Diminishing Barriers to Entry and the Gradual Decentralization of Institutional Topologies in the Energy Regime Complex

Abstract

Abstract This chapter provides a longitudinal analysis of the institutional topology underlying the energy governance regime complex. It shows how barriers to entry institutionalized forms of cooperation in the issue area have been successively reduced over the last decades. While at the beginning of the 1990s, institutionalized forms of cooperation on the issue of energy governance were an exclusive option for a small group of powerful states, the chapter demonstrates that over time, the liberalization of the energy market following the end of the Cold War, the potential to exploit new energy forms in many regions, and the exponential rise of the availability of renewable energy technologies incentivized several new states to create energy governance institutions. As the longitudinal analyses of the institutional networks underlying the energy governance complex reveal, it has, over time, indeed become more decentralized and contested, particularly at the expense of the International Energy Agency (IEA).