Policy Innovation, Intergovernmental Relations, and the Adoption of Climate Protection Initiatives by U.S. Cities

Abstract

In the absence of federal requirements, how do state-and municipal-level characteristics impact the probability of local policy innovation? This article provides insight by examining the adoption of sub-national climate change mitigation initiatives in the United States. Drawing from literature on policy innovation, a multilevel model is developed to examine the factors influencing over 900 U.S. cities to eschew free-rider tendencies and formally commit to greenhouse gas reduction. Multilevel analysis recognizes the nested structure of cities within states and accounts for the shared economic, political, and policy environments experienced by cities within the same state. The level of initiative state governments have taken toward climate protection varies considerably, and the influence of different state policies on related local decisions is empirically examined. Results are consistent with hypotheses derived from the innovation literature and suggest local-level characteristics are the dominant drivers of cities' decisions to commit to climate protection.

Presenting a Framework to Analyze Local Climate Policy and Action in Small and Medium-Sized Cities

“…Also, different research communities came into existence, focusing either on mitigation (e.g., [8,9,11,18,19,21,28]) or on adaptation (e.g., [13][14][15][22][23][24]27,32]). Because of the broad variety of concepts that have been developed a literature review was conducted to systematically cluster concepts from these literatures.…”

“…Although research into local climate policy is a vast growing academic field (e.g., [8,9,14,[19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]), there appears to be skewed attention that emphasizes the role of frontrunner cities and large (even mega-) sized cities, whereas there seems to be little attention to small and medium-sized cities (SMCs). Although we acknowledge the importance of the former we also want to stress the importance of the latter.…”

Learning Networks Among Swedish Municipalities: Is Sweden a Small World?

“…Literature on urban policy mobilities (Jacobs, 2012;McCann, 2011) and policy diffusion (Krause, 2011;Lee & van de Meene, 2012) has begun to explore the mechanisms of policy transfer and diffusion between cities. Our research shares this interest in policy mobility and diffusion but approaches the issue from a different angle.…”

Stakeholder engagement in climate change policymaking in American cities

“…Government institutions that are considered to play a potential role in climate change policy include the city's form of government and the presence of a government organization dedicated to environmental quality that can undertake and facilitate climate change and GHG emissions reduction programs (Bae and Feiock 2013;Feiock et al 2010;Krause 2010). We find that proportions of the cities with mayor-council and council manager forms of government were equivalent across climate change policy categories, and that only cities within the No Action category do not have a specific government organization to oversee environmental quality issues.…”

“…Despite convincing scientific evidence that climate change is taking place and that human activity is a primary cause of increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the federal government has done very little to control effectively GHG emissions. In response to federal government inaction on this pressing issue, a number of cities (and states) have taken the lead and have adopted climate change policies and programs themselves (Krause 2010(Krause , 2011Mazmanian and Kraft 2009;Portney 2013;Posner 2010;Rabe 2010).…”