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assumption of interventions that can render energy transitions accountable towards sustainable outcomes. Moss reminds us that sustainability
itself is a relatively new concern in its current form, which came about
during the 1970s. Drawing on earlier histories, he argues, requires
acknowledgement of this limitation, but can generate a deeper appreciation of where sustainability thinking comes from, what echoes can be
detected in the past, and how energy infrastructure legacies can frame current visions and enactments of sustainability. He points out the danger of
committing to a certain configuration of accountability that over the
course of evolving politics and institutional structures might come to constitute what Kramarz and Park (2017) call an accountability trap.
This case features a host of examples of discursive legitimation, for
instance the local Communist Party’s criticism of the regressive effects of
tariff increases in the early 1930s, the protest camp against the planned
power plant in the Spandau Forest in 1976 (Fig. 4.2), the campaign poster
of the Berlin Energy Roundtable for a referendum in 2013 (Fig. 4.3), and
energy security arguments used during the Cold War. It also draws out
legitimation practices along the bureaucratic register, for instance through
the municipal imposition of city-wide unitary utility tariffs and uniform
service standards in the 1920s, and the Allies’ insistence on high security
standards for West Berlin’s urban energy system, including three months’
worth of primary energy reserves. Technocratic practices of legitimation
are also in evidence in the large incumbent utility Vattenfall’s contemporary emphasis on technical expertise and track record for managing the
electricity and gas networks, and in cascading generating capacity requirements mandated during the security-oriented strategy during the Cold
War. Finally, financial legitimation is visible in the pursuit of fair wages for
employees at the city’s utilities and improvements to service quality used
to justify massive urban infrastructure investment (partly based on foreign
debt finance) in the 1920s. It is, however, notable that the need for financial legitimation at the urban scale is absent during the Cold War years of
high-cost energy security and West German government subsidies
to Berlin.
Moss’ historical analysis with its spatial and temporal purchase, then,
offers rich insights into practices of legitimation along all four registers.
Yet what is its import for interventions today in support of sustainable
outcomes under transition? His analysis points to the articulation of
demands for accountable remunicipalisation of energy infrastructure by
contemporary social movements campaigning to prioritise decarbonisation
S. SAREEN
assumption of interventions that can render energy transitions accountable towards sustainable outcomes. Moss reminds us that sustainability
itself is a relatively new concern in its current form, which came about
during the 1970s. Drawing on earlier histories, he argues, requires
acknowledgement of this limitation, but can generate a deeper appreciation of where sustainability thinking comes from, what echoes can be
detected in the past, and how energy infrastructure legacies can frame current visions and enactments of sustainability. He points out the danger of
committing to a certain configuration of accountability that over the
course of evolving politics and institutional structures might come to constitute what Kramarz and Park (2017) call an accountability trap.
This case features a host of examples of discursive legitimation, for
instance the local Communist Party’s criticism of the regressive effects of
tariff increases in the early 1930s, the protest camp against the planned
power plant in the Spandau Forest in 1976 (Fig. 4.2), the campaign poster
of the Berlin Energy Roundtable for a referendum in 2013 (Fig. 4.3), and
energy security arguments used during the Cold War. It also draws out
legitimation practices along the bureaucratic register, for instance through
the municipal imposition of city-wide unitary utility tariffs and uniform
service standards in the 1920s, and the Allies’ insistence on high security
standards for West Berlin’s urban energy system, including three months’
worth of primary energy reserves. Technocratic practices of legitimation
are also in evidence in the large incumbent utility Vattenfall’s contemporary emphasis on technical expertise and track record for managing the
electricity and gas networks, and in cascading generating capacity requirements mandated during the security-oriented strategy during the Cold
War. Finally, financial legitimation is visible in the pursuit of fair wages for
employees at the city’s utilities and improvements to service quality used
to justify massive urban infrastructure investment (partly based on foreign
debt finance) in the 1920s. It is, however, notable that the need for financial legitimation at the urban scale is absent during the Cold War years of
high-cost energy security and West German government subsidies
to Berlin.
Moss’ historical analysis with its spatial and temporal purchase, then,
offers rich insights into practices of legitimation along all four registers.
Yet what is its import for interventions today in support of sustainable
outcomes under transition? His analysis points to the articulation of
demands for accountable remunicipalisation of energy infrastructure by
contemporary social movements campaigning to prioritise decarbonisation
S. SAREEN