The role of power and future resources in the institutionalisation of the Norwegian oil economy

Abstract

Low-carbon transitions involve profound economic and social change. Recent research on socioeconomic transitions has highlighted the need for a more nuanced conceptualisation of power and agency within these processes. In this article, we expand our understanding of the role of power in socioeconomic transitions by critically applying the Power in Transition framework (POINT) to a multilevel perspective (MLP) analysis of the establishment of the Norwegian oil fund and the associated fiscal policy. The empirical data stem from in-depth elite interviews with key political and technocratic agents who were active at the national level over a fifteen-year timespan. We find that control over the allocation of future resources was key in the creation and protection of the Norwegian fossil fuel-based economic regime. Consequently, we extend the concept of transformative power to include control over structures and institutions arbitrating the distribution of future resources, illustrating the critical role of this control in determining regime stability. We conclude that political agents who foster sustainability transitions should prioritise efforts aimed at contesting the control over and allocation of future resources.