9
Authority comes from legitimation; hence, it affords its bearer the practical privilege of being able to claim recognition as the one with the right
to make important decisions. Ordinary actors have to organise themselves
and contest against the odds to secure outcomes that go against a systematised norm—this is the stuff of public protest, legal appeals and riots on
the streets. Institutional authority can claim to uphold the system in executing its decisions; it need only cloak them in the guise of what has
already been deemed socially acceptable, what is already valid because it is
an outcome of due process (Ferguson 1990). Power legitimated as authority freezes legitimacy as embodied in action by virtue of the doer, rather
than as a property of the act itself. The onus is on ordinary actors to validate both their claims and an alternative morality in order to challenge
particular acts, whereas authoritative institutions use a range of garbs to
validate acts.
Such a de facto understanding of authority as not being limited to
traditional formal structures complicates how one understands accountability. Emerging scholarship on polycentric climate governance has
articulated some of the challenges—accountability cannot be construed
as pertaining solely to the state along some vertical and horizontal relations within a centralised and delegated governance framework because
this is not an accurate descriptor of how climate governance is, in fact,
conducted (Jordan et al. 2018; Bäckstrand and Kuyper 2017). Rather,
there are many actors in the folds, each hankering after their own version
of what transitions to sustainability should look like. Intergovernmental
bodies co-exist with city networks co-exist with aligned interests between
business and politics co-exist with federated civil society organisations,
each staking its claims (Coenen et al. 2012). Who is to be held accountable for what? Each would have its success measured along customised
metrics that favour its ability to showcase progress on sustainability
(Kramarz and Park 2016), which runs the risk of double counting many
successes that actors see as low-hanging fruit while sidelining attention
to intractable problems nobody wants to be held responsible to address
(Osofsky 2013).
As with climate governance, so is the case with transitioning energy sectors, albeit these transitions more commonly concern national and regional
scales rather than global ones. Fossil fuel actors have entrenched interests,
usually complemented by deep political and financial reach, and many are
transitioning into leveraged positions in the expanding renewable energy
sector, which is also populated by new actors such as solar developers.
1 REFRAMING ENERGY TRANSITIONS AS RESOLVING ACCOUNTABILITY…
Authority comes from legitimation; hence, it affords its bearer the practical privilege of being able to claim recognition as the one with the right
to make important decisions. Ordinary actors have to organise themselves
and contest against the odds to secure outcomes that go against a systematised norm—this is the stuff of public protest, legal appeals and riots on
the streets. Institutional authority can claim to uphold the system in executing its decisions; it need only cloak them in the guise of what has
already been deemed socially acceptable, what is already valid because it is
an outcome of due process (Ferguson 1990). Power legitimated as authority freezes legitimacy as embodied in action by virtue of the doer, rather
than as a property of the act itself. The onus is on ordinary actors to validate both their claims and an alternative morality in order to challenge
particular acts, whereas authoritative institutions use a range of garbs to
validate acts.
Such a de facto understanding of authority as not being limited to
traditional formal structures complicates how one understands accountability. Emerging scholarship on polycentric climate governance has
articulated some of the challenges—accountability cannot be construed
as pertaining solely to the state along some vertical and horizontal relations within a centralised and delegated governance framework because
this is not an accurate descriptor of how climate governance is, in fact,
conducted (Jordan et al. 2018; Bäckstrand and Kuyper 2017). Rather,
there are many actors in the folds, each hankering after their own version
of what transitions to sustainability should look like. Intergovernmental
bodies co-exist with city networks co-exist with aligned interests between
business and politics co-exist with federated civil society organisations,
each staking its claims (Coenen et al. 2012). Who is to be held accountable for what? Each would have its success measured along customised
metrics that favour its ability to showcase progress on sustainability
(Kramarz and Park 2016), which runs the risk of double counting many
successes that actors see as low-hanging fruit while sidelining attention
to intractable problems nobody wants to be held responsible to address
(Osofsky 2013).
As with climate governance, so is the case with transitioning energy sectors, albeit these transitions more commonly concern national and regional
scales rather than global ones. Fossil fuel actors have entrenched interests,
usually complemented by deep political and financial reach, and many are
transitioning into leveraged positions in the expanding renewable energy
sector, which is also populated by new actors such as solar developers.
1 REFRAMING ENERGY TRANSITIONS AS RESOLVING ACCOUNTABILITY…