with the Lutheran World Federation on‘justification’ that affirmed the same doctrine could be legitimately be expressed indifferent formulations, and the statement on~~vangelisation, Proselytism and CommonWitness’ adopted in a dialogue with ‘SomeClassical Pentecostal Denominations andLeaders’. Catholics also participated withother groups in prayers for Christian unity.

Some successful attempts occurred at uniting various Protestant denominations, suchas the United Church of Canada, the UnitingChurch ~fl Australia, the Church of SouthIndia, and the Church of North India. More0oteworthy are the efforts at global cooperation among specific denominations, such asthe Lambeth Conferences of the bishops ofthe Anglican communion, the World Allianceof Reformed Churches, the Baptist WorldAlliance, the World Methodist Council, theLutheran World Federation, and numerousothers. These bodies have no power to interfere in the life of local or national bodies, butthey assist in coordinating the efforts of theirchurch constituencies. They are known collectively as Christian World Communions,and their general secretaries hold low-keymeetings annually to discuss issues of common interest. Some in the WCC regard themas undermining the effort to achieve churchunity.

The term ‘ecumenism’ is generally notapplied to the larger area ofinterreligious dialogue, although some would contest this. Themajor example of such an endeavour is the‘World Parliament ofReligions’ that was heldin Chicago in 1893, and the jubilee observancea century later, renamed the ‘Parliament ofWorld Religions’. These brought together representatives from the major world religionsto discuss issues of mutual concern, and the1993 meeting adopted a declaration callingfor an end to religious conflicts, the armsrace, environmental destruction, and genderdiscrimination. In this regard, the Vatican IIDeclaration on the Relation of the Church toNon-Christian Religions (1965) is noteworthyfor its repudiation of the charge of deicideagainst the Jews and for its affirmation ofGod’s continuing love for the Jewish people. Italso urged Christians to enter with prudenceand charity into discussions and collaboration with members of other religions andto acknowledge, preserve and encourage theSpiritual and moral truth found among non-Christians. It further noted that the church

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has a high regard for Muslims. The WCCappointed a sub-unit to pursue dialogue withpeople ofliving faiths that held a consultationin 1990. It issued a report on religious pluralitythat recognized the ‘mystery of salvation’ inmen and women of other religions and calledon Christians to respect their religious convictions and to admire the things which Godhad accomplished and continues to accomplish in them through the Spirit.

Richard Pierard

BibliographyDesseauxJ. 1983. Vingtsiècles d’histoire

oecuménique. Paris: Cerf.Fitzgerald T. 2004. The ecumenical movement:

an introductorli historli. Westport: Praeger.Kinnamon M. and Cope B. (eds) iç~g~.

The ecumenical movement: an antholo~tjof ke!J texts and voices. Geneva: WCCPublications.

World Council ofChurches 1954—2005.

A histor!J ofthe ecumenical movement, ~ vols.Vol. ~, 1968—2000. Briggs J., Oduyoye M.and Tsetsës G. (eds) 2004. Geneva: WCCPublications.

Related essaysantisemitism; Buddhism; Christianity;cosmopolitanism and universalism;evangelicalism; internationalisms; Islam;missionaries; religion; Second VaticanEcumenical Council; youth organizations

Electricity infrastructuresDuring the 20th century, the supplying ofelectricity became a transnational force inseveral ways. First, in the realm of ideas, theplanning of transnational electricity systemsintertwined with broader ideas of regionalintegration. Since the 1920S electrical integration has been ideologically linked to thecreation of interdependency, joint prosperity and peace, especially in Europe. Second,international organizations promoting infrastructure were among the earliest and mostsuccessful experiments in global community building. The electricity supply sectorproduced its own international organizations after 1920, hosting structural interactions between individuals and organizationsfrom across the world. Finally, on a purelymaterial level, economies and societies wereelectrically interconnected. Some crossborder links date from the early decades of

A

316 Electricity infrastructures

the 20th century, but electrical integrationwas more systematically pursued only in thecentury’s second half. These developmentswere far from homogeneous or smooth. Theyresulted in asymmetrical patterns of interconnection and collaboration even within themost advanced regional power pools.

