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The Role of Government in Steering [Energy] Demand
- 1. Welfare, Employment and Energy Demand The Role of Government in Steering Demand Dr Catherine Butler @drcbutler
- 3. Invisible energy policy • ‘What energy is used for, or how energy needs are made, is in part a reflection of how governments shape objectives, investments and ways of providing and working across many different policy domains’ (Shove et al. 2012) • To effectively unravel, and understand how to reconfigure, the constitution of demand we must attend to a broad sweep of policies that extend beyond what is currently recognised as energy policy. • Argue for a distinctive approach to or role for governance that can deliver on the requirements for a low carbon, more socially just society
- 5. Project Methods WP1: Document analysis (Jan 2015 ongoing) WP 2: Policy and stakeholder in-depth qualitative interviews (October 2015 – July 2016 WP 3: Policy innovation workshops (summer 2017)
- 6. Theory: the role of the state in shaping practice • Governmentality - key concepts of problematising, rationalities, and technologies (Foucault, 1979; Dean, 2010; Miller and Rose, 2008; Rose, 1999) • Social reproduction of practice through the state and critical reflexivity necessary to think the state (Bourdieu, 1998)
- 7. The role of the state In modern societies the main agent of the construction of official categories though which both populations and minds are structured is the state, which, through a whole labour of codification accompanied by economic and social effects (family allowances, for example) aims to favour a certain kind of organisation, to strengthen those who are in a position to conform to encourage through all material and symbolic means logical and moral conformism...’” (Bourdieu 1998: 71)
- 8. Policy analysis approach • Analyse high level problematisations • Unpack how relate to constructions of governing modes and policy solutions • Understand implications for practices and energy demand (social structures, materials, temporal patterning) • Role for imagining alternatives and unintended outcomes Problematising Modes of governing and policies Practices – change or continuities in energy demand
- 9. An example case: problematising Austerity and funding cuts. Worklessness – individual “Worklessness - There are currently around 3.9 million workless households in the UK. That is almost one in five of all households.” (Social Justice: Transforming Lives, 2012) Work is – and always will be – the best route out of poverty and with welfare reform, Universal Credit, tax cuts and the introduction of the National Living Wage, we are making sure that it always pays to work (David Cameron, 2016)
- 10. An example case: problematising “Entrenched worklessness can leave children without a role model and contribute to and compound problems experienced by adults: mental health problems are more common among people who are out of work than those in employment, whilst large numbers of those claiming benefit experience problematic drug and alcohol use or have a history of offending. Work is undeniably the best and most sustainable route out of poverty”. (DWP Reducing Poverty Indicators, Entrenched Worklessness, 2014) Interviewee: “I suppose politically… that they’ve gradually over time managed to paint people on welfare as scroungers yet most of the people on welfare are actually working hard, or else they have a very legitimate reason for not working but they’ve managed to paint this thing… over a long period of time”. (Interviewee Policy)
- 11. An example case: policies Austerity and funding cuts. Worklessness – individual Getting into work - fit for work & employment coaches “Your work coach may refer you to these schemes… you may do work experience to add some career history to your CV”. (Back to Work Schemes, 2014) Being employed helps promote recovery and rehabilitation and prevents the harmful physical, mental and social effects of long-term sickness absence. Fit for Work is designed to assist you as an employer in helping employees to get back to work as soon as is appropriate. (DWP, 2014)
- 12. An example case: practices Austerity and funding cuts. Worklessness – individual Getting into work - fit for work & employment coaches Practices – continuities and increases in energy demand e.g. work travel • Time travel surveys show increasing levels of travel related to work (Carlson- Kanyama and Linden, 1999) • High job densities contribute toward increasing distances travelled for work (Boussauw et al. 2010) • Work place energy use versus home working (Spurling and Mcmeekin, 2015)
- 13. An example case: practices Austerity and funding cuts. Worklessness – individual Getting into work - fit for work & employment coaches Practices – continuities and increases in energy demand e.g. work travel Workplace hubs in areas of high employment (Spurling and McMeekin, 2015) Practice change - materials, temporal ordering, meanings Re-imaginings
- 14. Changing policy and politics “The Civil Service is still constructed in such a way as it defends its own bit of its own empire and is very unhappy about pooling resources… One department is seen as being responsible for actually making sure that you're keeping warm and that's an expensive commitment. And it's another department which is seeing the benefit of that from the fact that you are no longer calling on them for emergency health support and so on and so forth. We just do not know how to manage to bridge that sort of stuff.” (Interviewee Charity – policy)
Editor's Notes
- In collaboration with Karen Parkhill, Karen Bickerstaff and Gordon (Walker) In order to achieve the UK's carbon targets there is a need to dramatically reduce energy demand. A large body of research argues that to achieve the high levels of demand reduction required, it is necessary to engage with fundamental questions about how our particular requirements for energy are constructed and reproduced. In this regard, several analyses demonstrate the role of government objectives, investments and ways of working in shaping social practice and in doing so constituting the need for energy in the home, at work and in moving around. At the same time, another line of research highlights the role of policy in steering practice in ways that result in the 'under-use' of energy, exacerbating problems relating to a wide range of other social issues, such as health, social participation and poverty. This brings into view the significance of multiple policy areas in steering energy demand, highlighting challenges associated with tensions that exist between policies and the wider social goals to which they relate. With this as the backdrop, the paper presents insights from a detailed analysis of UK welfare and employment policies, focusing on the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) as the main policy body with responsibilities in this area. The analysis will draw on interviews and documentary analysis to show how welfare and employment policy has implications for energy demand, and give insight into how policy could be re-imagined to engender different patterns of energy-use commensurate with meeting key social challenges.
