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mechanisms that constrain or enable accountability to decarbonisation
with social equity enhancement. The versatile analytical application of
these practices can advance environmental governance research on steering energy transitions towards sustainability. This chapter explicates seven
cross-cutting dimensions and indicates how practices of legitimation play
out within them in five cases related to energy transitions, drawing on
contextualised examples from two cases for each dimension. This illustrates how practices of legitimation (discursive, bureaucratic, technocratic
and financial) can reframe wide-ranging cases from diverse perspectives,
fields and disciplines. Applied researchers can choose customised dimensions and enlarge this indicative set to identify situated mechanisms that
modulate accountable energy transitions.
Keywords Accountability • Governance • Legitimacy • Energy
transitions • Sustainability
What is the collective takeaway from our exploratory analysis centred on
accountability? Defined as accountability to decarbonisation with enhanced
social equity, the concept is analytically generative for characterising components of any given energy transition as contributing to sustainability or
not. Operationalised as four registers of practices of legitimation, accountability can be profitably applied across a wide range of cases. This application can emphasise specific cross-cutting dimensions based on which
accountability relations are of contextual interest. The five cases highlight
grounded practices of legitimation, whether discursive, bureaucratic, technocratic or financial, that relationally produce accountability. The dimensions that surface in these cases link accountability with other environmental
governance concepts that are useful for advancing critical analyses of
energy transitions. While provisional, this synthesis constitutes a basis that
future research is invited to adapt and employ.
Section 10.1 furnishes a brief description of each of the seven indicative
dimensions that are embodied in the five cases related to energy transitions
in this book. Using illustrative examples from two cases for each of these
dimensions, Sect. 10.2 demonstrates how practices of legitimation can be
applied within each dimension. Finally, Sect. 10.3 summarises the
S. SAREEN ET AL.
mechanisms that constrain or enable accountability to decarbonisation
with social equity enhancement. The versatile analytical application of
these practices can advance environmental governance research on steering energy transitions towards sustainability. This chapter explicates seven
cross-cutting dimensions and indicates how practices of legitimation play
out within them in five cases related to energy transitions, drawing on
contextualised examples from two cases for each dimension. This illustrates how practices of legitimation (discursive, bureaucratic, technocratic
and financial) can reframe wide-ranging cases from diverse perspectives,
fields and disciplines. Applied researchers can choose customised dimensions and enlarge this indicative set to identify situated mechanisms that
modulate accountable energy transitions.
Keywords Accountability • Governance • Legitimacy • Energy
transitions • Sustainability
What is the collective takeaway from our exploratory analysis centred on
accountability? Defined as accountability to decarbonisation with enhanced
social equity, the concept is analytically generative for characterising components of any given energy transition as contributing to sustainability or
not. Operationalised as four registers of practices of legitimation, accountability can be profitably applied across a wide range of cases. This application can emphasise specific cross-cutting dimensions based on which
accountability relations are of contextual interest. The five cases highlight
grounded practices of legitimation, whether discursive, bureaucratic, technocratic or financial, that relationally produce accountability. The dimensions that surface in these cases link accountability with other environmental
governance concepts that are useful for advancing critical analyses of
energy transitions. While provisional, this synthesis constitutes a basis that
future research is invited to adapt and employ.
Section 10.1 furnishes a brief description of each of the seven indicative
dimensions that are embodied in the five cases related to energy transitions
in this book. Using illustrative examples from two cases for each of these
dimensions, Sect. 10.2 demonstrates how practices of legitimation can be
applied within each dimension. Finally, Sect. 10.3 summarises the
S. SAREEN ET AL.