Energy Infrastructures in the Eastern Bloc - Poland and the Construction of Transnational Electricity, Oil, and Gas Systems

(Russian for 'union'). The comparison facilitates the tracing of changing modes of cooperation between socialist countries in the Eastern Bloc regarding planning, construction, and usage of transnational energy infrastructures. The study is based on the theoretical approach of Large Technological Systems. This approach focuses not only on isolated artefacts such as pipelines or electricity transmission lines, but takes into account the technical, economic, political, and cultural context. It assumes that technical core and social context are inseparable and thus avoids technological determinism. Therefore, it allows to give answers to the organizational and economic as well as to the power-political dimensions of transnational energy infrastructures in the Eastern Bloc.