Sustainability transitions: A political coalition perspective

By D. Hess. 2014

361 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In the case of technology transitions to low-carbon sources of energy, there is growing evidence that even in countries with a strong political consensus in favor of a transition, the pace has been slow in comparison with the need to reduce greenhouse gases. One factor that affects the slowness of the transition is political resistance from the incumbent industrial regime. Using data on the mobilization of resistance from the fossil-fuel industry in the United States, the study builds on the growing literature on the political dimensions of sustainability transitions by drawing attention to the role of incumbent regime coalitions, grassroots coalitions in support of green transition policies, and countervailing industrial power. Case studies of political coalitions for ballot propositions in the U.S. are used to show how countervailing industrial power, especially from the technology and financial sector, can tip the balance of electoral spending in favor of grassroots organizations.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Global and Planetary Change, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0a734fbbc107953038ecbfe628504f80aea73539

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Economics and Econometrics

In Global and Planetary Change

In Sociology and Political Science

Citations in the corpus

Navigators through the storm: A review of organization theories and the behavior of incumbent firms during transitions (2017, background): “In transition studies, incumbents have been found to do delay transitions (Geels, 2014b; Hess, 2014), for example with political action strategies (Wesseling et al., 2014) and by strategically setting technical standards to maintain the stability of the incumbent socio-technical regime (Smink et…”
The co-evolution of policy mixes and socio-technical systems: Towards a conceptual framework of policy mix feedback in sustainability transitions (2019, background): “Even if incumbents mobilize opposition against reforms, if powerful countervailing coalitions organise the reforms can be protected (Hess, 2014; Lauber and Jacobsson, 2016).”
The politics of niche-regime conflicts: Distributed solar energy in the United States (2016, background): “…from the sectors have made significant ampaign expenditures in related state-level policy disputes over carbon regulation and renewable energy (Hess, 2014). owever, in the case of DG solar conflicts, the primary countervailing power of these firms has been investment rather than olitical…”
Sustainability Transitions Research: Transforming Science and Practice for Societal Change (2017, background): “This points to current research directions for transition management, such as explorations of institutional change and formal policy (27, 52, 62, 63, 74), new forms of power (25, 75, 155, 156), and the role of researchers (157).”
The politics of sustainability transitions (2016, background): “Pel, Avelino, & Jhagroe, in press) and facilitates a better understanding of the evolution and instability of actors and entities. The comparison of translation processes by Pel (2015) highlights the unstable nature of innovation and shows how these can evolve along with the networks of actors who s”
Challenges in the acceleration of sustainability transitions (2020, background): “Such industry decline is an important challenge to acceleration, because it may threaten existing businessmodels and assets, which is why incumbent firms often try to slow down sustainability transitions (Hess 2014).”
Disruption and low-carbon system transformation: Progress and new challenges in socio-technical transitions research and the Multi-Level Perspective (2017, background): “• In response to calls to better address political dimensions, scholars have linked the MLP to Sabatier’s advocacy coalition framework [40], Kingdon’s multiple streams framework [41], political economy [42,43], and political coalition theories [44,26].”
The political logics of clean energy transitions (2018, neutral): “16 Hess (2014).”