Russian Energy Chains

Margarita M. Balmaceda is a professor of diplomacy and international relations at Seton Hall University. She is also an associate at Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. Her books include The Politics of Energy Dependency: Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania Between Domestic Oligarchs and Russian Pressure (2013) and Living the High Life in Minsk: Russian Energy Rents, Domestic Populism, and Belarus’ Impending Crisis (2014).

• AcknowledgmentsA Note on How to Read This BookA Note on Transliteration and Measurement Units Part I: The Overall Framework1. Dependency on Russian Energy: Threat or Opportunity? 2. Is Energy a Weapon or a Constituent Part of Disaggregated Power Relations? 3. Energy: Materiality and Power Part II: Hydrocarbon Chains and Political Power4. Natural Gas: Managing Pressure from Western Siberia to the Nürnberg Power Plant5. Oil: Managing Value Swings from Siberian Fields to Gasoline Stations in Germany6. Coal: Managing Subsidies from Kuzbass to Ukraine’s Metallurgical Complex in the Donbas to GermanyPart III: New Types of Energy and New Political Chains7. And the Chains Meet Again8. Disruptive Energies and the Tentative End of a System: An EpilogueAppendix A: Glossary of Key Technical Processes in the Natural Gas, Oil, and Coal-Metallurgical ChainsAppendix B: Main ActorsAppendix C: Chronologies of Main Natural Gas, Oil, and Coal Market Events for Russia, Ukraine, and the European UnionNotesSelected BibliographyIndex

No other scholar has the depth of knowledge of the economics, politics, and social issues surrounding post-Soviet energy that Margarita Balmaceda does. The amount and variety of evidence she brings together makes this manuscript a tour de force.