Experts in Russian Energy Policy - Towards an Epistemic Community?

International Relations’ research has been particularly active in the past two decades when it comes to Russian energy policy. Although vast amounts of academic literature on energy issues associated with Russia have enriched the discipline, diversity on the level of theory is yet to blossom. Energy studies about Russia are still mainly characterized by realist, neorealist and geopolitical theories and that of the liberal tradition. This study aims at exploring new ways to examine Russian energy policy by employing a constructivist approach. Traditional theories in IR utilized within this thematic area place value on structure as the main driver for state interest formation expressed for example in the energy policy of a certain country. Structures and consequently state interests are seen as constant and independent from human action. In contrast, this research will view international relations from a different perspective and emphasize the role of agency in the production of different objects observable in world politics, such as Russian energy policy or an elementary ingredient of it, the Russian energy strategy. In the construction of the social reality of international relations, agency is performed by different kinds of actors. The current research will analyse the influence of an epistemic community in the formation of Russian energy policy. The main objective of the study is to see whether the epistemic communities approach by Peter Haas (1990/1992) and others will increase our understanding of energy policy-making. Epistemic community and its influence will be identified by examining the policy project of the Energy Strategy of Russia up to the period 2030. The research will also contemplate the usability of the theoretical tool in examining energy issues in general. The research phenomenon will be approached from a qualitative perspective by analysing the research material with (qualitative) content analysis. The empirical material of this study consists of expert interviews. Additionally, online sources and Russian academic writing on the subject were used. The results of the thesis indicate that the energy epistemic community significantly influences policy processes related to energy in Russia. Its action takes place on two levels. At the cognitive level, the community produces the scientific rationale of the energy policy and future projections on where it is going. In practise the epistemic community mainly influences the development of policy tools, such as legal acts, federal programmes and economic incentives. The results highlight the importance of epistemic communities in energy policy-making. In Russia, the community serves an instrumental purpose in validating different policy options and in producing the institutional substance of the country’s energy policy. In conclusion, the epistemic communities approach offers fruitful insights to research concentrating on the dynamics of energy policy formation both in national and international contexts. Asiasanat: Energy policy, Russia, epistemic community, constructivism