Political Competition, Path Dependence, and the Strategy of Sustainable Energy Transitions

Michaël Aklin and Johannes Urpelainen

American Journal of Political Science, 2013, vol. 57, issue 3, 643-658

Abstract: Previous research emphasizes the importance of path dependence for sustainable energy transitions, but their strategic nature is frequently overlooked. We examine formally how exogenous shocks, such as changes in international energy prices, interact with positive reinforcement factors, such as the growing strength of the renewables advocacy coalition. We find that political competition modifies the effect of path dependence on policy and outcomes. Specifically, while “green” governments can use positive reinforcement mechanisms to lock in policy commitments (by creating green constituencies), “brown” governments strategically underprovide public support for renewable energy (to avoid creating green constituencies). The effect of positive reinforcement also decreases with international energy prices. Our empirical analysis shows that (1) political competition conditions the policy response to exogenous shocks and market failures, while (2) governments strategically exploit path dependence for political gain.

Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (65)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12002

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:wly:amposc:v:57:y:2013:i:3:p:643-658

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in American Journal of Political Science from John Wiley & Sons
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().