TY - JOUR
T1 - Ideas, Individuals, and Institutions
T2 - Notion and Practices of a European Electricity System
AU - Lagendijk, Vincent
N1 - Special Issue 2 (Continuity and Change in European Cooperation during the Twentieth Century)
PY - 2018/5
Y1 - 2018/5
N2 - Based upon extensive multi-archival research, this article traces the long lineage of the notion of European electricity network. Since the 1930s engineers and policy makers conceived of a geographical conception for rationalising and optimising electricity supply: a European one. This article purports that three vectors undergirded threads of continuity: institutional, intellectual and physical (technological networks). These vectors, and the actors involved in them, created strong path dependencies that kept the idea of a European system firmly on the agenda. Today's international electricity market of the European Union should be seen as an extension of this legacy.
AB - Based upon extensive multi-archival research, this article traces the long lineage of the notion of European electricity network. Since the 1930s engineers and policy makers conceived of a geographical conception for rationalising and optimising electricity supply: a European one. This article purports that three vectors undergirded threads of continuity: institutional, intellectual and physical (technological networks). These vectors, and the actors involved in them, created strong path dependencies that kept the idea of a European system firmly on the agenda. Today's international electricity market of the European Union should be seen as an extension of this legacy.
U2 - 10.1017/S0960777318000115
DO - 10.1017/S0960777318000115
M3 - Article
SN - 0960-7773
VL - 27
SP - 202
EP - 220
JO - Contemporary European History
JF - Contemporary European History
IS - 2
ER -