Three essays on the distributional politics of green energy transition in Europe
Embargo Date
2026-02-10
OA Version
Citation
Abstract
This dissertation consists of three essays (papers) on the distributional politics of green energy transition in Europe. The first paper contributes to the existing literature on climate finance by arguing that governments may choose to use consumer-funded policies as a way to circumvent the state budget and budgetary scrutiny. The paper also explains why these policies turn into a contentious practice over time even though they were initially seen as a practical way to finance energy transition policies without draining the state budget. The second paper explores why governments handle the distributional politics of consumer-funded policies differently. It argues that when faced with rising costs and opposition, governments respond with different distributive strategies to ensure the political acceptance of energy policies transition by spreading the cost and benefits of green energy transition across different consumer and producer groups such as households, industrial consumers and renewable energy producers. These strategies include economization, redistribution, and compensation. This research explains differences in the mixed use of distributive strategies by governments in Germany and the UK by analyzing the two dimensions of public choice dynamics: i) the partisanship structures of ruling political parties, and ii) the relative strength of organized interests of renewable energy producers and consumer groups. The paper three offers an institutional complementary to the second paper by studying the path-dependent dynamics of green energy transition policies in the context of renewable subsidies. More specifically, it seeks to explain why degression of renewable subsidies is more difficult in some countries than others. Using large-n cross national data and case study analysis, it argues that in countries where political institutions diffuse power over a broader array of actors, both horizontally and hierarchically, it becomes more difficult to roll back renewable subsidies once they are given. The paper shows that in such countries the renewable sector for solar power was better able to defend its interests thanks to their interest representation at different institutional levels, making it more challenging for the government to take back subsidies. This paper also offers a discussion on the advantages of different political institutional arrangements in determining the reform capacity of states and the importance of informal rules in the strength of political institutions.
Description
2024