What happens to energy policy discourse when falling profitability makes it difficult to frame incumbent technologies as necessary for providing affordable energy? And how does this affect energy policy? This article investigates how Swedish energy policy discourse responded to a profitability crisis that struck its incumbent nuclear regime in 2016, and how a political decision to support nuclear power was legitimized. It uses Carol Bacchi’s Foucault-inspired policy analysis to analyse 13 interviews and 31 policy documents, and shows how the crisis was met with the framing of nuclear power as a “plannable” energy source (in contrast with intermittent renewables) that was necessary for ensuring capacity adequacy, and with the construction of an ultimatum: to remove a tax on nuclear power or to see nuclear power phased out so abruptly that the power system would be jeopardized. It explores the discursive and institutional conditions that enabled this framing, argues that similar discourses are likely to be constructed in other contexts where capacity adequacy is a more pressing impediment to energy transitions than in Sweden, and points out that energy research risks reproducing dominant discourses by overstating the merits of incumbent baseload technologies. 

Can advocates of fossil energy technologies in decline invoke energy security to influence energy politics? This article investigates how supporters of Finland's declining peat industry failed to do so, despite a window of opportunity presented by an energy crisis, Finland's dependency on imported Russian energy, and the abrupt end of these imports following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. By focusing on a case where invoking energy security has failed, it sheds light on the conditions that limit the political effects of energy security discourse, which has remained undertheorized in the literature. Using discursive policy analysis, the article analyses 22 expert interviews and 33 policy documents. It shows that neoliberal ideas about how to organize state-market relations can limit the political effects of energy security discourse, even when incumbent interests advocate for a domestic source of energy in times of war and energy crisis. In this case, neoliberalism made the peat decline and the fuel shortage appear as a “market problem” that did not warrant state intervention. The article uses insights from the Finnish case to theorize about the wider implications of how neoliberalism, energy security discourse, and energy crises interact, and how this affects the political influence of established energy interests. It suggests a research agenda on how neoliberalism affect energy transitions and energy politics, and argues that while neoliberalism can work against fossil industries in decline, it also risks impeding transitions to truly sustainable alternatives.

Estonia has responded to energy security concerns related to a hostile Russia by supporting uncompetitive oil shale power plants located no more than 2 km from the Russian border. How did this policy come to appear as necessary and legitimate, and what can this tell us about the politics of phasing out fossil fuels in our time of geopolitical instability? This article uses discursive policy analysis to analyze 21 interviews with key Estonian experts and decision makers and 27 policy documents. It traces a shift that has unfolded in Estonian energy policy discourse between 2015 and 2024, from placing faith in market-based and common EU policies towards emphasizing state interventions to secure domestic fossil capacities. The article explores how the interplay between this shift and the prevalence of a neoliberal free-market rationality has ruled out alternative ways of providing energy security and portrayed state support to oil shale power as unfortunate but necessary. It explains how fossil subsidies have been reconciled with free-market neoliberalism, and argues that the result is a contradictory approach to energy security that places faith in a single large oil shale complex located right on the border with Russia. Finally, it explores the wider implications of neoliberalism for energy politics in our time of geopolitical instability, arguing that it can empower incumbent industries and restrict the ability of states to act strategically and preemptively, thereby locking them in a state of continued crisis management where fossil subsidies appear as the only option for providing energy security.