From Liberalism to Liberalisation: International Electricity Governance in the Twentieth Century

The integration of infrastructures, as a political process, occurs within the framework of national and international political structures. New case studies may provide initial insights into national political styles and/or cultures. Infrastructures were and are characterised by hybrid rights of ownership and propriety, in the sense of public and private operation of infrastructure companies and managements. The aim of historical-empirical research should be, not only to study individual integration projects or to compare them in an intra-/intersectoral and/or interepochal sense, but also to develop a typology of infrastructure integration. The matters that had to be adjusted for the establishment of a transboundary connection must be placed in relation to the structures and processes occurring on national and international levels. Historical research has provided results about the changing perceptions of space and time and, with that, changing ‘mental maps’ of increasingly interconnected regions and countries throughout the nineteenth century.