Contesting Energy Security in the United States

Abstract

Chapter 4 challenges these common sense energy security practices by looking at the space for contestation. It reverses the focus to examine the role of power and vested interests in establishing the common sense in the United States. It then looks at how, despite this, energy security remains contested, surveying alternative visions of energy security forwarded. It highlights the range of actors and organizations which speak energy security differently, including, at times, voices within the establishment. This is used to destabilize the common sense by illustrating that energy security not only can be done differently, but that a wide range of actors already present a range of alternatives.