Description
There have been two major international energy crises since the end of World War II. The first is the energy crisis of the 1970s that was linked to economic and political turbulence in the Middle East. The second is the energy crisis in the 2020s that was generated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Understanding the underlying sources of these exceptional international energy crises is the focus of the article. This involves asking why, in both these crises, energy producers took actions that involved a high risk that they would damage long-term economic interests and undermine the trust of the customers that they had cultivated for a long time. It also raises the question of why these energy crises have been relatively rare, with many geopolitical crises not generating an energy crisis. We argue that a key causal factor in these two cases of energy crisis is the role of emotions and, specifically, that of resentment. The legacies of colonialism also provide a key context for both these energy crises, though in different ways. The article is original in highlighting the role of resentment in energy studies and in comparing the energy crises of the 1970s and those of the 2020s.
