Author: Pratyusha Kiran

We invite abstract submissions for an international, virtual workshop on the theme of “Crisis in the energy markets,” to be held on 2-3 February, 2023.

The project of decarbonizing the energy system has a complex and tense relationship to the project of remaking the sector as a set of integrated price-forming and competitive markets. That tension has been heightened by recent crises in the supply of energy. In many instances, the two goals are simply incompatible. As a result, energy markets are the object of intensive rethinking, struggle, and experimentation. The rules of the market, the identity of the actors involved, even cultural framings of what markets are and what is expected of them are at stake. The liberalized market and planning are no longer described by a single axis but coexist in new
configurations.

While there is an extensive literature on the recommended and desirable features of
energy markets, this workshop is meant to encourage work that examines the complex process by which actual markets are shaped. This includes perspectives from political economy, economic sociology, science and technology studies, finance and valuation studies, which are concerned with the emergent order of markets in understanding the markets we get, rather than specifying what markets we want.
The study of the energy sector also constitutes a formidable opportunity to understand economic regulation, its legitimacy requirements, its intellectual, ideological, and institutional resources. It presents an opportunity to question the delegation of this complex regulation to experts, and to challenge the strong inertia of institutionalized rules. Analyses of energy markets can both describe and participate in the political contestation over distribution, price, and
access.

And finally, the reconfiguration of energy markets provides fertile ground for advancing our general understanding of processes of valuation, market formation, and economization.