If electricity became a connecting forceonly in the 19105 and 192os, this is in part dueto the sector’s internal development. Systemsto supply electricity to the public had beenestablished since the early i88os. However,using low-voltage distribution (typically noor 220 volts) these had an economic reach ofonly a few kilometres. They were inner-city oreven village systems. Relative power lossesdecrease with increasing transport voltages, and the introduction and diffusion ofmedium-voltage transmission (often io kilo-volts) in the 189os increased the transmissionrange to some 30—50 kilometres, enablingan increase of supply areas and scaling upof power stations. Several of such increasedpower systems grew to cross nationalborders. Most important for our topic, however, is the notion of interconnecting powerstations in a power pooi, using still highertransmission voltages (often higher than ~o or100 kilovolts). This notion ofpower pools wasmuch debated in the 1910s. Well-advertisedadvantages included integrating distant lignite or hydropower plants into the system;allocating production to those power stationsin the pooi producing cheapest at any giventime; and mutual provision of backup capacity in case of breakdowns within the pooi.These promises inspired projects for nationalas well as transnational power pools.

Electricity and ideas ofregional integrationThe notion of transnational electricitysystems first entwined with emerging ideasof regional integration in interwar Europe.Engineers evoked political notions of a pan-European Union in their thinking aboutelectricity supply; simultaneously, functionalist politicians embraced electricalintegration as a practical, ‘technical’ alternative to the troublesome ‘high politics’road to European integration. Both groupsenthusiastically debated how transnationalelectricity networks could make the energyof Europe’s unevenly distributed coal fieldsand hydropower sites available to all itscountries. Moreover, this process would

create electrical interdependencies thatwould secure peace better than any politicaltreaties on paper. Like railroads in the 19thcentury and information and communication technologies networks today, electricalinterconnection promised cooperation,prosperity and peace. By the early 1930s several engineers were proposing all-Europeanpower grids fed by hydropower plants inScandinavia and the Alps. Meanwhile theLeague of Nations discussed electrical integration in the context ofa wider scheme forEuropean public utilities.

While the promises of electricalcooperation boosted functionalist thoughton regional integration, in reality suchcollaboration remained rather limited. Untilthe 1940s, the competing idea of creatingnational power pools ensuring nationalenergy independence proved stronger. Theidea of regional electrical integration gaineda coercive character when Nazi Germany,too, sought to integrate an envisaged Neuropaby electric power networks, by which occupied territories’ energy resources would feedGermany’s war economy.

In postwar Europe promises of prosperityand peace via electrical integration re-emerged,although the functionalist ideology wasoften downplayed relative to the promise ofsectoral efficiency gains of cooperation andconcerns to create large markets for projectednuclear power plants. Still, electrical integration remained an important concern to political bodies working for regional integration.The United Nations Economic Commissionfor Europe (UNECE, 1947), the Organizationfor European Economic Co-operation (OEEC,1948), and the Council of Mutual EconomicAssistance (COMECON, ,g~g) all includedelectricity supply in their regional integrationefforts.

In the i~gos, neoliberal thinkingstrengthened interlinked notions ofregional and electrical integration: regionalmarkets require transnational networks.The European Union includes electricity inits Trans European Network programmeto forge economic, social and territorialcohesion (1992). In comparable phrasing,the Economic Community of West AfricanStates (ECOWAS) set up a West AfricanPower Pool (WAPP, 1999) to achieve ‘physical integration by means of infrastructures’. A similar constellation of ideas ledthe South African Development Community

7

(SADC) to establish the South African PowerPool (SAPP, 1995), the Association of SouthEast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to plan anASEAN power grid (1998), and the NAFTAcountries to set up the North AmericanEnergy Working Group (NAEWG, 2001) to‘enhance North American energy trade andinterconnections’, including electricity.

