Energy security: between markets and sovereign politics

Energy security is a constant presence in the energy-related political discourse all over the world. States strive to secure steady inflows of needed energy supplies, as well as the price affordability of those supplies. However, what are deemed to be the best means to meet such goals depends on one’s theoretical vantage point. On the one hand, economically-minded theorists maintain that energy security is only a matter of market rules and interactions. Thus, they call upon energy markets to deliver both steady supplies and competitive prices. On the other hand, politically-minded scholars emphasize the political and hard-power nature of international energy trades, especially in a global context market by the emergence of state-centered, authoritarian regimes that use large national energy companies as foreign policy instruments. These two positions delineate competing approaches to how energy security risks ought to be managed. The former approaches energy security risks by means similar to portfolio management, requiring diversification of investments in order to insulate them from market shocks. The latter approaches energy security as a matter of foreign policy, by which states envisage interest coordination and favorable alignments within countervailing alliances against the agent of energy security risk. The present paper goes beyond the uncontentious point that these two dimensions are complementary. It argues that, depending on the international context, a more market-driven or a more-politically driven behavior may be adequate.