Policy regimes in South African electricity policy as a barrier to reform and sustainability Kevin J.R. Foster.
This thesis examines the South African electricity policy-making regime asking the question "What is the nature of South Africa's electricity policy regime and how does it act as a barrier to reform and the introduction of sustainable energy sources into the South Africa's energy system from 1994 to 2011?" It hypothesizes that a policy regime that amounts to a coalition between energy intensive business, electricity utility Eskom and the Government that has developed in the post apartheid era out of what Fine and Rustomjee called the Minerals-Energy Complex. It hypothesizes that this regime uses its financial and political power and skills asymmetries to ensure policy is made in a supply paradigm, which prefers cheap source of electricity supply to meet growing demand over efficiency and sustainability in the energy system and that this is the major barrier to reform.
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