Conference Paper
The Prospects of the Green Transition in the Arab Region: State-Society Actors, Power Relations, Interests, and Coordination
No.
ERF30_29
Publisher
ERF
Date
March, 2024
This paper investigates how the comparative power of the various state and society collective actors and their utilities from the green transition- as reflected in their perceived losses or gains from the transition- affect the prospects of energy transition in the Arab region. The paper starts with a theoretical discussion in which a mapping of the important actors related to the green transition and their comparative power is conducted. These actors are identified as the state, labor, big business tycoons and small and medium enterprises’ (SMEs) entrepreneurs. Then the various actors’ utilities from the green transition are considered, where the sources of the different utilities are derived from the effect of industrial policies that impact on the green transition. The main focus here is placed on linkages-development, structural transformation, and energy subsidization policies. This discussion leads to the formulation of a theoretical mathematical model, from which several hypotheses are derived. The methodology section translates the theoretical model into a regression model. Then the paper discusses the results and how they compare to the hypotheses. A brief analysis of some case studies follows to have a better understanding of the results. The paper concludes that in countries with a more dominant state and weaker social actors, green transition is more likely to largely follow the interests of the state regardless of social actors’ interests. In more balanced state-society relations, however, the higher the interests of the various social actors, the more likely the green transition will proceed. In these settings, tycoons and entrepreneurs would be encouraged to support the green transition by more linkages-development policies, labor by better structural transformation policies, and both tycoons and labor by lower fossil energy subsidies.
Authors
Mohamed Ismail Sabry
Visiting Postdoctoral Researcher, International Institute of Social...