The story of deregulation in general, and that of the liberalization of the electric power sector in particular, is rich in paradoxes. This book examines the European electricity industries and shows that the liberalization of this sector did not conform to the traditional theoretical explanations that privilege economic interests and industry-specific considerations as the motors for regulatory reform. Instead, the primary impetus for change came from an overarching commitment to certain neo-liberal ideas shared by European intellectual and political elites. As a fundamentally idea-driven...