Comparative Politics and the Energy Transition

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

The global transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy will entail widespread disruptions across two landscapes: the physical landscape, as the old fossil fuel based infrastructure is displaced by the infrastructure of renewables; and the political landscape, as powerful incumbent industries and politicians are displaced by new ones that thrive on renewables. Both transitions can be impeded by political and economic forces. Both will also have far-reaching distributional consequences. This panel will examine some of the sources and implications of this incipient upheaval. Using comparative political economy as a lens, it covers the dynamics of energy transitions in Europe, the US, Mexico and South America and pays special attention to political obstacles that could delay or impede this critical transition.

Sub Unit

• Panels

Individual Presentations

• Populists in South America: Promoting or Blocking Energy Transition? - Kathryn Hochstetler, LSE

• Mexico's Double Transition: The Politics of Fossil Fuels and Democratization - Michael L. Ross, University of California, Los Angeles

• Distributional Politics and Missed Opportunities of Energy Transitions - Patrick Bayer, University of Glasgow; Lorenzo Crippa, University of Strathclyde; Federica Genovese, University of Oxford

• Job Growth and the Politics of Energy Transitions - Michael M. Bechtel, Washington University in St. Louis

• Credibility and Energy Transitions in the Global South - Alexander Foster Gazmararian, University of Michigan; Dustin Halliday Tingley, Harvard University

Chair

• Michael L. Ross University of California, Los Angeles

Discussant

• Kathryn Harrison University of British Columbia