Discursive norms at the crossroads
This dissertation takes on one of the most urgent and complex inquiries: how can energy security be understood and governed in times when war, energy transition, and interdependence converge? To answer this question, the thesis re-examines EU-Russia and EU-Ukraine energy discourses, advancing a reconceptualization of energy security through the lens of discursive norms operating in two distinct contexts: geopolitics and global energy governance.
Specifically, the study investigates two interrelated puzzles. First, how are discursive norms such as ‘gas as a back-up for renewables’ and ‘reliability of supply’ framed differently across institutional and geopolitical settings? Second, how does Ukraine’s energy transition enhance its international agency and evolving role in energy governance amid armed conflict?The overarching question of this thesis is whether the world can move from the logic of geopolitics (power rivalry, securitisation, coercion) to the logic of governance (institutions, norms, cooperation). Energy is increasingly framed through security, militarisation, and strategic autonomy. Yet governance remains alive in international energy organizations, such as the International Gas Union (IGU) and the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), in Ukraine’s EU-aligned energy transition, and in the persistent normative language of cooperation.
By addressing these puzzles, the thesis delivers two core contributions. First, it reconceptualises energy security as a norm-laden, discursively constructed field rather than a purely market-driven issue. Second, it positions Ukraine not as a passive buffer or geopolitical pawn, but as a transitional state with growing agency, whose alignment with the European energy transition opens new strategic possibilities even under conditions of the full-scale Russian invasion.