- Energy demand is required for most of our daily activities and our dependencies on energy are increasing not decreasing – for example as we become increasing mobile and travel more frequently, live as smaller households in bigger homes, and as our food and other forms of consumption become increasingly resource intensive The UKs climate change targets and other environmental sustainability aims as well as welfare aims associated with problems of access and affordability of energy means that the energy intensity of daily life is problematic This has been framed (and to a large extent still is framed) as a problem of meeting these increased needs for energy while still reducing emissions (renewable energy, electric cars etc.) but there is recognition that this will not be sufficient to achieve our ends and that there still remain problems with escalating energy dependencies… In this context we arguably need to think about the problem as one of reconfiguring daily life and questioning the way that our dependencies on energy come to be as they are so that we might begin to set trajectories toward lower energy dependencies (as well as addressing resource intensity)
- The role of government objectives, investments and ways of providing in shaping social practice and in doing so constituting the need for energy (e.g. Bourdieu, 1990; Shove, 2004; Hand et al. 2005; Butler et al. 2014) To effectively unravel, and ultimately reconfigure, the constitution of demand we must attend to a broad sweep of policies that extend beyond what is currently recognised as energy policy. Tensions between energy demand reduction and wider social goals being addressed in other policy areas for example, social justice, health and wellbeing. Hand et al. (2005), for instance, highlight the role of state interventions associated with influencing processes of social practice change toward daily showering. They refer both to explicit forms of influence, such as government programmes of instruction and advice, and more subtle forms of cultural and social dominance that embed specific understandings of hygiene, health, and self (see Miller and Rose, 2008). Bourdieu (1990) highlights the role of the state in shaping family practices. He points to housing and planning policy (the size and number of rooms in houses), legal structures pertaining to marriage, inheritance and names, family benefits, and social statistics or other representations of family that serve to reproduce particular forms of practice associated with family life. While Bourdieu takes the family as his example, such analytic scrutiny can be applied to multiple other forms of social practice and, ultimately, to understanding how it is that energy intensive ways of life are reproduced through wider governance processes and policies that extend far beyond energy policy per se. Or in my own research I’ve highlighted how policies aimed at creating flexible workers and employment conditions have contributed to the constitution of particular forms of mobility as people increasingly form connections to multiple places (and crucially people in place) through their life course Such forms of influence on practice are historically and socially rooted and not the product of singular distinct policies that are necessarily designed to institute particular forms of practice. They are, however, pervasive in their effects and examining policy in this way can bring insights that orient one differently to thinking about the creation of new policy and its potential outcomes. The implications are clear: to effectively unravel, and ultimately reconfigure, the constitution of demand we must attend to a broad sweep of policies that extend beyond what is currently recognised as energy policy. But if we thinking about energy use in this way as constituted through multiple policies– it brings to light a further set of complexities and potential challenges associated with reducing demand – which is that there are likely to be tensions between energy demand reduction and wider social goals that are being addressed (or aiming to be addressed) in other policy areas - for example, social justice, health and wellbeing-
- Focus on welfare and employment policy and the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) as the main policy body with responsibilities in this area. Stephen Crabb MP (Pembrokeshire) Iain Duncan Smith We selected welfare and employment policy with a particular focus on the UK Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) because some connections exist to the Department of Energy and Climate Change – delivers the winter fuel payment and the cold weather payments – so some links on issues of fuel poverty - but it in no way has energy demand as a central part of its remit or explicit goals. The department’s policy priorities span pensions and the ageing society, welfare policy and reform, poverty and social justice, and employment. As one of the largest government departments with connections across multiple other policy areas and the ‘highest spending’ of any Whitehall department, DWP represents an important and complex policy context. [pictures from DWP website] Recent changes in Government to Conservative/Liberal Coalition and majority Conservative have seen the department become the focus of extensive and major reforms. [cursory search of google images for DWP will give you a clear indications of this contentious nature] – IDS resigned saying that disability benefits proposed and quickly shelved in last budget were the reason – This makes welfare and employment a fast changing and politically contentious area of policy that provides scope for examining impacts of policy change as they unfold.
