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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.

Although successful sustainability transitions depend on public support, we still know little about citizens' opinions on climate solutions. Existing research often focuses on the problem perception of climate change rather than analyzing attitudes toward specific climate solutions. Studies also largely use closed questions to assess public opinion, posing a problem of ecological validity. Here, we address these gaps by leveraging data from a large-scale public consultation process, the "Grand Débat National", launched by the French government in response to the Yellow Vest movement in 2019. Combining structural topic modelling, dictionary-based text analysis and qualitative coding, we map the salience and directionality of public opinion on climate solutions. We find that consultation participants perceive climate change as the most salient environmental problem. Transforming the transport and energy sectors is the most supported solution for addressing climate change. For these two sectors, substitution-based climate solutions – as opposed to sufficiency- or efficiency-based measures – are most salient. For instance, participants stress the need to expand public transport infrastructure and switch to renewable energy technologies for power generation. Our findings demonstrate a strong public consensus on most substitution-based climate solutions, except for the role of cars and nuclear energy. While most participants do not link climate solutions to specific policy instruments, we find preferences for authority-based instruments in the context of phasing out polluting technologies, and treasury-based instruments for supporting innovation and phasing in low carbon technologies. ; ISSN:1748-9326 ; ISSN:1748-9318

Despite the prominence of exogenous factors in theories of policy change, the precise mechanisms that link such factors to policy change remain elusive: The effects of exogenous factors on the politics underlying policy change are not sufficiently conceptualized and empirically analyzed. To address this gap, we propose to distinguish between truly exogenous factors and policy outcomes to better understand policy change. Specifically, we combine the Advocacy Coalition Framework with policy feedback theory to conceptualize a complete feedback loop among policy, policy outcomes, and subsequent politics. Aiming at theory‐building, we use policy feedback mechanisms to explain why advocacy coalitions change over time. Empirically, we conduct a longitudinal single case study on policy‐induced technological change in the German energy subsystem, an extreme case of policy outcomes, from 1983 to 2013. First, using discourse network analysis, we identify four patterns of actor movements, explaining coalition decline and growth. Second, using process tracing, we detect four policy feedback mechanisms explaining these four actor movements. With this inductive mixed‐methods approach, we build a conceptual framework in which policy outcomes affect subsequent politics through feedback mechanisms. We develop propositions on how coalition change and feedback mechanisms explain four ideal‐typical trajectories of policy change. ; ISSN:0190-292X ; ISSN:1541-0072

Despite the prominence of exogenous factors in theories of policy change, the precise mechanisms that link such factors to policy change remain elusive: The effects of exogenous factors on the politics underlying policy change are not sufficiently conceptualized and empirically analyzed. To address this gap, we propose to distinguish between truly exogenous factors and policy outcomes to better understand policy change. Specifically, we combine the Advocacy Coalition Framework with policy feedback theory to conceptualize a complete feedback loop among policy, policy outcomes, and subsequent politics. Aiming at theory‐building, we use policy feedback mechanisms to explain why advocacy coalitions change over time. Empirically, we conduct a longitudinal single case study on policy‐induced technological change in the German energy subsystem, an extreme case of policy outcomes, from 1983 to 2013. First, using discourse network analysis, we identify four patterns of actor movements, explaining coalition decline and growth. Second, using process tracing, we detect four policy feedback mechanisms explaining these four actor movements. With this inductive mixed‐methods approach, we build a conceptual framework in which policy outcomes affect subsequent politics through feedback mechanisms. We develop propositions on how coalition change and feedback mechanisms explain four ideal‐typical trajectories of policy change.

AbstractWhen addressing complex societal problems, public regulation is increasingly complemented by private regulation. Extant literature has provided valuable insights into the effectiveness of such complex governance structures, with most empirical studies focusing on how public regulation influences private regulation. Conversely, the impact of private on public regulation is less well studied. Here, we investigate this impact with a focus on technological change as possible mechanism. Based on a case study of energy efficiency in buildings in Switzerland, we find evidence of a symbiotic interaction between public and private regulation that leads to ratcheting‐up of regulatory stringency. We identify technological change as the mechanism linking private and public regulation. We discuss the relevance of our findings for governance literature and regulators.

While the past decade of transitions scholarship has increasingly acknowledged the centrality of politics, key questions on transition politics deserve further research. Here, we develop a heuristic framework from the discipline of political science that separates transition politics into the classic categories of interests, ideas, institutions, as well as elite and mass politics. Based on this framework, we conduct a review of existing transitions literature on politics. We find that some areas of our framework are better covered than others. For instance, while the institutional foundations of elite politics are relatively well researched, there are only few studies on interests and ideas in mass politics. In geographical and sectoral terms, research is biased toward energy transitions in Europe and North America. Based on our review, we map areas for future research we believe to be indispensable to better understand varieties of transition politics. ; ISSN:2210-4224

Der Zustand des deutschen Ernährungssystems entspricht nicht den Prinzipien einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung. Gegenwärtig sind die dominanten Produktions- und Konsummuster weder auf Dauer tragbar noch global verallgemeinerungsfähig, insbesondere aufgrund von Art und Ausmaß der Landnutzung, dem Beitrag zum Klimawandel und zum Verlust von Biodiversität durch die landwirtschaftliche Produktion, des Eintrags von Düngemitteln und Pestiziden in die Biosphäre, des Ausmaßes der Nutzung von Antibiotika in der Nutztierhaltung sowie Aspekten des Tierschutzes. Bisherige umweltpolitische Ansätze konnten zwar punktuell negative Umweltwirkungen verringern, haben aber keinen grundlegenden Wandel in Richtung eines nachhaltigen Ernährungssystems bewirkt. Aus diesem Grund nimmt der vorliegende Bericht eine systemische Transformationsperspektive ein, die auf einen grundlegenden Wandel hin zu einer gesunden Ernährung im Rahmen planetarer Grenzen abzielt, nicht nur in der landwirtschaftlichen Produktion, sondern auch entlang der gesamten Wertschöpfungskette. Vor diesem Hintergrund werden im ersten Teil dieses Berichts Ansätze einer transformationsorientierten Umweltpolitik für das Ernährungssystem abgeleitet. Als zentrale Ansätze ergeben sich Maßnahmen zur Förderung von Nischen und systemischen Innovationen im Ernährungssystem sowie Interventionen zur Exnovation nicht-nachhaltiger Landwirtschafts- und Ernährungspraktiken. Diese Ansätze werden zu umweltpolitischen Handlungsempfehlungen für das Ernährungssystem konkretisiert. Im zweiten Teil des Berichts wird die politische Machbarkeit von transformationsorientierten Instrumenten im Ernährungssystem anhand von Befragungen zentraler Stakeholder eingeschätzt. Der Fokus liegt dabei auf solchen Instrumenten, die einen Beitrag zum Klimaschutz leisen würden. Für die Analyse werden Akteursnetzwerke im Ernährungssystem identifiziert und die Präferenzen zentraler Akteure in Bezug auf ausgewählte Maßnahmen untersucht. Auf dieser Basis werden politisch machbare Handlungsoptionen für eine transformationsorientierte Umweltpolitik aufgezeigt und Empfehlungen ausgesprochen.