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© The Author(s) 2020
S. Sareen (ed.), Enabling Sustainable Energy Transitions,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26891-6_4
CHAPTER 4
Historicising Accountability: Berlin’s Energy
Transitions
Timothy Moss
Abstract This chapter explores accountability and energy transitions
through the lens of historical analysis. It reinterprets empirical research on
the history of Berlin’s energy systems to illustrate how accountability and
legitimacy are political constructs of a particular time and place. Three
periods of reconfiguration to urban electricity and gas networks, chosen
from across Berlin’s turbulent past century, illustrate this diversity. The
chapter outlines each selected case and its pertinence to energy accountability. It then describes what crisis of accountability was prevalent in each
instance and its treatment in the literature. The practices of legitimation
enrolled to justify energy strategies are subsequently highlighted, as are
forms of resistance and attempts to delegitimise the dominant discourse.
The conclusion summarises the implications of historicising accountability
for energy transitions research.
Keywords Accountability • Legitimacy • Berlin • Energy • History
T. Moss (*)
Integrative Research Institute on Transformations of Human-Environment
Systems (IRI THESys), Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany
e-mail: timothy.moss@hu-berlin.de
© The Author(s) 2020
S. Sareen (ed.), Enabling Sustainable Energy Transitions,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26891-6_4
CHAPTER 4
Historicising Accountability: Berlin’s Energy
Transitions
Timothy Moss
Abstract This chapter explores accountability and energy transitions
through the lens of historical analysis. It reinterprets empirical research on
the history of Berlin’s energy systems to illustrate how accountability and
legitimacy are political constructs of a particular time and place. Three
periods of reconfiguration to urban electricity and gas networks, chosen
from across Berlin’s turbulent past century, illustrate this diversity. The
chapter outlines each selected case and its pertinence to energy accountability. It then describes what crisis of accountability was prevalent in each
instance and its treatment in the literature. The practices of legitimation
enrolled to justify energy strategies are subsequently highlighted, as are
forms of resistance and attempts to delegitimise the dominant discourse.
The conclusion summarises the implications of historicising accountability
for energy transitions research.
Keywords Accountability • Legitimacy • Berlin • Energy • History
T. Moss (*)
Integrative Research Institute on Transformations of Human-Environment
Systems (IRI THESys), Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany
e-mail: timothy.moss@hu-berlin.de