My current research agenda focuses on the political economy of the power sector under state capitalism in an era of climate change. I am interested in how political elites in the Global South perceive emerging low-carbon technologies as a challenge or an opportunity.
Dissertation Project
“Selecting for Solar: Electricity Planning, State Structures, and the Politics of Distributive Control”
Over the first two decades of the twenty-first century, many low-carbon power generation technologies (wind, solar, geothermal) became economically feasible at scale for low and middle-income countries, yet, only some governments chose to exploit this opportunity. My ongoing dissertation research, which will result in a book manuscript, seeks to explain such variation in the context of so-called “patronage democracies” and competitive authoritarian regimes. Using a combination of formal theory, comparative historical analysis, and process tracing, I analyze the conditions under which incumbent governments have incentives to plan for low and high-carbon power plants, respectively. Empirically, the focus is on India and Indonesia (plus six additional shadow cases), using a combination of quantitative and qualitative data gathered from nearly a year of fieldwork.
Peer-Reviewed Article
“National Models of Climate Governance,” with Esther Shears and Jonas Meckling. Published in Nature Climate Change, 2023.
National climate institutions structure the process of climate mitigation policymaking and shape climate policy ambition and performance. Countries have, for example, been building science bodies, passing climate laws, and creating new agencies. Here, we provide the first systematic comparison of climate institutions across twenty-one of the largest emitters. Drawing on an original dataset, we identify in a bottom-up cluster analysis four national models of climate governance—Climate Technocracies, Climate Developmentalists, Carbon Fragmentists, and Carbon Centralists. These national models of climate governance are associated with policy ambition and performance. Climate Technocracies and Developmentalists tend to score higher than Carbon Fragmentists and Centralists in policy ambition and performance. The relative ambition of national models of governance is associated with some macro-institutional and macro-economic features, but not others. This suggests potential for domestic and international policymakers to invest in building national climate institutions across country settings to strengthen climate policy capacity.
Working Paper
“GHGs, Gas Prices, and Gilets Jaunes: Bargaining over Decarbonization.”
The rise of mass movements for and against climate policy around the world has led political scientists and commentators to scrutinize the relationship between decarbonization and political accountability. Some authors, on the basis of observations that mass publics and interest groups are seemingly either unwilling to pay the costs of decarbonization or unable to form rational beliefs regarding its costs and benefits, advocate either insulating policymakers or offering compensation. I develop and test these intuitions by constructing a political agency model of decarbonization as a public good involving contributions from rival groups. I show that discontent over decarbonizing energy policy may come not just from a perception that some groups are paying too much, but also—and perhaps simultaneously—that others are paying too little, especially in contexts with high inequality. Increased insulation may thus either increase or decrease decarbonization depending on which of these two channels predominates, and the transaction costs involved in compensation. An extension of the model illustrates the potential for biased learning about the principal’s preferences. The results offer insights about the relationship between insulation and compensation, as well as what conclusions scholars can draw from observed opposition to specific climate policy bundles.
Working Paper
“Does Democracy FiT? The Distributive Politics of Renewable Energy Reconsidered,” with Ishana Ratan
Feed-in Tariff (FiT) policies have catalyzed the majority of global renewable energy deployment, raising questions about the political causes of their enactment and implementation. Influential research suggests political incumbents in democracies have greater incentive to adopt FiT policies than those in autocracies. In this paper we revisit this theory using a new and expanded dataset which includes more recent years, as well as more granular data on policy enactment and implementation. Our replication analysis complicates the claim that democracies adopt FiTs at higher rates than autocracies: The number of authoritarian governments adopting FiTs has dramatically increased over the past decade, while many democratic governments have repealed or abandoned their FiT policies. Further, outside of rich countries, we find weak to nonexistent support for three mechanisms proposed for the democratic hypothesis: Environmental public goods, rural bias, and progressive redistribution. Democratic publics often do not value the particular bundle of environmental goods and bads presented by renewable energy over conventional sources, FiT policies often do not reward and can even disfavor rural interests, and FiT implementation typically does not result in progressive redistribution. Our results suggest the uptake of the FiT follows different political logics in high vs. low income countries. Further, the effects of policy are not homogenous among adopters, and distributional benefits may depend on factors beyond incumbent governments’ political objectives. The results also urge caution regarding the claim that decentralized renewable energy production will contribute to more democratic political futures.
In Progress
“When the River Runs Dry: Hydropower Shocks and the Energy Transition,” with Anthony Calacino, Aaditee Kudrimoti, and Ishana Ratan.
“Cabinet Minister Selection and Environmental Policymaking,” with Bill Kakenmaster.
“Do Voters Reward Incumbents for Successful Disaster Preparation? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in India," with Jennifer Bussell.
“Resource Nationalism and Climate Attitudes in Indonesia.”