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Objectives
The research project focuses on two main issues:
[I] The study of energy supply security and geopolitics and
[II] Energy efficiency, alternative energy resources and sustainable development.
The object of this research project is first, to study the effects of the global geopolitics of energy supply security on the main energy consuming countries & regions (the European Union (EU), the United States (US), China, India, and Japan) and their national/regional strategy of securing supply from the Caspian region, the Persian Gulf and more recently Africa. Second, this course studies the possibilities and impediments energy efficiency, alternative energy resources, and renewables face in securing energy supply and promoting sustainable development.
Since the end of the Cold War, states and non-state actors have assigned more significance to economic and resource concerns. Conflicts over the control and security of global oil and gas become more probable as global oil and gas consumption and import rise, environmental conditions deteriorate availability of oil and gas decreases and prices for these commodities rise. Internal conflicts over oil and gas could arise in countries where these are the main source of income, and are accompanied by ethnic hostility, economic injustice, and political competition. This could have a great effect of global oil and gas production and supply. Due to the growing energy import dependency of the main regions and countries, China, Japan, India, but also the US and the European Union energy supply will become increasingly politicized. Competition and co-operation among consumer countries for energy supplies in the Caspian region and the Persian Gulf are likely to become more intense in the coming decades while geopolitical events in the these two regions will influence the developments in the oil and gas sector and policy making in the consumer countries and regions.
Energy security is also affected by environmental constraints and advances in technology. Where pollution creates cross-border tensions, innovations in alternative and renewable resources, alongside efficiency measures, can reduce energy import dependence and contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, deploying new technologies involves more than a simple replacement of oil and gas by other energy sources. It requires building new production facilities, new storage and distribution means and even end-use applications. Apart from time and money, such energy infrastructure transitions also necessitate continued government and popular support.
It is expected that even by 2030 the role of renewables in the global energy mix is marginal at best. The World Energy Outlook 2006 of the International Energy Agency/ EIA states in its Alternative Policy Scenario that while renewables today cover 13.1% of global primary energy supply, by 2030 this will be only 14%. In the European Union's 27 memebr states things do not look much better. Currently, renewables on average make up only around 6% of national energy mixes and rarely go above 10%. This is due not because of a lack of development of renewables, but simply because global oil, gas and coal consumption will also continue to rise. Nevertheless, as oil and gas become increasingly scarce, developing innovative technologies is the only long-term alternative.
Contents
The purpose of this part of the research project is to enable its participants to develop the skills required to design and execute a research project, on the basis of which an MA thesis will ultimately be produced.
The course will familiarize students with the essential IR-research techniques that they are most likely to employ during their research, rather than be presented with an exhaustive inventory of all the different techniques of data collection that social researchers use.
The wider goals of this course are, first, to help students begin developing valuable research and analytic skills, as already described above, and second, to help the students gain a deeper appreciation of how knowledge of research methodology can make one more critical and insightful of the information one encounters in our academic, professional, and everyday lives. The first things you must ask yourself upon encountering new information in class, literature, or at work/internship, should be: “How did the author come to know this? Are the author’s claims backed up by logical argumentation, empirical evidence, and solid research, or do the author’s claims simply rest on rhetorical persuasion?” The main topics that will be addressed are:
- Energy Supply Security and Geopolitics
- Energy Efficiency, Alternative Energy Resources and Sustainable development
- Global Political Economy of Energy
- Research Methodology for Thesis Writing
The main research questions being addressed in the course are f the following ones:
- What are the opportunities and challenges with which the main consumer countries and regions (such as the EU, the US, China, India and Japan) are confronted in search of energy resources (mainly located in the Middle East, the Caspian region and Africa) to maintain an adequate security of energy supply?
- What are the possibilities and impediments for the establishment of a common energy foreign policy and how will it relate to national energy policies?
- What are the policy tools available for the EU for securing its energy supply and how can a common energy foreign policy contribute?
- What is the effect of the current relations between state based Transnational Oil Companies (i.e. Chinese National Petroleum Company; GazProm, Saudi Aramco, National Iranian Oil Company) and private based transnational oil companies ( i.e. Royal Dutch Shell; Exxon Mobil; British Petroleum; Chevron) on the security of energy supply and the role energy foreign policy can play?
- In which way can producer-consumer dialogues and regional cooperation possibly help to mitigate internal security risks in producer countries?
For an overview of the selected successful completed MA-theses of the Research Project-The Political Economy of Energy, see the following website: Energy Program Asia-International Institute for Asian Studies:
http://www.IIAS.nl/epa
Registration at
Registration through SIS
Format
Contents of Research Project-Political Economy of Energy
Part 1 (4 sessions)
General Overview of Theory and MethodologyIntroduction:
The Aims of the Research project
Individual Research Topic
The Theoretical and Methodological Dimensions of the Research Project
Part 2 consists of 5 meetings: The main focus of this part deals with the Individual Research Projects
Part 3 (2 sessions) The students will give presentations on their emerging thesis topic.
Time
Please check the course schedules on
http://rooster.uva.nl.
Min/max participants
Number of participants: 10
Assessment
Class participation, presentations, occasional essays, outline, and final thesis
Remarks
Five places will be reserved for master's students Internationale Betrekkingen (4th year) who have finished all their course work and only need to complete their thesis.
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