CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2026
| Author | Djunda, Dragan |
|---|---|
| Title | The Production of Power: Environmental and Energy Politics in Yugoslavia and Serbia |
| Summary | From the Iron Gates I mega-dam in the 1960s to small hydropower plants (SHPPs) in the 2020s, this dissertation maps the arc of energy and environmental politics from Yugoslavia to present-day Serbia. Both projects emerged from distinct geopolitical and economic contexts, reflected the logics of their dominant regimes, and transformed livelihoods and landscapes while reproducing socio-spatial hierarchies. The conflicts surrounding Iron Gates I and SHPPs provide the empirical departure points for this ethnographic and historical study. Building on these cases, the dissertation explores how energy infrastructure evolved and, in turn, how the environment-making authority and the authority-making environment reshaped one another over time. Through the concept of environment-making authority, the dissertation shows how political and economic institutions deployed energy infrastructure& #x2014;construc ting dams, importing oil, or building SHPPs—to realize development agendas and respond to global pressures. It identifies key political and economic actors, the shifting modes of institutional organization, and the ways of using energy sources. The notion of the authority-making environment examines how ecological alliances emerged and altered institutional functioning as they opposed various extractive projects. It asks which actors came to speak for the environment, which discourses and strategies they employed, and how the environment obtained its definitions and boundaries through their actions. The dissertation traces the co-evolving but unequal relationship between institutions and mobilizations, presenting energy infrastructure as a central medium through which environmental politics took shape and through which the condition of uneven development has persisted. |
| Supervisor | Bodnar, Judit; Sopranzetti, Claudio |
| Department | Sociology PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2026/djunda_dragan.pdf |
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