APSA Panel on Incumbency and Climate Politics
William Kakenmaster
Panel title
Incumbency in the Politics of Climate Change: Governments, Firms, Technologies
Abstract
Scholars of climate change often cite incumbency as a reason for inaction or delay in reducing emissions and adapting to extreme weather (cf. Kungl et al. 2024). Some view incumbents as motivated by the potential costs of decarbonization. In rich industrialized democracies, incumbent firms in the agricultural, energy, and transport sectors frequently lobby and campaign against climate policy, using their considerable financial and technical resources to do so (Brulle and Downie 2022; Mildenberger 2020). In developing countries, firms in these sectors are often state-owned, providing governments with important sources of revenue and patronage that disincentivize climate mitigation (Laan and Maino 2021; Prag et al. 2018). Yet why incumbents attempt to block such transitions in some cases but not others remains unclear. Incumbent firms can alternatively use their structural and instrumental power to secure compensation or mobilize their greater access to capital, diversify business strategies and retain market share (Vormedal and Meckling 2023, Green et al. 2021). Incumbent governments could replace revenue from high-carbon industries with revenue from low-carbon industries, support the creation of new sources of value in emerging renewable energy industries through industrial policy investments, or substitute high-carbon firms out of their support coalition. Theoretical explanations relating to commitment problems and incomplete information have been advanced (Acemoglu 2003, Gazmararian and Tingley 2023), but evaluating the application of these theories in the context of the climate transition requires understanding the relationship between the political incentives and economic capabilities that incumbent actors have to reduce carbon pollution and adapt to climate impacts. When do prospective climate policies threaten the political power of incumbent firms? When do governments value the endurance of incumbent firm power over new governing arrangements? This panel addresses the above questions with a particular focus on developing countries.