International organizationsA different type of transnational force isglobal community building through thework of international organizations. In thehistory of international organizations, infrastructure-related organizations count amongthe earliest and most successful examples.Electricity-related organizations emergedrather late, as did the field ofelectrotechnicalscience.

Prior to World War i, the main organizations fostering coherence and community inthe electricity supply world were electricalequipment manufacturers and leadingnational electrotechnical engineering bodiessuch as the American Institute of ElectricalEngineers (AIEE, 1884; renamed IEEE in1963) and its German counterpart, theVerein Deutscher Elektrotechniker (1893).In 1906 these and others founded the firstinternational organization in the field, theInternational Electrotechnical Commission(IEC). Based in London (and later in Geneva),the IEC codified technical standards, definitions and symbols. By 1914 it had produced several lists of terms and symbols;since 1938 it has published the multilingualInternational Electrotechnical Vocabulary,which currently comprises some 20,000

terms. Today the IEC associates expertsfrom industry, government, academia, testlabs and others from over 130 member oraffiliated countries.

In the interwar years several internationalorganizations were added. The broadest ofthese was the London-based World PowerConference (WPC, 1923; later renamedWorld Energy Conference and World EnergyCouncil), serving as a ‘non-commercial, nonaligned’ forum to discuss the world’s energyquestions, including electricity. Its first congress (1924) attracted some 1,700 delegatesfrom 40 countries; by the iggos it associatedmember committees in nearly a hundredcountries. Again, members included representatives from power companies and electrotechnical manufacturers, but also policy

Electricity infrastructures 317

makers, academic researchers, and userorganizations.

Specifically focusing upon electric powerexchanges, the International Council onLarge Electric Systems (CIGRE, 1921) was setup as a platform ‘to develop and distributeknowledge’ related to electricity generationand high-voltage transmission. Today it linksover 4,000 individual and collective membersin some 8o countries. The International Unionof Producers and Distributors of ElectricalPower (UNIPEDE, 1925) was established bythe electrotechnical industries ofltaly, Franceand Belgium, but quickly gained more members. It prime task was the study ofproblemsof efficiency and operation and to promotethe electrotechnical industry. It includednon-European members, but focused mainlyon Europe. In 1999 UNIPEDE merged withthe European lobby group Eurelectric (1990).

Also the International Energy Agency (1974),founded in response to the first oil crisis,includes primarily European countries amongits 26 industrialized members.

Electrical integration and fragmentationThe earliest cross-border interconnectionslinked producers and consumers or individualutilities on different sides ofthe border, ratherthan interconnecting power pools or countries. These include a hydropower system inthe bi-national town of Rheinfelden, whichexpanded into Germany and Switzerlandfrom 1898, and a transmission line acrossthe US-Canadian border at the bi-nationalNiagara Falls in 1901. Many such rather localprojects followed in the next decades. Fromigi6, subnational power poois in EasternDenmark and Southern Sweden were linkedby a submarine cable.

Structural attempts for regional electricalintegration took offfrom the 195os and 196os.However, its asymmetrical and incompletenature puts the transnational dimension ofelectricity into critical perspective. Electricitytrade is generally dwarfed by the domesticproduction ofindividual countries. Accordingto US Energy Information Administrationstatistics in 2004, transnational power flowsworldwide only amounted to about 3 per centof net domestic production, meaning that anoverwhelming 97 per cent of electricity flowscirculate within national borders. Moreover,transborder power exchange developed aregional scope only in ‘Europe’ (here includingformer COMECON countries) and ‘Eurasia’

318 Electricity intrastructures

(the former Soviet countries). There, virtuallyall countries participated in regional powerpools. In 2004 ‘European’ exports amountedto some 312 terawatt hours (TWh), constituting about g per cent of net domestic production. The figures for ‘Eurasia’ were 83 TWhand 6 per cent, following a significant declinein the 1990S.

