The politics of technological change - case studies from the energy sector

Technological change, i.e. the invention, innovation and diffusion of new technologies, is a key driver of economic development and societal progress. There is widespread agreement that, historically, energy technologies have been at the core of most technological revolutions. Yet, the transition to and diffusion of fossil fuel-based energy technologies has come at high societal and ecological costs, most notably climate change. A fast and deep transition to low-carbon technologies – particularly renewable energy and efficiency technologies – is the main lever to address climate change. While deployment of these technologies has grown significantly over the last decades – largely policy-induced – this transition needs to be further accelerated and deepened through public policies. In light of various trade-offs and competing policy goals, implementing and designing these policies is an intrinsically political endeavor. A growing body of literature at the intersection of public policy, political science, and innovation studies covers these aspects of energy politics. Yet, energy politics not only influence technological change through public policy – technological change can also, in turn, influence politics. A better understanding of this inverse effect of technological change on politics is necessary to formulate politically feasible and effective energy policy. While a nascent body of literature deals with these aspects in the context of the transition to renewable energy and efficiency technologies, how exactly such low-carbon technological change affects what aspects of politics still remains a black box. In an exploratory approach, this dissertation attempts to address this research gap with the following overarching question: How does low-carbon technological change affect energy politics? To answer this question, this cumulative dissertation is built on a heuristic framework: On an abstract level, it argues that technological change can affect politics through both its expanding and (re)distributional capacity. It further proposes that politics can be disaggregated into the categories of interests, ideas, and institutions, on the level of both elite and mass politics. The individual papers in this dissertation cover various elements of this heuristic framework and leverage a plurality of qualitative and quantitative methods, and individual case studies. Focusing on how technological change affects the interests and ideas of elite politics, Paper 1 examines how the transition to renewable energy technologies influenced the composition and strength of advocacy coalitions in the German energy sector. The main contribution of this paper is to substantiate the mechanisms through which policy-induced technological change affects coalitions, and to link these mechanisms to patterns of actor movements underlying coalition change. Paper 2 also focuses on aspects of ideas in elite politics and touches upon institutions as moderating factor. It examines how technological change drives regulators’ perceived feasibility of more stringent public and private regulation of energy efficiency technologies in the Swiss building sector. The contribution of this paper is to highlight that the interaction among public and private regulation can run through the mechanism of technological change. Also focusing on ideas and institutions in elite politics, paper 3 examines how technological change affects the positions of political parties on energy technologies in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. The paper shows that technological change is a driver of party positions and their salience, and that this effect is mediated by party and party system characteristics. Finally, paper 4 examines interests in mass politics by focusing on how the decline in coal mining affects voting behavior in presidential elections in the United States. The paper shows that also decline in technologies can result in political effects, in this case resistance in form of voting in favor of pro-coal candidates. Based on a mixed methods approach and systematic data collection, these four papers give novel empirical insights into how technological change affects interests, ideas, and institutions in elite and mass energy politics. Based on these insights, the papers engage in theory-building. Notably, the dissertation provides a framework in which energy politics is described as a dynamic feedback loop of public policy, technological change, and politics. Further, the dissertation substantiates various mechanisms that link technological change to politics, and analyzes the effects of technological change on a variety of relevant political actors. Doing so, it contributes to current academic debates in public policy, political science, and innovation studies on energy politics. Further, this dissertation also has policy implications: Policymakers’ focus should be on the expanding and (re)distributional effects of technological change on energy and climate politics. More sensibility to the locus and nature of these political struggles could enable effective forward-looking policy strategies that sow the seeds today for broader political support tomorrow. Finally, future research should aim at testing the theory built in this dissertation with more quantitative research methods. Future research should also build on this exploratory dissertation by expanding the empirical scope to other low-carbon technologies, and expand the policy feedback logic to other policy outcomes such as nature-based solutions and behavioral change