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Energy Security in Europe pp 1–29Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

The Multiple Faces of Energy Security: An Introduction

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Part of the book series: Energy, Climate and the Environment ((ECE))

Abstract

If EU Member States face similar energy security challenges, but often opt for differing interpretations and policy solutions, how can we assess their potential for energy cooperation? An important divisive factor is the divergent understanding of 'energy security'. How does it differ between states, energy sectors and within each sector? These are the main questions that the entire edited volume tries to answer. This introductory chapter begins with a broad literature review on the way ‘energy security’ should be understood. After presenting the most conventional definition which originates in the policy realm and visibly dominates the field, I discuss three approaches to elaborating and (re)defining 'energy security'. These are dubbed: inductive, abductive and deductive. I then argue for the importance of a 'deductively' acquired analytical concept of ‘energy security’, allowing to distinguish it properly from other areas of security and other policy fields. Defining energy security as ‘low vulnerability of vital energy systems’ (Cherp and Jewell, Energy Policy 75:415–421, 2014), allows for the operationalisation of the general research problem posed earlier. I then present the rationale of the two parts of the book, and conclude with an overview of the chapters.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The meanings of the verb include: to make certain; ensure; to guarantee; to get possession of; acquire; to bring about as well as to protect from danger or risk. Compare my take on the matter with Bridge’s thesis that ‘energy security’ implies a ‘securitisation of energy’ which ‘normalizes certain practices of resource use, and establishes grounds for intervention’ (2015: 328 and 336).

  2. 2.

    While ‘energy security’ is not reducible to ‘supply security’, this is not to say that ‘security of demand’ should necessarily be integrated into the definition. That is something that many scholars (Austvik 2016; Brauch 2015; Cao and Bluth 2013; Reddy 2015) and especially energy-exporting states emphasise. There are, however, good reasons not to treat ‘demand security’ as a necessary element of energy security—leaving it rather to international trade.

  3. 3.

    The by now canonical least of features ‘making a concept good’ in the social sciences is provided by Gerring (2011): (1) familiarity, (2) resonance, (3) parsimony, (4) coherence, (5) differentiation, (6) depth, (7) theoretical utility and (8) field utility.

  4. 4.

    An earlier definition, similar to the one proposed by Cherp and Jewell (2014) was developed in the Global Energy Assessment by, among others, these authors, as ‘uninterrupted provision of vital energy services’ (my italics). This availability-based and consumption-centred definition is something mid-way between a conventional and an analytical one. See: Cherp et al. (2012).

  5. 5.

    They themselves speak of an ‘interdisciplinary Energy security studies’.

  6. 6.

    As a matter of fact, this contextualised meaning of energy and energy security was already present in Yergin’s (1988) approach, but few scholars noted the latter part of his definition: ‘major national and objectives’.

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    Kacper Szulecki

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    Kacper Szulecki

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Szulecki, K. (2018). The Multiple Faces of Energy Security: An Introduction. In: Szulecki, K. (eds) Energy Security in Europe. Energy, Climate and the Environment. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64964-1_1

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