Against the backdrop of fundamental change processes in energy, environmental and climate protection policy, resource shifts have an impact on several spatial scales simultaneously and are shaped by a large number of actors within the framework of complex governance structures. The effects of techno-economic innovations for decarbonisation can be perceived and experienced where new energy landscapes are created - including new risks, so that acceptance and participation research is of great importance.
We are particularly interested in actors, questions of power and distribution, processes of institutional embedding at different spatial scales; in questions of the role of local communities in the implementation of decentralised renewable energy supply projects in the context of local restructuring processes in post-industrial urban areas; in the politicisation of resource issues in international relations, related geopolitical constructions and ideas of order as a means of (re)producing power relations and asserting political interests (e.g. China's "New Silkies"); and in the role of local communities in the implementation of decentralised renewable energy supply projects in the context of local restructuring processes in post-industrial urban areas. China's "New Silk Roads" and "Geo-Energy Spaces" as transregional integration projects).
The Geographical Energy, Resources and East Asia Research Group pursues a transnational and multi-level governance perspective on institutions, social processes and their spatial realities, for example in the areas of energy, food security and land issues.
The focus is particularly on how institutions (defined as binding rules, standard operating procedures and shared norms and understandings) structure governance processes and how governance arrangements influence the policy-making process and policy outcomes. The main theoretical concepts and methods are rooted in institutional theory, political economy and public policy.