The Spreading of Innovation: State Adoptions of Energy and Climate Change Policy

Abstract

The American states are engaged in a variety of policy efforts to mitigate climate change and alter energy usage. While a number of studies have considered the reasons for adoption of renewable energy and climate change policies, they typically consider only one policy in isolation. This study examines policy adoption of 14 energy and climate change programs in a pooled event history analysis. Our primary research questions consider average effects of horizontal policy diffusion, while also identifying factors that vary across policy type. We offer a method of testing whether predictors vary across policies and use this test to incorporate interactions by policy in the statistical analysis. Our results indicate that many of the primary drivers of adoption are political in nature, including state ideology, environmental interest group membership, and diffusion via ideologically similar neighbors. In addition, we find that given policy heterogeneity, a number of determinants vary by policy type, though differences are in magnitude rather than direction.

Communicating Climate Mitigation and Adaptation Efforts in American Cities

“…Thus, increasing population, rising emissions, and climate vulnerability make global warming a salient issue for urban America. Lastly, the U.S. federal government's lack of action on climate change [8][9][10][11] has provided a vacuum and policy opportunity for sub-national governments (including state and local governments) to play an important role in climate mitigation and adaptation [12,13]. States and cities are often left with large amounts of discretion to address this policy challenge as they see fit [14].…”

Climate change communication from cities in the USA

“…In the United States, research focuses on cities because they offer a path towards meaningful action on climate change, while the federal government remains inactive. Much of this research focuses on state level action (Bromley-Trujillo et al 2016), case studies of key cities (McCormick 2016), or examines specific actions like joining the International Council on Local Environmental Initiatives (Krause 2011) or engaging in particular mitigation efforts (Reckien et al 2014). We build on this scholarship with a rich new database of press releases from cities about climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts.…”

Applying Policy Process Theories to Environmental Governance Research: Themes and New Directions

“…The emphasis on over-time data is sensible for IAD studies because many investigate factors influencing the management of common-pool resources over time, using multiple methods (Blythe et al, 2017;Foster & Hope, 2016). Similarly, time plays an inherently central role in IDM studies (Arnold, Anh, & Long, 2018, Bromley-Trujillo, Butler, Poe, & Davis, 2016. It is more surprising that longitudinal data are less common in ACF studies because a central proposition of ACF is that policy change typically occurs over a decade or longer (Sabatier, 2011).…”