Logo: to the web site of Uppsala University

uu.sePublications from Uppsala University
Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Bioenergy as an Empty Signifier
Linköpings universitet, Centrum för klimatpolitisk forskning.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-8110-4538
Linköpings universitet, Tema Miljöförändring.
2016 (English)In: The Review of Radical Political Economics, ISSN 0486-6134, E-ISSN 1552-8502, Vol. 48, no 2, p. 235-251Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

The article provides insight into the contemporary international bioenergy debate and scrutinizes how the idea of biofuel production as a win-win-win solution to energy insecurity, climate change, and agricultural stagnation came into being, what discursive forces bind such a conceptualization, and where dislocations arise. Based on critical assumptions of discourse theory developed by Laclau and Mouffe, the analysis explores assessments, reports, policy papers, and other central documents from three influential international organizations—the International Energy Agency, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization—that provide an entry point to the global debate on biofuels. We show that the bioenergy concept occupies specific positions and conveys different meanings within the three overlapping discourses of energy, climate, and agriculture. These three discursive areas are further “sutured” around the notion of biofuel production, where a hegemonic thread of the capitalist market economics, fixated on economic growth and presupposing the necessity of cost-effectiveness, results in internal contradictions and dislocations within the win-win-win conceptualization, emptying bioenergy of any content.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
SAGE Publications , 2016. Vol. 48, no 2, p. 235-251
Keywords [en]
bioenergy, biofuels, debate, discourse, international organizations, hegemony
National Category
Political Science (excluding Public Administration Studies and Globalisation Studies) Social Sciences Interdisciplinary Environmental Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-265401DOI: 10.1177/0486613415591804ISI: 000378765000003OAI: oai:DiVA.org:uu-265401DiVA, id: diva2:865449
Available from: 2015-09-02 Created: 2015-10-28 Last updated: 2021-05-27Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

fulltext(149 kB)153 downloads
File information
File name FULLTEXT01.pdfFile size 149 kBChecksum SHA-512
fe2293f04be80e4874ecc4b2a3146c183beb45ef1dced5a82c49fd1d9092152ab3620e503903efdfd9253310b0c50500eacc1e8a665188dcf777d121e784a01c
Type fulltextMimetype application/pdf

Other links

Publisher's full text

Authority records

Kuchler, MagdalenaHedrén, Johan

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Kuchler, MagdalenaHedrén, Johan
In the same journal
The Review of Radical Political Economics
Political Science (excluding Public Administration Studies and Globalisation Studies)Social Sciences InterdisciplinaryEnvironmental Sciences

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar
Total: 153 downloads
The number of downloads is the sum of all downloads of full texts. It may include eg previous versions that are now no longer available

doi
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

doi
urn-nbn
Total: 413 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf