas Lettang

Regulating energy consumption in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1970-2000

PhD project

Part of the project “Expecting Limits and Limiting Expectations – Economic Expertise, Environmental Policy and Consumption, 1970-2000”. The project examines the regulation of the energy consumption of private households from the 1970s to 1990s.

Jan-Henrik Meyer

Nuclear energy, international organisations and the law

Associated reseach project
Based on the history of the international, European and national legal regulation of nuclear power, the project deals with central questions of historical research: the role of international organisations and their experts; politics, law and regulation; environmental protection and energy use; and the handling of technologies and their risks.

Laura Kaiser

Economic Expertise and Environmental Regulation in West Germany since the 1970s

PhD project

Part of the Project "Expecting Limits and Limiting Expectations – Economic Expertise, Environmental Policy and Consumption, 1970-2000". The project examines the growing importance of economic regulation in West German environmental policy in the last third of the 20th century. In particular, it focuses on the proliferation of economic expertise in advisory boards such as the Council of Experts on Environmental Issues.