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Energy as Power—Gazprom, Gas Infrastructure, and Geo-governmentality in Putin’s Russia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Veli-Pekka Tynkkynen
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Abstract

This study unfolds the normalizing narrative that is constructed via the Gazifikatsiia Rossii promotional video released by Gazprom. The analysis reveals that the practiced geo-governmentality of gazifikatsiia derives its power from geographical imaginaries of Russia. This bipartite energopower and geo-governmentality receives its essence from the positive and negative materialities of hydrocarbons, the ability to do both “good” and “bad”, which unfolds the way the non-human is embedded in the construction of the social. This construction lumps together the material-nationalistic energy imagination, such as Russia as an energy Superpower, with universal goals such as economic growth and modernization, but also with values such as conservative gender roles. The rationalities and practices of gazifikatsiia geo-governmentality function in and combine several scales: the subject is tied to territories and the nation via gas, the subject is made responsible for the biosecurity of the population, and the global is harnessed in legitimizing the reliance on gas.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 75 , Issue 2 , Summer 2016 , pp. 374 - 395
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Inc. 2016

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References

This research was carried out under the auspices of the Finnish Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Russian Studies “Choices of Russian Modernisation,” and relates to the project “Russia’s final energy frontier—Sustainability challenges of the Russian Far North” (Academy of Finland project no. 277874). I wish to thank the five anonymous reviewers, editor of Slavic Review Professor Harriet Murav, and my colleagues at the CoE in Russian Studies, especially Professor Margarita Balmaceda, for their insightful criticism and advice.

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75. “Gazprom naměřen vlozhiť v gazifikatsiiu Karelii 8 mlrd rublei” (Gazprom aims to invest 8 billion rubles to gasify Karelia) at http://stolicaonego.ru/news/186652.html (last accessed April 21, 2016).

76. Whether Russia is as an energy superpower was hotly debated especially after the 2006 and 2009 gas disputes between Ukraine, Russia, and the EU, but the issue has been revived during the 2014 Ukrainian crisis. Noteworthy is the way official Russia has talked about its energy as leverage: the assertive position of the early 2000s that Russia uses energy as a geopolitical resource, clearly stated in the Energy Strategy of Russia from 2003, was softened after 2008-2009, when Russia articulated its energy-policy aims towards the west. However, at the same time, the construction of the energy-superpower discourse has intensified (especially during the 2014 crisis) with the Russian domestic audience, as clearly shown by Natal’ya Grib, Gazovyi Imperator. Rossiia i Novyi Miroporiadok (The Gas Emperor: Russia and the New World Order) (Moscow, 2009)Google Scholar.

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82. However, as said, this responsibility is ethnically discriminative, as indigenous people of the North are ignored in the video.

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