With the usual apologies for cross-posting …

CALL FOR PAPERS 2015 AAG Conference, Chicago, April 21-25

Organisers: Ed Brown, John Harrison and Jon Cloke (Loughborough University)

Sponsored by the Energy and Environment Speciality Group (EESG) and Development Geographies Speciality Group (DGSG)

Sustainable Energy for All: Renewable Energy and Decentralisation in the Global South

This session aims to scope the implications for energy governance arising from political processes of decentralisation, particularly in a Global South context. Our starting point is the recognition that despite multiple understandings of political decentralisation and the interplay between decentralisation, the role of local and regional governance institutions and the promotion of low carbon transitions being a relatively well-explored theme in the context of the developed market economies, it is less well studied in other contexts. Nonetheless, the implications of decentralising processes for clean energy development are particularly important across lower and lower middle income economies, particularly in an era when the theme of political decentralisation is once again firmly rising up the political agenda and clean energy for development is becoming increasingly important not just to their specific geographical location but to the wider region and world more generally. However with local authorities under increasing pressure  to share the burden of a range of capabilities such as  financial management, local and regional economic development, strategic planning in the local area, budgeting procedures, tax collection, procurement procedures and standards, ethics for local government staff and elected representatives, not to mention action against corruption, many such institutions in Africa and beyond are struggling with the competing demands placed on their time and resources to adequately address issues of energy planning and governance. Added to this, in many African countries local and regional institutions have variable capacities to fulfil their more traditional roles and have low levels of knowledge about energy – be it technological possibilities, policy and regulatory frameworks, or funding schemes. More specifically, the potentially positive roles local and regional institutions might play in relation to energy are heavily conditioned by the broader national circumstances within which they are situated (e.g. powers devolved, budgets they can draw on, capacity to raise their own resources). In short, this means that as energy access and the urgent need for more efficient, decentralized energy delivery systems have risen up the international development and environmental agendas in recent years, issues of local and regional governance – which have been at the forefront of other discussions over resources management and infrastructure development and which are an essential accompaniment to the energy access discussion– do not appear to have been anywhere near as prominent in discussions of energy.

We therefore welcome papers that attempt to better understand the role of local authorities and regional institutions in addressing energy issues (particularly within the context of the moves towards energy decentralisation) and how these roles are being (or stand to be) affected by processes of political decentralisation. The focus of the session(s) is particularly on developments occurring in the Global South but we would welcome any papers which have a development perspective to them. 

Potential topics/themes of interest might include, but are not limited to:

•	Theoretical interventions and/or empirical studies which seek to advance new ways of conceptualising governance, decentralisation and energy from a development perspective;
•	Papers which connect the decentralised energy revolution to broader processes of political, economic and social change;
•	Empirical studies which interrogate the implications of political decentralisation for energy governance – the opportunities, the challenges, the barriers;
•	Accounts examining the role of local and regional institutions in promoting decentralised energy generation;
•	Studies which grapple with questions of agency (who is involved), process (how they are involved), and specific interests (why are they involved) in relation to decentralised energy generation and governance;
•	Global comparative perspectives on decentralised energy generation and the role of local and regional institutions therein;
•	The implications of political decentralisation for energy governance;
•	What research on energy decentralisation and political decentralisation for energy governance can reveal – both intellectually and practically – for debates on decentralisation more generally.

To be considered for the session(s) please send your 250 word abstract to Ed Brown ([log in to unmask]), John Harrison ([log in to unmask]) and Jon Cloke ([log in to unmask]) by the deadline of 20 October. You will be notified of acceptance before 24 October, at which point you will be need to have registered at www.aag.org to receive your AAG PIN.