From Norm Taker to Norm Maker? Indian Energy Governance in Global Context
| Date | 01 September 2011 |
| Published date | 01 September 2011 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-5899.2011.00123.x |
From Norm Taker to Norm Maker?
Indian Energy Governance in Global
Context
Navroz K. Dubash
Centre for Policy Research
Abstract
This article examines how India’s domestic energy challenges have been shaped by global forces and how, in turn,
India has engaged and is likely to engage in discussions of global energy governance. A central theme is that
exploring India’s engagement in global energy governance requires a clear understanding of its domestic energy
context and how this has changed over time. The article develops three narratives that have guided Indian energy
governance domestically: state control; the grafting on of market institutions; and the embryonic linkage between
energy security and climate change. In all these phases, Indian energy has been strongly influenced by global trends,
but these have been filtered through India’s political economy, creating outcomes that constrain future policy
implementation. This path-dependent story also carries implications for India’s engagement with global energy
governance. With the rise of a new narrative around energy security, increasingly leavened with invocations of clean
energy, India is positioned to reformulate its engagement in global debates. However, the perceived need, strategic
clarity and resultant eagerness to engage in the task are all limited.
Policy Implications
•Energy-related decision making in India is dominated by national considerations. International organizations have
limited influence with the exception of the multilateral development banks. However, global factors have an indirect
and normative influence, from oil prices to larger trends toward market-based governance and climate change.
Future global influences on Indian energy are, therefore, most likely to come from shifts in broad tendencies than
from direct influence on specific decisions.
•A concern for energy security, always present in Indian energy policy, has become dominant, replacing the primacy
of a market-led energy narrative. However, energy security is being increasingly knit together with clean energy to
open new narrative and institutional opportunities.
•If India is to emerge as a norm maker rather than norm taker on energy, it will have to re-envision its foreign policy
on energy. In particular, it will have to consider whether to balance its bilateral and regional initiatives with a robust
multilateral approach, consider whether and how domestic energy considerations inform foreign policy, and how to
project its domestic narrative of energy security and clean energy in the global arena.
The insular world of Indian energy is gradually taking on
an outward-looking face. Dominant concerns of energy
security are gradually being woven together with an
embryonic narrative of promoting clean energy, which is
stimulating change within India, and also spurring a
rethinking of foreign policy on energy. However, it is
impossible to understand India’s outward orientation on
energy without an appreciation of its complex domestic
energy context.
This article examines how India’s domestic energy
challenges have been shaped by global forces and how,
in turn, India has engaged and is likely to engage in dis-
cussion of global energy governance. These are impor-
tant issues to examine for at least two reasons. First, in
an increasingly multipolar world, there is growing space
for India and other emerging economies to have a voice
in global energy governance. Second, as one of the larg-
est and fastest-growing markets for energy products and
services, the Indian experience sheds light on the global
pattern of liberalisation of energy, and the subsequent
adjustments and re-entry of the state in more directly
controlling energy. Third, consistent with growing geo-
political recognition of India, policy makers within the
country are beginning to reconsider the nation’s foreign
Global Policy Volume 2 . Special Issue . September 2011
ª2011 London School of Economics and Political Science and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Global Policy (2011) 2:SI doi: 10.1111/j.1758-5899.2011.00123.x
Research Article
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