In 2004 significant transborder powerflows existed in the Americas, but these werecompletely dominated by a few bilateralexchanges. These include US imports fromCanada (33 TWh) and the Paraguayan yieldsof the giant bilateral hydroelectric powerprojects at Itaipd (1984) and Yaciretd (‘995),which were almost completely exported (~TWh) to Brazil and Argentina respectively.Transnational power exchanges in the MiddleEast and Asia remain negligible. In Africaexports rapidly increased in the last decadefollowing the creation of several regionalpower poois mentioned above; compared todomestic production, however, they remainminor.

Regional electrical integration was relatively successful only in Europe, but a closerlook reveals ruptures even there. Europeanelectrical integration typically proceededin distinct mesoregional blocks. The OEECset up the Union for the Coordination ofProduction and Transport of Electricity(UCPTE, 1951; currently UCTE) to arrangemultilateral electricity exchanges, butonly for Western Europe. The COMECONset up its own regional power pool, theInterconnected Power System of the CentralDispatch Organization (IPS/CDO, 1962), TheIPSICDO synchronized and cooperated witha third pool, the USSR United Power Systems(UPS). Simultaneously, utilities in the Nordiccountries — where Nordic economic integration still counted as a viable alternative toWestern European integration — set up theirown Nordic electric power collaborationcalled Nordel (1963). French, Spanish andPortuguese utilities established the UnionFranco-Ibérique pour la Coordination de IaProduction et du Transport de l’Electricitë(UFIPTE, 1963). Italian, Austrian, Yugoslavianand Greek utilities too established their owncooperation (SUDEL, 1964).

UFIPTE and SUDEL coordinated networkswhich operated synchronously with theUCPTE, of which they became full membersin the 198os. Nordel, which currently coordinates the best integrated power pool in the

world, did not join the UCPTE. However, itdid develop an intensive collaboration withUCPTE members through submarine high..voltage direct current power cables (which donot require system synchronization). After1989 the Central Eastern European IPS/CDOwas dissolved. Several members disconnectedfrom the successor to the USSR. networkand synchronized with the UCPTE networkinstead, culminating in the so-called TransEuropean Synchronously InterconnectedSystem (TESIS, ‘995). The former Sovietsystem continued as a separate internationalpower pool as former Soviet republics gainedindependence. Here several countries werecaught in a dilemma. The Baltic republics ofLatvia, Estonia, and Lithuania, for instance,chose electrical disconnection from the USSRsystem as a key arena to achieve national independence in the late 198os. Later they foundtheir power exports to Russia too valuableto lose, and continued to cooperate, whileslowly exploring collaboration to the Northand West.

Electrical integration thus proves a deeplypolitical phenomenon. In terms of powerflows, it is still much less important than(sub)national electricity circulation. However,recent transnational blackouts suggest thateconomies and societies have neverthelessbecome electrically interdependent, albeit inan unexpected way. Breakdowns may cascadethrough interconnected systems across national borders. In the ‘Northeast blackout’ of2003, a failure in Ohio caused a power outagefor some ~o million Americans and io million Canadians. In the same year, a failingSwiss-Italian cross-border line plunged someof Switzerland and almost the entire Italianpeninsula into darkness. In November 2006, apower failure in northern Germany cascadedthrough the network as far as Morocco andCroatia. Experts expect more such failures tooccur in the coming years.

Vincent LagendijkErik van der Vleuten

BibliographyCardot F. (ed.) 1987. i88o—ig8o: un siècle

d’e’lectricite’ dons le monde: octes du premiercolloque international d’histoire de l’ilectricité.Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

Hughes T. P. 1983. Networks ofpower:electrification in Western society 1880—1930.Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UniversityPress.

Lagendijk V, 2008. Electrifying Europe: thepower ofEurope in the construction ofelectricity networks. Unpublished doctoraldissertation, Eindhoven University ofTechnology, Eindhoven.

