Power Sector Reforms and Technical Performance: Good News from an Instrumental Variable Analysis

Over the past three decades, various power sector reforms have overhauled the governance of electricity generation, transmission, and distribution in almost a hundred countries. Have these reforms produced benefits? Using instrumental variables, we improve upon earlier studies and demonstrate that power sector reforms enacted between 1982 and 2008 have both had large positive effects on the availability of generation capacity and reduced transmission and distribution losses. We also show that the positive effects on generation capacity are pronounced in developing countries and that hybrid reforms falling short of privatization and free competition are effective in improving generation capacity in particular. Overall, the results show that these reforms are an effective tool to remove an important constraint on economic growth.     

Local Renewable Energy Initiatives in Germany and Japan in a Changing National Policy Environment

Our article explores the contribution of local initiatives to the creation of path dependencies for energy transition in Germany and Japan in the face of resistance from entrenched incumbents at the national level. We use a process‐tracing methodology based partly on interviews with local participants. In particular, we explore the role of local initiatives in securing “socio‐political space” for the expansion of renewable energy (RE) and in embedding themselves in “ecosystems” of public and private institutions. German energy activists were more successful than their Japanese counterparts in expanding this space and creating positive feedback in part because they were able to build horizontal networks that anchored the energy transition firmly in local communities. Although problems with grid technology have led to retrenchment in both cases, Japanese activists' reliance on vertical networks has limited their ability to weather a backlash from national government and utility actors. Our study demonstrates the interaction of political, economic/technological, and legitimation paths to energy transition and highlights the importance of the latter two.     

Political Candidates and the Energy Issue: Nuclear Power Position and Electoral Success

Members of parliament are key actors for the implementation of energy transitions, such as phasing out nuclear power. Before legislators can cast their maybe decisive vote in parliament, they need to run for office and actively strive for election. This paper assesses what political candidates oppose renewable energy transitions and questions whether the energy issue matters in national elections, and thus has consequences for the implementation of new sustainable energy sources. We analyze these questions by first describing the specific characteristics of political candidates. The paper then evaluates the relevance of the energy issue for electoral success in three national elections in Switzerland (2007, 2012, and 2015). Based on candidate data from the voting advice application smartvote.ch, we find that female candidates support ETs more than men do; that especially the French‐speaking part of the country is more in favor of a nuclear phase‐out, and that younger candidates are also more open toward restructuring the energy system than older candidates are. Our models further show that the energy issue does not matter in elections, independently from its salience in the respective election campaigns. Candidates are thus relatively free to choose their position on the issue and do not have to fear consequences at the ballot. However, candidates of center parties, in contrast to the pole parties, are sensitive to the energy issue and reflect public mood in their positions.     

Politics,Science, and Termination: A Case Study of Water Fluoridation Policy in Calgary in 2011

Policy termination is identified as a rare occurrence and thus difficult to study. However, one policy area, community water fluoridation, has seen an apparent increase in termination in recent years. We examine the specific case of termination in Calgary, Alberta in 2011 with a specific goal to apply Kingdon's Multiple Streams Approach to the policy termination framework. Our findings suggest that of key importance for the termination of water fluoridation was the impending need for an upgrade to the fluoridation infrastructure, the effectiveness of the local anti‐fluoridation activists, the speed of decision making, and a prominent framing of the issue in ethical terms. The opening of a policy window made possible by the 2010 Calgary municipal election, one that introduced a number of new members to council, as well as the presence of a policy entrepreneur who took advantage of the window's opening, were of specific importance to the success of policy termination.     

Mutual and Self Perceptions of Opposing Advocacy Coalitions: Devil Shift and Angel Shift in a German Policy Subsystem

In political conflicts, actors tend to assume that opponents behave maliciously. This phenomena is part of the “devil shift,” which was introduced in advocacy coalition framework research. We present a multivariate analysis of the perceptions of motives and actions of opposing coalitions in a political conflict and thereby analyze a major dimension of the “devil shift” and of its antonym “angel shift.” The conflict concerning the German infrastructure project Stuttgart 21 serves as a case study. We show that the radicalness of policy‐specific beliefs is the most important predictor for the intensity of mutual misperception in the researched conflict. The results further point to a more systematic inclusion of an actor's deep normative core beliefs in future analyses of distorted perception. Another central finding relates to the importance of the personal environment: actors in the subsystem share the same policy core beliefs with the majority of people in their personal environment.     

Opposing Energy Transitions: Modeling the Contested Nature of Energy Transitions in the Electricity Sector

Energy transitions are fiercely contested. The incumbents of the fossil‐ and nuclear‐based energy systems have much to lose from a transition to a sustainable and decentralized energy system. They therefore employ their material and political resources to reverse, halt, or slow down this transition. They also attempt to stop and reverse the decentralization of energy production. This article provides a framework that can be used to analyze the contestation that surrounds energy transitions. The analytical framework breaks apart the macro paths of energy transitions, and differentiates between three meso‐paths (political, economic‐technological, and legitimation), emphasizes the feedback processes between these paths, and acknowledges the crucial role that actors play in engendering these feedback processes. It uses Germany as a case study to illustrate the analytical model. It also provides hypotheses that will be tested in the subsequent contributions to this special issue.     

How Do Sectoral Interests Shape Distributive Politics? Evidence from Gasoline and Diesel Subsidy Reforms

Sectoral interests play an important role in distributive politics, but their influence is difficult to measure. We compare the effect of international oil prices on subsidies for domestic gasoline and diesel consumption. Because diesel is used by a smaller number of organized agricultural and transportation interests, they are more capable of collective action than the dispersed beneficiaries of gasoline subsidies. The conventional wisdom holds that sectoral interests could mobilize to stop reform (e.g., price increases, deregulation). Challenging this view, we consider the possibility that sectoral interests promote reform by facilitating the targeted allocation of compensation and exemptions. An empirical analysis of gasoline and diesel prices, 1991–2012, strongly supports the second hypothesis: diesel prices respond to international oil prices more strongly than do gasoline prices. Quantitative tests and case studies allow us to explore causal mechanisms, verify that the gasoline‐diesel difference is related to actual policy reforms, and reject alternative explanations.