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The At The Arena Of Energy Policy

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Introduction: Building off observations of political structure and derived stability in the previous paper I will, in this paper, apply lessons learned to the arena of energy policy in both Sweden and South Korea. South Korea and Sweden present the interesting similarity of both being net importers of energy resources and for that reason both having the real incentive of formulating some system of energy self-sufficiency to protect them from the dangers inherent to having an economy dependent on the imports from another country. I will begin with outlining the energy issues and subsequent policies being addressed in each country, followed by an in-depth examination on how the political structure of each country has affected the …show more content…

Sweden: Sweden 's push for energy self-sufficiency began with a public demand for environmentally friendly sources of energy post-World War II. Environmental issues such as acid rain and hydroelectric ecological destruction resulted in a slew of renewable energy subsidies and public investments in the 60 's and 70 's (Silveria, 2002). As seen in the prior study of the countries unicameral legislative reform, it was also this time when Sweden dissolved its formally bicameral legislature in favor of a less rigid unicameral system. During this time, post-1973, Sweden saw a large uptick in the number of bills being passed, included in this was transitory legislation for the promotion of energy self-sufficiency in Sweden (Congelton, 2003). As seen in Fig 1.1, this 1970 's push for environmental protection greatly increased the countries reliance on the development of nuclear energy for a replacement baseline source of energy production in the country. In recent years the energy focus has shifted from nuclear towards the development of solar and wind infrastructure, development which ,due to the high cost of primary investment, requires government subsidies to sustain. In modern days Sweden 's focus on the development of renewable energy can be traced to both ideological and economic roots, its current minority coalition government is comprised in large part of the green party and it 's

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