Policy and political (in)coherence, security and Nordic–Baltic energy transitions

Abstract

Abstract Global challenges, such as climate change, require increasingly horizontal governance approaches, as solving such challenges is dependent on coordinating public policies between different administrative sectors. Such coordination is difficult because administrative sectors have long traditions, their own worldviews and specific objectives they seek to advance. This paper is focused on the complications of achieving coherence between energy and security policies, in a time when the energy sector decarbonization is accelerating, and major geopolitical shifts are taking place partly in connection to the energy transition. Drawing on the policy coherence literature, this paper analyses 46 expert interviews from three Nordic–Baltic European countries: Estonia, Finland and Norway. It pays attention to policy coherence between energy and security, the presence or absence of strategies, agencies and other coordinating elements for horizontal coherence, political coherence and coordination between administrations linked to the two policy domains. Based on the analysis, the countries show significant differences and interesting features for horizontal policy coherence connected to the European energy transition. Moreover, the analysis shows that, prior to 2022, energy was desecuritized in Finland and Norway, where political incoherence also led to incoherence between policy domains and in policy mixes addressing zero-carbon energy transitions and national security. In Estonia, the policy objective of national security has shaped energy policy, but coordination between the policy domains has mostly been dependent on informal interactions leading to some conflicts and tensions.