Chapter Three: The Energy of Policy Systems

As we have described, the policy Energy block is made up of four components: policy mix optimality (P), legitimacy (L), administrative efficiency (A) and narrative (N).

The first factor to investigate in the Energy block is the ‘what’ of public policies. What policies, what institutions are pursued by countries and policymakers and what conditions their optimality? This is the traditional question extensively addressed by development studies and policy analysis.

A first question that naturally arises when we think about the optimality of the policy mix is: do we know what policies matter? Or alternatively, do we have a sound approach to investigating which policies matter?