Conceptualizing the energy nexus of global public policy and international political economy

Exploring the intersections between International Political Economy (IPE) and global public policy (GPP) in energy scholarship, this chapter argues that contemporary dynamics pertaining to global energy trade and security present a challenge for GPP and IPE. On the one hand, the GPP analysis of energy will need to take account of the IPE debates about geopolitics and power. IPE, in turn, is called to revisit the importance of public goods aspects such as transparency for analyses of global energy trade. The chapter identifies five themes in which it is imperative for IPE and GPP analyses to advance mutual scholarly recognition: the commercialisation of shale oil and gas; its consequence for state-level or international regulation and intervention in oil and gas markets; debates on whether the increased focus on security of supply in the USA, the EU and China (and security of demand in Russia) merits new national policies and international regimes; the kind of global rules that might be viable given the new constellations of power in the world of energy; and what kind of actors shape the future of the energy world.