From National to Cosmopolitan Hydrocarbons Resource Space: Hydrocarbons, Transnational Politics and the State in Greece

Abstract

In this paper, we historicise the co-production of regional visions and governing practices for hydrocarbon explorations in the particular case of Greece. The paper aims to contribute a new understanding of state-building processes by studying how visions and infrastructures steered energy policies, (re-)configured hydrocarbon resource spaces and shaped technopolitical order in the Eastern Mediterranean. Chronologically, the storyline is divided into three distinct periods, in which visions and related practices shaped the hydrocarbon space: the first period in which the hydrocarbon space was constructed, the second period in which a non-commons truce was maintained to avoid conflict, and the final period in which a cosmopolitan common in the Eastern Mediterranean emerged.