The global energy transition is reshaping energy systems through profound technological, economic, and institutional transformations, intensifying the need for coherent governance frameworks capable of aligning energy sources, market mechanisms, and long-term policy objectives. While energy governance has gained increasing scholarly attention, the literature remains conceptually fragmented, making it difficult to extract systematic, evidence-based insights relevant to energy economics and policy. This study provides a structured and quantitative mapping of global research on energy governance within the energy transition context.
The analysis integrates bibliometric techniques with Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling applied to a curated corpus of 312 peer-reviewed journal articles indexed in Scopus and Web of Science between 2014 and 2025. Although focused in scope, the dataset was deliberately constructed using strict inclusion criteria to capture publications explicitly addressing governance dimensions within energy transition debates, thereby ensuring thematic coherence rather than broad bibliometric coverage. Bibliometric indicators reveal an average annual growth rate exceeding 20% in governance-related transition research over the past decade, with a clear post-2018 acceleration. LDA modeling (optimal solution: 10 topics, coherence score = 0.51) identifies dominant thematic clusters centered on energy policy frameworks (22% topic prevalence), renewable energy governance and deployment mechanisms (18%), market regulation and investment dynamics (15%), and multi-level institutional coordination (13%). Emerging but rapidly growing themes include energy justice and participation (9%) and distributional impacts of transition policies (7%).
Temporal trend analysis shows a statistically significant increase (p < 0.05) in governance- and policy-oriented topics after 2019, alongside a relative decline in purely technology-centric discussions. Citation network metrics indicate increasing cross-referencing between governance, market design, and renewable energy deployment studies, suggesting the progressive integration of technical and economic policy dimensions. The findings also highlight persistent tensions between fossil fuel governance regimes and renewable energy policy pathways, particularly regarding regulatory stability, investment risk allocation, and market signaling mechanisms.
While bibliometric and LDA approaches are widely used in energy research, the contribution of this study lies in its focused and quantitative examination of governance as the mediating layer between energy sources and economic policy instruments in the transition process. By providing explicit topic prevalence measures, temporal dynamics, and network-based evidence, this study strengthens the empirical basis for governance-centered energy policy analysis.
The results underscore the growing centrality of governance in shaping energy economics outcomes and support the development of integrated, evidence-informed policy frameworks that enhance coherence between regulatory instruments, market structures, and decarbonization objectives. This work contributes to advancing systematic, data-driven approaches to understanding governance dynamics in global energy transitions and provides a replicable analytical framework for future research in energy economics and policy.
This research was made possible thanks to the financial support of the Agencia Nacional de Hidrocarburos (ANH), through its Vicepresidencia Técnica, within the framework of Contract No. 618 of 2025 executed between the ANH and the Universidad del Magdalena. The authors gratefully acknowledge this institutional support, which enabled the development of the analyses presented in this study and contributed to strengthening evidence-based research on energy governance and the energy transition.
