The dissertation develops a new social theory that challenges traditional ways of studying political power. The project explores the importance of energy production and use in the background of power relations in society. The research shows how the prevailing ways of thinking and speaking regarding society, nature and people as part of them have been built through the use of energy. The theory emphasizes in a new way how the internal relations of society cannot be separated from the nature and its resources. Through the constructed theory the project examines the EU’s Green Deal. The goal of the project is to reveal the power interests guiding EU’s energy policy and to study how energy-related thought patterns affect the implementation of the Green Deal. The project helps to understand how decisions about energy use are connected to the maintaining of power relations in society, and what changes the sustainability transformation requires in our ways of thinking and political action.
