Socio-technical Change and the Politics of Urban Infrastructure: Managing Energy in Berlin between Dictatorship and Democracy

Timothy Moss

Urban Studies, 2014, vol. 51, issue 7, 1432-1448

Abstract: This paper reconstructs the trajectory of energy efficiency policies in Berlin from the 1920s to today in order to illustrate how the shifting political and socioeconomic conditions of a city can shape urban energy provision and consumption. Taking a long-term perspective on the relationship between urban transitions and energy policy, it investigates how the geo-political turbulence, regime diversity and socioeconomic volatility experienced by 20th-century Berlin influenced strategies of electricity generation and use in the city. Drawing on different ways of conceptualising change to socio-technical systems in the literature, the paper’s findings present a more differentiated picture of urban energy transitions than notions of path dependency and transition pathways imply, highlighting the importance of non-linear trends, political contestation and crisis discourses in and beyond the city and their relevance for reconfiguring urban energy systems today.

Keywords: Berlin; energy transitions; socio-technical change; urban infrastructure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:51:y:2014:i:7:p:1432-1448

DOI: 10.1177/0042098013500086

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