new publications on energy transitions in federalist systems (special issue JED, partially open access)

[Schreurs, Miranda]

Dear all,

we just published a special issue on energy transitions in federalist systems in the Journal of Environment and Development with support from the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Technical University of Munich. Maybe some of these articles will be of interest to some of you.    

Andreas Balthasar, Miranda Schreurs and Frédéric Varone, 

Energy Transition in Europe and the United States: Policy Entrepreneurs and Veto Players in Federalist Systems  (Open access)

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1070496519887489

The focus of this special issue is on the energy transformations taking place in several European countries (Austria, Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland) and at the federal and subnational (state) levels in the United States with special attention given to California. The cases examined all have federalist structures, and with the exception of the federal level of the United States, all have relatively ambitious climate and renewable energy targets. We compare these states out of an interest in better understanding how federalism interacts with energy transitions. The comparison is also intriguing as at the federal level the United States presents a stark contrast with the federalist European countries considered in this special issue but at the subnational level many similarities can be found.

Stephan Wurster and Christian Hagemann, Expansion of Renewable Energy in Federal Settings: Austria, Belgium, and Germany in Comparison.  (Open Access)  https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1070496519887488

In the face of accelerating climate change, the transition towards a nonnuclear renewable energy system represents a key political challenge, which can be aggravated by the increasing energy supply uncertainty created by the shift away from fossil fuels. In this article, we conduct a comparison of the expansion of renewable energy sources in Austria, Belgium, and Germany at the level of their subnational units (federal states), thereby covering three economically very important central European federal European Union members. We consider potentially influential factors in a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis: In addition to state-specific socioeconomic and geographical characteristics, political factors, such as parties in government, and specific energy-related policy instruments are included in the analysis. We find that a high potential for renewable electricity expansion in combination with low financial prosperity is most likely to lead to a successful expansion of renewable electricity production from wind and photovoltaics. 

Isabelle Stadelmann, Stefan Rieder, Chantal Strotz, The Politics of Renewable Energy Production in a Federal Context: The Deployment of Small Hydropower in Swiss Cantons  https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1070496519886005

This article explores the factors that hinder and promote the deployment of renewable energy generating infrastructure in/across the Swiss cantons (i.e., the country’s federal units). Using the example of small-scale hydropower, we shed light on how political regulations at the cantonal level interact with national policies and the local political process to affect the deployment of renewable energy production. The analysis demonstrates that political regulations can both foster and hinder the deployment of renewable energy production. While the national feed-in tariff scheme is revealed to be a beneficial framework condition, cantonal regulations hamper, rather than facilitate, the deployment of small-scale hydropower. Moreover, inclusive local processes and the existence of local entrepreneurs seem to act as a trigger for the local acceptance of renewable energy generation infrastructure. More generally, we conclude that, quite independently of whether state structures are decentralized or centralized, subnational and local leeway in the definition and organization of projects can help to prevent or deal with local opposition.

State Leadership in U.S. Climate Change and Energy Policy: The California Experience    

Daniel Mazmanian, John Jurewitz and Hal Nelson    

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1070496519887484

It is a long-held belief among scholars and practitioners that the State of California is a notable subnational leader in environmental and climate change policy. This article focuses primarily on four essential contextual factors that explain why and how within the United States’ federal system of government California has become such an important leader, performing far in excess of the national government and most other states. These essential factors are preferences, authority, capacity, and effectiveness. The article then moves to the multifaceted implementation strategy California policy makers have employed to realize their environmental goals. Finally, despite the history of strong leadership, the state continues to face a host of significant challenges in realizing its ambitious climate change goals for the coming decades.

Federalism as a Double-Edged Sword: The Slow Energy Transition in the United States   

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1070496519886001

Roger Karapin

Much literature on federalism and multilevel governance argues that federalist institutional arrangements promote renewable energy policies. However, the U.S. case supports a different view that federalism has ambivalent effects. Policy innovation has occurred at the state level and to some extent has led to policy adoption by other states and the federal government, but the extent is limited by the veto power of fossil fuel interests that are rooted in many state governments and in Congress, buttressed by increasing Republican Party hostility to environmental and climate policy. This argument is supported by a detailed analysis of five periods of federal and state renewable energy policy-making, from the Carter to the Trump administrations. The negative effects of federalism on national renewable energy policy in the United States, in contrast to the West European cases in this special issue, are mainly due to the interaction of its federalist institutions with party polarization and a strong domestic fossil fuel industry.

Energy Cooperatives and Municipalities in Local Energy Governance Arrangements in Switzerland and Germany

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1070496519886013

Benjamin Schmid, Thomas Meister, Britta Klagge, Irmi Seidl

Participation of citizens in local energy decisions is increasingly recognized as helpful for a successful decentralized energy transition. In this article, we focus on energy cooperatives in which private individuals jointly develop facilities to generate energy from renewable sources, thus involving citizens both politically and economically. Focusing on Switzerland and Germany, we show that there is a strong linkage between such cooperatives and municipalities, characterized by collaboration and support, and that the cooperatives are well suited as collaborating partners. We also show that federalist structures are most suited for such local arrangements as municipalities must have leeway to support cooperatives in a targeted manner and to compensate for shortcomings in the energy policy of superordinate governmental levels. Based on these results, we suggest that local governments should be given sufficient financial capacities and autonomy to strengthen implementation of a decentralized energy transition that involves citizens. However, we also recognize that municipal structures alone are often insufficient and that superordinate policies, especially national subsidies, remain essential. Hence, policies at the municipal and national levels should take greater account of citizen initiatives, such as energy cooperatives, which exhibit various noncommodifiable advantages relevant to the energy transition.

Entanglement of Top-Down and Bottom-Up: Sociotechnical Innovation Pathways of Geothermal Energy in Switzerland

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1070496519886008

Olivier Ejderyan, Franziska Ruef, Michael Stauffacher

By looking at deep geothermal energy in Switzerland, this article illustrates how innovation pathways in federal countries take entangled forms between top-down and bottom-up. The Swiss federal government presents deep geothermal energy as an important technology to decarbonize electricity production. Setbacks in early projects have slowed these efforts. Despite strong policy incentives from the federal government, no electricity is being produced from geothermal projects in Switzerland in 2019. Based on four case studies, we analyze how some cantons and cities have taken different pathways: Rather than implementing federal objectives, they favor heat production instead of electricity generation. The relative success of these initiatives led federal authorities to modify their approach to promoting geothermal energy. This study shows that federal mechanisms and instruments alone are not enough to make energy infrastructures acceptable locally. To learn from bottom-up experiences and adapt federal policies to local reality, better coordination between the federal and subnational levels is needed.

Best wishes

Miranda Schreurs

Prof. for Environment and Climate Policy

Bavarian School of Public Policy (Hochschule fur Politik München)

Technical University of Munich

Richard Wagner Strasse 1

80333 Munich, Germany

miranda....@hfp.tum.de

Tel: 0049 (0) 89 907793220

website Deutsch: http://www.hfp.tum.de/startseite/

website English: http://www.hfp.tum.de/en/home/