Recent debates about the necessity for a transformation of the global energy system (
WBGU, 2003,
Rifkin, 2011), as well as ongoing energy transitions on the national and subnational levels, have brought the role of forecasts in energy policy-making to the fore. Indeed, energy modeling and the scenarios they produce play a key role in discussions about the objectives and instruments of energy policy. While such debates have historically concentrated on the “knowability” of the future (
e.g. Polak, 1973), as well as on the way such futures are constructed and the need for more inclusive approaches (
Raimond, 1996), they have recently aimed at understanding the social, historical and cultural context in which such futures are embedded and in which they come to be enacted (
Jameson, 2005,
Appadurai, 2013,
Andersson et Rindzevičiūtė, 2015), or turned to a “hermeneutics” of future-making practices (Grunwald 2014). We aim to complement such approaches by a
performative approach (Callon 2007) attentive to the ways in which models and scenarios format and construct the social reality that they claim to represent.
Empirically, my proposal builds on a historical study on the use of forecasts and modeling in German and French energy policy and debate. I aim to show that the emergence of energy modeling is intimately related to the emergence of “energy policy” as a new field of public policy. The focus on the performative function of energy modeling also allows for a new understanding of sociotechnical controversies on energy policy. These are analyzed as “struggles of representation”, in which new actors and their problem-framings seek epistemic representation in energy models and political representation in the institutions of energy policy-making. Finally, I discuss the implications of such an approach for analyzing processes of institutional change in energy policy, as well as ongoing debates on energy transitions.
