Aug 28, 2026 · 52 min · 14 segments
What actually is an electrostate? How do the material substances of electricity and fossil fuels shape state power? Is the US a petrostate and does this question expose the flimsiness of the concept?…
Freddie DaleyGuestJosh WhiteHostYeah, could you perhaps give a bit of an introduction then to maybe listeners who aren't as swept up in the discussion of electrostates, of what an electrostate is when it's discussed in, I guess... general scholarship and like grey literature, like what is an electrostate and what do people mean when they talk about electrostates generally?
Well, I think it's kind of emerged as a like contemporary counterweight to a petrostate, right? So this sort of simple dichotomy or even a heuristic to understand this sort of transition from one state formation, i.e.
one that's dependent on the production of fossil fuels, the export of fossil fuels, to one in which the main sources of economic activity are green technologies and processes of electrification.
um what an electric state is i think it's a bit of a crap answer but it depends on who you ask and in the grey literature you know there's different ways of approaching it i think there's analysts that that have sort of like quantitative thresholds for it so for example looking at um the amount of final energy demand that that's um that that's that is met through electrification um and this obviously comes from sort of energy generation but also things like transport uh heating etc etc There's other sort of indicators that people use, something like the number of patents for green technologies that are under license.
approach to defining electric state, which is basically that green technologies and processes of electrification have become the primary driver of economic growth and development within a state.
And this, you know, can be a sort of like a national program, but also sort of like a geopolitical one too.
And then, yeah, I suppose related to that is that more strategic reading where it's like green technology and dominance in green technology and processes of electrification are a sort of fundamental part of state strategy.
So in the case of China, let's say, a way of reducing its dependence on imported fossil fuels, but also a way of geopolitical leverage, you know, making states dependent on Chinese manufactured technologies, et cetera, et cetera.
So There's lots of different ways that people are approaching the concept of an electrostate out there, both like academically and in grey literature and in policy discourse as well.
So we kind of went to that and we thought, you know, we'll suggest a sort of like three-tiered definition.
And the one that we arrived at kind of collates all of these, whereas, you know, firstly, an electrostate is a sort of developmental or an economic dependence on processes of electrification and becoming dominant in green technologies for domestic use but also for for export um and policy so everything from industrial policy to fiscal policy is kind of oriented around this pursuit um the second facet would be the domination of green technologies and the pursuit of access and and supply of those component parts whether that's sort of steel but also sort of
Again, this could be done domestically, but also through sort of trade and investment overseas.
China, again, massive investor overseas in green minerals, I think, and green and technologies.
I think there's that wonderful study by Net Zero Policy Lab that shows they've invested more than something by the Marshall Plan during after the Second World War, which is just, you And then the third aspect that we looked at is infrastructural power and standards.
So specific technologies that are used creates these dependencies that the importing states will develop.
And through scaling up these technologies and becoming very proficient in their manufacture, you export sort of standards and they determine, you know, the interoperability of these systems, which in turn determines their scale, but also market access, you know, which other companies can get in.
And, you know, there's also, there's other forms of like extractionism in this area as well.
So we kind of posit that the, although it's imperfect and it's definitely an emergent sort of concept that an electric state could have these sort of three
Yeah, could you perhaps give a bit of an introduction then to maybe listeners who aren't as swept up in the discussion of electrostates, of what an electrostate is when it's discussed in, I guess... general scholarship and like grey literature, like what is an electrostate and what do people mean when they talk about electrostates generally?
Well, I think it's kind of emerged as a like contemporary counterweight to a petrostate, right? So this sort of simple dichotomy or even a heuristic to understand this sort of transition from one state formation, i.e.
one that's dependent on the production of fossil fuels, the export of fossil fuels, to one in which the main sources of economic activity are green technologies and processes of electrification.
um what an electric state is i think it's a bit of a crap answer but it depends on who you ask and in the grey literature you know there's different ways of approaching it i think there's analysts that that have sort of like quantitative thresholds for it so for example looking at um the amount of final energy demand that that's um that that's that is met through electrification um and this obviously comes from sort of energy generation but also things like transport uh heating etc etc There's other sort of indicators that people use, something like the number of patents for green technologies that are under license.
approach to defining electric state, which is basically that green technologies and processes of electrification have become the primary driver of economic growth and development within a state.
And this, you know, can be a sort of like a national program, but also sort of like a geopolitical one too.
And then, yeah, I suppose related to that is that more strategic reading where it's like green technology and dominance in green technology and processes of electrification are a sort of fundamental part of state strategy.
So in the case of China, let's say, a way of reducing its dependence on imported fossil fuels, but also a way of geopolitical leverage, you know, making states dependent on Chinese manufactured technologies, et cetera, et cetera.
So There's lots of different ways that people are approaching the concept of an electrostate out there, both like academically and in grey literature and in policy discourse as well.
So we kind of went to that and we thought, you know, we'll suggest a sort of like three-tiered definition.
And the one that we arrived at kind of collates all of these, whereas, you know, firstly, an electrostate is a sort of developmental or an economic dependence on processes of electrification and becoming dominant in green technologies for domestic use but also for for export um and policy so everything from industrial policy to fiscal policy is kind of oriented around this pursuit um the second facet would be the domination of green technologies and the pursuit of access and and supply of those component parts whether that's sort of steel but also sort of
Again, this could be done domestically, but also through sort of trade and investment overseas.
China, again, massive investor overseas in green minerals, I think, and green and technologies.
I think there's that wonderful study by Net Zero Policy Lab that shows they've invested more than something by the Marshall Plan during after the Second World War, which is just, you And then the third aspect that we looked at is infrastructural power and standards.
So specific technologies that are used creates these dependencies that the importing states will develop.
And through scaling up these technologies and becoming very proficient in their manufacture, you export sort of standards and they determine, you know, the interoperability of these systems, which in turn determines their scale, but also market access, you know, which other companies can get in.
And, you know, there's also, there's other forms of like extractionism in this area as well.
So we kind of posit that the, although it's imperfect and it's definitely an emergent sort of concept that an electric state could have these sort of three
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