Lagendijk V. ‘High voltages, lower tensions:the interconnections of Eastern andWestern European electricity networksin the 19705 and ig8os’, in Bussière B.,

P Durnoulin M. and Schirmann S. (eds)

ft 2006. Milleux écononiiques et inté~grcttion~ européenne au XXe siècle: Ia crise des années

ft 1970 de Ia confe’rence de La HaIje ii Ia veille deIa relance des anne’es ig8o. Brussels: PeterLang, 137—65.

Trédé M. (ed.) 1992. Electricitéet ~Iectrificationdons Ic monde: Actes du deuxième colloqueinternational d’histoire de l’électricite’. Paris:

~‘ Presses Universitaires de France.Van der Vleuten E. and Kaijser A. (eds) 2006.

Networkin9 Europe: transnational infrastructuresand the shapinQ ofEurope 1850—2000. SagamoreBeach: Science History Publications.

Related essaysborders and borderlands; broadcasting;European Union (EU); intergovernmentalorganizations; international nongovernmental organizations (INGO5);Internet; League ofNations system;mail; pan-isms; radio; railways; regionalcommunities; regions; technicalstandardization; telephone and telegraphy;transportation infrastructures; world orders

Empire and migration‘Empire’ describes a wide variety ofhegemonic territorial conquests that produceflows ofpeople, goods, and ideas across frontiers. Prior to the making ofthe modern nationstate, the boundaries of contiguous kingdoms and empires remained fuzzy. Nomadscirculated across boundaries, peasants fledwar from one kingdom to another. However,the analytical value of the term ‘empire’(without dynastic appellation) as a conceptual category for the study ofhistory emergedin its relationship to the nation state, definedby territorial sovereignty and the eliminationof fuzzy boundaries. After the formation ofmodern nation states, empire was embeddedin two sets of geopolitical relationships: itseconomic and political relationship with aspecific nation state; and the simultaneouscontrol that empire exercises, in the name of

Empire and migration 319

the sovereign nation state, over colonies andtheir peoples.

The sovereign-territory-based nation state,originating as a historical form in WesternEurope, rested on processes of mappingand fencing off borders culminating instate-controlled points ofentry and departureof peoples and goods. Policed borders weresustained by the political, military andfinancial institutions of the state. Crucially,the nation state framed legal systems definingnationality, citizenship, and property rights.Definition of ‘the nation’ marked off theincluded and the excluded peoples, those ofthe nation, and those who did not ‘belong’.These legal definitions of citizenship madethe visa-stamped passport ofthe 20th centurythe single most important document in themigrant’s life. The nation state recast empire,for both are imbued with transnational andglobal capital. Migration in the age ofnationalborders began a distinctive chapter in the history of the transnational world.

It is possible to distinguish three periods inthis new era. The first, from the 183os to theIg2os, marks a period when both voluntaryand indentured global migrations reachednew levels and colonial empires inaugurated controlled transnational migration oftheir subjects. The period from the 1920S tothe 1940S marked the end of the plantation-culture migration and restrictions onmigrations in areas such as the US. Thiswas a period of capital contraction due tothe worldwide economic depression, whichaffected both empire and trajectories ofmigration. These were also the beginnings ofdecolonization. The last period, commencingfrom the 1940S to the present, marks the endof formal political controls of empire withdecolonization, but the uneven world thatempire made continues to shape the trajectories oftransnational migrations. This essayfocuses on the first and the last period, whenthe world was remade through the processesofmassive migrations.

In the post-1750 period Europe looked toAsia and Africa for new imperial possessions. As the European powers withdrewfrom the Americas, parts of Mexico were formally annexed by the US, and Central andCaribbean America became part of its informal empire of ‘Manifest Destiny’. By the 20th

century, the British empire was the largest interms of population and territory controlled,followed by the French, Dutch, Spanish,