Strategies for Survival: The International Energy Agency's response to a new world

Christian Downie

Energy Policy, 2020, vol. 141, issue C

Abstract: Changes in the international balance of power, transformations in global energy markets, and the proliferation of new energy organizations have left the IEA facing a potential crisis. Traditionally scholars assume that international organizations, such as the IEA, have little autonomy to respond to changes in the international environment. While empirical studies have shown that this does not always match reality, almost no scholarship has focussed on these issues in the domain of energy. In particular, on the strategic role that international organizations can play in their own right and the impact this could have on the existing international energy architecture. This paper seeks to address this gap by focussing on the behaviour of the IEA since 2015 when it commenced a modernisation programme. Drawing on interviews with energy officials, it identifies the key pressures shaping the IEA's environment, the IEA's strategies in response, and the extent to which the IEA's has had autonomy from member states to pursue its strategies. The empirical analysis highlights that policymakers should pay greater attention to the strategic actions of organizations like the IEA and the way they can shape the contours of the energy domain.

Keywords: International Energy Agency; Global energy governance; International organizations; G20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421520302056
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:enepol:v:141:y:2020:i:c:s0301421520302056

DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2020.111452

Access Statistics for this article

Energy Policy is currently edited by N. France

More articles in Energy Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().