Papers by andrea prontera
Energiepolitik und Klimaschutz. Energy Policy and Climate Protection
Italy has abandoned its nuclear power ambitions in the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster and fo... more Italy has abandoned its nuclear power ambitions in the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster and following the decision of the popular referendum held on 8 November 1987. However, nuclear waste from four permanently shut down nuclear plants, various research reactors, reprocessing and fuel fabrication facilities represents a pressing problem. The nuclear waste governance in Italy is characterised by a complex, intertwined relationship and interaction between the different political-territorial levels from the national, the regional to the local. Recently, after a long period of incoherent stop and go nuclear research and industrial policies, local opposition and a subsequent deadlock, the mandatory search for a national site has started taking shape. The national map of potentially suitable area released in 2021 was followed by a series of consultations to which several institutional and civil society actors participated. In January 2022, the public consultation was concluded and in M...
Greening energy governance through agencification in the Global South: Drivers and implications
Regulation & Governance
This article offers the first comprehensive analysis of the emergent modes for greening electrici... more This article offers the first comprehensive analysis of the emergent modes for greening electricity governance through agencification in the Global South by examining the drivers and role of renewable energy agencies (REAs) in various countries in the Middle East and North Africa region. Furthermore, the article illustrates the impact of this form of agencification on the deployment of renewables and the "democratization" of energy governance. We found that the diffusion of REAs is facilitated by the intermediation of international and transnational actors, whereas their role in national energy governance is constrained by the fossil fuels rentier political economy. As an institutional strategy for greening energy governance, agencification has the potential to foster the deployment of renewables: agencies can catalyze external funding overcoming regulatory and policy barriers. However, this strategy can reproduce top-down approaches to policymaking, hindering the "democratic" potentials of the energy transition.
I comuni come sistemi di contratti? Il governo locale italiano alla prova della governance
Catalytic Power Europe: Blended Finance in European External Action
Journal of Common Market Studies, Dec 18, 2022
The global influence of the European Union (EU) has been debated in overlapping strands of litera... more The global influence of the European Union (EU) has been debated in overlapping strands of literature as ‘normative’, ‘regulatory’ and ‘market power’. They identify the diffusion of its rules and standards as a vehicle of European power. We argue that European power extends beyond its regulatory capacities and includes new ‘catalytic’ capacities in the realm of financing and network building. We analyse blended finance as an instrument of ‘catalytic power’, defined as the mobilisation of partners and their resources to pursue external objectives. The analysis reveals that financial leverage, the original motivation behind the tool’s creation, has declined in importance. Instead, blended finance is designed to facilitate and structure cooperation with other European and multilateral financial institutions, positioning the European Commission as a central node in international cooperation and increasing its influence in this sphere. The article closes with a discussion of blended finance as a tool of catalytic power and related trade-offs.
This article offers the first comprehensive analysis of the emergent modes for greening electrici... more This article offers the first comprehensive analysis of the emergent modes for greening electricity governance through agencification in the Global South by examining the drivers and role of renewable energy agencies (REAs) in various countries in the Middle East and North Africa region. Furthermore, the article illustrates the impact of this form of agencification on the deployment of renewables and the "democratization" of energy governance. We found that the diffusion of REAs is facilitated by the intermediation of international and transnational actors, whereas their role in national energy governance is constrained by the fossil fuels rentier political economy. As an institutional strategy for greening energy governance, agencification has the potential to foster the deployment of renewables: agencies can catalyze external funding overcoming regulatory and policy barriers. However, this strategy can reproduce top-down approaches to policymaking, hindering the "democratic" potentials of the energy transition.
The global influence of the European Union (EU) has been debated in overlapping strands of litera... more The global influence of the European Union (EU) has been debated in overlapping strands of literature as ‘normative’, ‘regulatory’ and ‘market power’. They identify the diffusion of its rules and standards as a vehicle of European power. We argue that European power extends beyond its regulatory capacities and includes new ‘catalytic’ capacities in the realm of financing and network building. We analyse blended finance as an instrument of ‘catalytic power’, defined as the mobilisation of partners and their resources to pursue external objectives. The analysis reveals that financial leverage, the original motivation behind the tool’s creation, has declined in importance.
Instead, blended finance is designed to facilitate and structure cooperation with other
European and multilateral financial institutions, positioning the European Commission as a central
node in international cooperation and increasing its influence in this sphere. The article closes with
a discussion of blended finance as a tool of catalytic power and related trade-offs.
The New Politics of Pipeline
The New Politics of Energy Security in the European Union and Beyond, 2017
List of Figures and Tables FIGURES 1.1 Major EU gas suppliers (1995-2015). 1.2 Regulatory vs. Cat... more List of Figures and Tables FIGURES 1.1 Major EU gas suppliers (1995-2015). 1.2 Regulatory vs. Catalytic state: A different emphasis on EU policy instruments. 2.1 Forms of state and energy security: A conceptual framework. 4.1 The main pipeline routes serving the EU market along the North-South, East-West, SouthEast West and South-North corridors. 4.2 LNG importing terminals in the EU member states (existing and planned). 4.3 The new EU governance framework for energy infrastructure development. 5.1 CESEC and SGC Advisory Council overlapping membership. 6.1 Conceptions of power along the soft-hard power spectrum. TABLES 1.1 LNG capacity, imports and utilisation rate in the EU-28 (data for 2016). 1.2 Energy dependence, gas dependence, percentage of gas imported from Russia and market size (EU member states, selected years).
JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 2021
This article investigates whether, how and under what conditions European Union (EU) capacity-bui... more This article investigates whether, how and under what conditions European Union (EU) capacity-building programmes actually contribute to improving the action capacity of target actors in view of common policy objectives. The empirical analysis focuses on the European Local Energy Assistance (ELENA) technical facility that aims to enhance local authorities' project development and management capacities in the field of renewables and energy efficiency. Our findings show that favourable contextual conditions and the actual functional demand for more capacities cannot explain the implementation dynamics of this programme across EU countries. Conversely, the availability of basic starting resources or the ability to draw from EU funds emerge as key factors behind these dynamics. Evidence is provided demonstrating that the effectiveness of such programmes can be hampered by a persistent capacity trap if barriers to their implementation are not carefully considered in advance.
Forms of state, capitalism and global financial orders: A critical perspective on financialisation and world politics
The 2008 crisis has triggered a great debate on the transformation of global financial governance... more The 2008 crisis has triggered a great debate on the transformation of global financial governance. The traditional state-market dichotomy has been widely used to describe the reconfiguration of financial regulation, which as a pendulum would have shifted from market to state in response to the failure of the pre-crisis practices and governance arrangements. In this article, the problem of global financial governance will be addressed from a different theoretical perspective, and a more complex image than the state-market dichotomy will be presented by adopting some assumptions and approaches derived from critical International Political Economy (IPE). In particular, a Coxian approach will be adopted to illustrate the emergence, consolidation and resistance of the neoliberal global financial order, as well as the main challenges to its survival.
The New Politics of Energy Security in the EU MS: Evidences from the Italian Gas Sector
The establishment of the IEM has challenged the longstanding European politics of energy security... more The establishment of the IEM has challenged the longstanding European politics of energy security. Especially in the gas sector, the traditional institutional structure, mainly based on a combination of national politics and bilateral energy diplomacy with the 'national champion' being responsible for securing the supply of each country independently, is currently under a process of transformation that could lead to a pattern of more Europeanized energy policy or to a period of uncertainty and vulnerability of MS security of supply. Taking the Italian gas sector as an example, the paper examines the emerging MS national and foreign politics in the new EU security of gas supply architecture. In particular, the paper aims at analysing the new patterns of energy security by contrasting, in comparative historical perspective, the 'old' Italian gas pipeline and infrastructure politics and energy diplomacy with the 'new' strategy exemplified by the government suppo...
Mapping data sources for the analysis of contracting out in Italian local governments
The dismantling of renewable energy policy in Italy
Environmental Politics, 2021
ABSTRACT The expansion of renewables is still dependent on appropriate policy support. Nonetheles... more ABSTRACT The expansion of renewables is still dependent on appropriate policy support. Nonetheless, in the wake of the economic crisis, even pioneer European countries have begun to dismantle the set of measures implemented in the past decades. Policy dismantling in the area of renewable energy is a recent phenomenon that has attracted little attention in comparison to the study of the diffusion of support schemes. By focusing on the dismantling of renewable energy policy in Italy, this contribution helps fill this gap and highlights an important aspect of the current politics of energy transition. It shows how interactions between the political economy of the renewable energy sector, policy design, institutional constraints and external events affect policy dismantling. It also demonstrates the role of self-undermining mechanisms and framing effects in the dismantling of renewable energy policy.
Sottosistemi di policy e politiche pubbliche internazionali
Marine Resources Management Plan for the Adriatic and Ionian Region (MaReMaP-AIR)
Politiche energetiche e politiche agricole, problemi di governance e strumenti di integrazione. Il caso della Provincia di Ascoli
Le Marche: da terra di confine a laboratorio politico
Energia, istituzioni e sviluppo locale
Politiche pubbliche comparate. Metodi, teorie, ricerche
Il legame tra analisi delle politiche pubbliche e comparazione è molto stretto: alcuni dei contri... more Il legame tra analisi delle politiche pubbliche e comparazione è molto stretto: alcuni dei contributi più rilevanti della disciplina – ad esempio quelli sul welfare – sono studi comparati. Ma lo stesso legame emerge anche se passiamo dal piano scientifico a quello politico-amministrativo: chi deve formulare una nuova politica pubblica anzitutto si confronta con quanto già fatto da altri. Il presente volume intende fornire gli strumenti per comparare adeguatamente le politiche pubbliche alla luce dei metodi, dei modelli interpretativi e delle ricerche empiriche più aggiornati.
Energy Policy, 2019
By focusing on the natural gas sector and infrastructural policy in the Visegrad countries this a... more By focusing on the natural gas sector and infrastructural policy in the Visegrad countries this article aims to reassess the EU's role in energy security governance. It argues that the EU can be conceptualised as a catalytic state rather than a regulatory state. It develops the notion of Catalytic Power Europe to highlight the specific type of power that the EU (as a catalytic state) can deploy to achieve its objectives. Catalytic Power Europe differs from existing conceptions of Regulatory and Market Power Europe. It relies on nodality and treasury rather than authority and on mechanism of connectivity and mobilisation rather than enforcement. It highlights the role of the European Commission as a facilitator and coalition builder rather than a regulator and market builder as in the regulatory state perspective. This role is illustrated by analysing the major gas interconnector projects and liquefied natural gas importing terminal that are under development in the V4 and that can affect their energy security. Catalytic Power Europe influences the V4 inter-group dynamics reducing the scope for uncoordinated and unilateral strategies. In this way, it also affects the prospect of EU-Russia energy relations undermining Moscow's divide et impera strategies in the region.
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Papers by andrea prontera
Instead, blended finance is designed to facilitate and structure cooperation with other
European and multilateral financial institutions, positioning the European Commission as a central
node in international cooperation and increasing its influence in this sphere. The article closes with
a discussion of blended finance as a tool of catalytic power and related trade-offs.