New interventionism: the re-politicisation of electricity governance with renewable energy policies in the UK, Mexico and Morocco

Abstract

While the 1990s saw the retreat of governments from economic governance to the benefit of the market and independent regulatory agencies, we now observe a comeback of governments’ interventions in the economy. This recent trend, which we call new interventionism, has so far hardly been addressed by public policy and regulatory governance scholars. This article identifies three major instruments serving new interventionism in previously liberalised sectors: re-nationalisation (vs. privatisation), regulatory expansion (vs. liberalisation) and regulatory governmentalisation (vs. delegation). Their relevance is confirmed by longitudinal analyses of electricity policies in three highly contrasted cases – the UK, Mexico and Morocco. This article also relates new interventionism to the re-politicisation of economic governance and discusses its implications. It contributes to the literature on the role of the state in the economy, on the politicisation of economic governance and on the transformation of the regulatory state.