Cooperation in the power sector to advance regionalisation processes and sustainable energy flows

The increasing demand for a stable supply of electricity has prompted transboundary cooperation in areas where energy resources are unevenly distributed. The authors note the potential for ‘regionalism’ and regional collaboration to generate political, economic and social benefits. They also emphasise deregulation and the mechanisms of the market as being instrumental for achieving a transboundary energy pool.

Scarcity appears in this chapter, not as a theoretical concept, but in the form of constraints on electricity production imposed by costs of infrastructure and demands for alternative energy sources.

This book chapter is part of Global Resource Scarcity: Catalyst for Conflict or Cooperation which examines the wider potential for the experience of scarcity to promote cooperation in international relations and diplomacy beyond the traditional bounds of the interests of competitive nation-states.