Securitisation of urban electricity supply A political ecology perspective on the cases of Jordan and Lebanon Eric Verdeil

International audienceQuestions about urban infrastructure, resilience, and violence are central to current urban general literature since infrastructures function as locations of conflict and negotiation over the public good, inclusion and exclusion, and mobility in the city. This chapter develops a theoretical framework to analyse the emergence of new concerns for urban energy security in the cities of Amman (Jordan) and Jbeil and Zahleh (Lebanon). Supplying these cities with electricity requires creating new circuits that are both material and sociopolitical. In Amman, one of the projects proposed for coping with the projected growth of energy demand was to build a nuclear plant in the “desert” close to Amman. This project, now allegedly in the final studies stage, has experienced many episodes and delays. Analysis shows the pressure of urban energy demand and the resizing of metabolic circuits at the level of the metropolis of Amman, while the governance of these circuits remains state-driven despite popular protests. In Jbeil and Zahleh, in the face of regular and long-lasting power cuts, local capitalist actors have taken the lead to provide an alternative electricity supply that replaces both the national grid and informal generators that are in use elsewhere in the country. At first glance, both situations seem very different in scale and in the type of actors involved. But in both cases, these new circuits are heavily contested and redistribute agencies of power in ways that empower some actors but that, at the same time, erode solidarity at the city and the national levels