Leadership and the Energiewende: German Leadership by Diffusion

Karoline Steinbacher and Michael Pahle

Global Environmental Politics, 2016, vol. 16, issue 4, 70-89

Abstract: The German energy transition—or Energiewende—stands out globally as one of the most prominent and widely discussed plans to transform an energy system. However, the ways in which Germany can and does promote the diffusion of its model remain to be systematically reviewed. Aiming at closing this gap, this article develops an analytical framework for “leadership by diffusion” and applies it to the Energiewende. We find that, while Germany’s aim of gaining followers has led to it becoming a highly active leader, a comprehensive strategy for effective leadership is still to emerge. Tapping the full potential of Energiewende leadership will require bundling existing initiatives and strengthening the availability of information on this transformation in the making. At the domestic level, the implementation of the Energiewende in Germany will need to consider the policy model’s abilities to trigger innovation and generate knowledge and lessons that can facilitate policy action elsewhere.

Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/GLEP_a_00377 link to full text (application/pdf)
Access to PDF is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tpr:glenvp:v:16:y:2016:i:4:p:70-89

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://mitpressjour ... rnal/?issn=1526-3800

Access Statistics for this article

Global Environmental Politics is currently edited by Steven Bernstein, Matthew Hoffmann and Erika Weinthal

More articles in Global Environmental Politics from MIT Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by The MIT Press ().