Gridlocked: Governing cross-border electricity provision and infrastructure in a divided Cyprus since 1963

This article studies the electricity grid as a manifestation and medium of energy dependency relations. It analyses the experience of managing the electricity grid on the politically divided island of Cyprus over the past six decades to reappraise notions of the grid as a sociotechnical connector. The insularity of the Cypriot grid has made collaboration across the political divide between the Greek Cypriot South and Turkish Cypriot North over the provision of electricity unavoidable despite intercommunal separation. The article uses recent research on cross-border interconnectors and wider scholarship on the technopolitics, history and geopolitics of energy to unpack the dynamics and ambivalence of the grid in politically contested contexts. Four key findings emerge from the analysis. First, the grid may be viewed in the public realm as a great connector, but understanding what it connects, in what ways and to what ends is essential to its effective mobilization. Second, electricity grids can not only expand, but also contract, lose their function and be later re-activated, highlighting the non-linearity of grid histories. Third, because of its strategic importance to energy services the electricity grid is ingrained with political meaning and impact, mobilized in the Cypriot case to assert sovereignty claims, strive for electricity self-dependence, but also to build bridges. Fourth, the energy engineer emerges from this story as a figure willing and able to transcend political divides through the grid. Overall, the article shows how historical examples of political contestation over electricity infrastructure can prove highly instructive for current debates about transforming energy systems.