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Abstract

This chapter examines the making of a new sphere for clean energy governance, and takes an intertemporal perspective to identify three distinct stages in its politics. The first stage occurred through transnational network-based initiatives in the 1990s and early 2000s. The second period marked a shift in interest and consensus among powerful actors, resulting in the creation of a new international hierarchy dedicated to renewable energy by the end of 2010. The third stage marked the articulation of norms through the Clean Energy for All framework and the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goal 7 on Affordable and Clean Energy. These policy moves demarcated and institutionalized a new, layered, and evolving sphere of governance of networks, hierarchies, and hybrid arrangements. The analysis illuminates how networks linking different governance modalities capture the growing interdependence across issue areas and actors. It also provides evidence of tendencies of hybridization and layering of modes of governances, as networks often engage markets, rely on state agencies for resources, and create pathways to new intergovernmental or hybrid structures. The analysis shows that the pluralization of agency has shaped the networks and market-based mechanisms that gave rise to the sphere of clean energy governance.

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