- Document analysis – speeches, reports, strategy documents, presentations, websites… Interviews are building understanding of the current policy context as well as experiences of developing and delivering policy, in welfare and employment policy, and energy policy, plus areas where there are connections e.g. Ofgem vulnerable customers, corporate social responsibility activities of energy firms – Building up a picture of welfare and employment policy and examining what the implications are for energy demand in terms of continuities and/or disruption Reflection on energy demand implications
- Some concepts for thinking about the role of the state in shaping practice – combine concepts from governmentality with practice theory – particular focus Bourdieu for his focus on the role of the state in shaping practice Basic idea - the concept of problematizing highlights how governing involves processes of rendering things problematic (Dean 2010; also see Miller and Rose, 2008). Problems are not pre-given, simply waiting to be revealed, but are constructed and made visible through complex processes of interaction. In contexts of liberal government, problems are often connected to some aspect of individual or collective conduct which must be made amenable to intervention. Rationalities are ways of rendering reality thinkable in such a way that it becomes amenable to calculation and programming. Technologies are assemblages of persons, techniques, institutions and instruments for steering and shaping conduct. This refers to all of the devices, tools, techniques, personnel, materials and apparatuses that enable authorities to act upon the conduct of persons individually and collectively, and often in distant locales. Bourdieu’s concept of social reproduction – idea that we inculcate objective social structures and they become the basis of our subjective social structures- cyclical relationship creates social reproduction – continuities but also disruption. Interesting particularly because of the place he gives to the state and processes of governing in social reproduction. Central to his analysis, is a question about where objective structures come from; if objective social structures form the basis of subjective social categories that we inculcate and enact over time, this suggests a role for forms of influence in their formation.
- For Bourdieu the state or government is central to this process – so Bourdieu’s work in particular gives a way of thinking about the role of the state in shaping practice – and combines with concepts from Foucault and contemporary governmentality theorists to offer an approach for analysing policy in terms of its effects on practice.
- Imaginaries – thinking about how things could be different further opens up the insights we can build into current problematisations- so I’m going to use this approach to work through one case example from our analysis of welfare and employment policy – focusing on current policy related to welfare and poverty
- So to begin with the problem framings - the wider context for policy in general at present is austerity – so as in other policy areas DWP funding is subject to cuts though these area focused on working age benefits (rather than pensions or other benefits for older people) – so a key framing for welfare reform has been to focus on worklessness or being out of work as causal of welfare and poverty problems…
- And worklessness is a problem of individuals and families personal abilities or failures to get into work – lack of training (rather than structural of cultural), lack of trying to get a job, laziness/fecklessness – deserving and undeserving poor -
- So policies like work coaches and fit for work schemes emerge – Strategies are delivered through job centres and contracted companies of which there is an aim to have multiple in any one area - with targets and rewards for the number of people they get back into work – Economic recovery and job creation – and their corresponding indicators (e.g. unemployment levels) is the other side of this approach – this is see the development of things like zero hours contracts and work placements (where after a period of employment people are placed in workplaces for their benefit payments – to gain work experience) So what does all of this mean for energy and transitions in practice more broadly?
- As currently configured, workplace practices contribute to particular patternings of demand in terms of peaks with regard to both domestic energy use and mobilities and are generative of new and increased mobilities as people move around nationally or even internationally for work. The particular framing of problems of poverty in terms of work without questioning the structural patterning of work practices thus can be seen to contribute to continuities in existing patterns of demand toward high dependencies on energy use. But problems of welfare dependency could equally be framed to include other structural and systemic issues, including access to work and workplaces, and issues associated with mobilities and travelling or moving to areas where workplaces are situated. Applying a lens of low carbon transition, they might be configured to challenge existing arrangements that contribute toward needs for mobilities, such as the separation between workplaces and homes and the social organisation of working practices more generally. By opening ways of understanding social problems it becomes possible to see and reimagine different possibilities for policy that more fundamentally challenge current structures pertaining to working patterns and forms of organisation that re-create high dependency on energy (e.g. in terms of mobilities).
- In their analysis of how practice theory might differently position arguments for policy change Spurling and McMeekin (2015) make an argument for the creation of ‘new spaces’ that could cater for new forms of interlocking between practices. They cite the examples of Liverpool Central Library and Kings Cross Hub as spaces which could facilitate abilities to work ‘from home’ in the same venue. In essence, one space becomes the working environment for multiple different employers and different forms of activity, and could diminish requirements for heightened mobilities while also addressing issues of energy intensity associated with high levels of home working. Though neither Kings Cross Hub or Liverpool Central Library are currently configured with sustainability ends in mind, or even the reconfiguration of work, they provide indications of what might be possible if we sought to change interlocking practices of working, commuting, eating, and socialising to be radically different and ultimately less energy intensive (Spurling and McMeekin, 2015). Allied with concerns about worklessness, we can imagine that such reconfigurations could be created to address issues of poverty and a whole range of social issues, such as social participation. At present, such reimaginings of work are evident in pockets of action typically associated with companies such as Google and high tech industries (The Economist, 2013), but such forms could be applied (not to all) but certainly to multiple forms of work and explicitly configured with sustainability, poverty, and wider issues of social participation at their core. Such a policy approach would direct efforts toward processes that challenge existing structures relating to energy consumption – and build in attentiveness to multiple different policy aims and wider social goals
- Just to conclude this kind of analysis brings to light a broader set of questions about the nature of policy and politics and how something as pervasive energy demadn reduciton and low carbon transitions can abe delviered – Quote – this quote is indicative of some of the issues of state action on wider social change within departments So there are bigger questions that relate to the abiltiy of current policy cultures tot think in these kinds of ways…