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FRIHUMSAM-Fri prosj.st. hum og sam

Snowballing and Tipping: Market Feedback, Regulatory Coalitions, and Institutional Change in Climate Politics

Alternative title: Snøballeffekten og kritiske vippepunkt i klimapolitikken: Regulering, markedsinteresser og institusjonell endring

Awarded: NOK 8.0 mill.

This project studies how interactions between policy, politics, technology and market competition may lead to changes in the preferences and interest of business and industry actors in the low-carbon transitions. It investigates the conditions under which policy change, and technological and market change can unleash political tipping points at which powerful incumbent industry actors begin to support an acceleration of low-carbon transitions, and at which governments are emboldened to enact more ambitious climate policies and regulation that will ensure a full transition to clean technologies. Empirically, the project focuses on three key industries; electric power generation, automobiles manufacturing, and the oil and gas productions; and three key geographical areas: the USA, Europe and China. The project seeks to develop novel theories about the politics of enabling tipping points, and the conditions under market actors may shift towards supporting the acceleration of transitions to a new and clean techno-economic paradigm. It also seeks to advance empirical knowledge that may inform societal and political actors about what is needed to enable political tipping points in the low-carbon transition.

This research project seeks to examine, explain and theorize processes of gradual and major institutional change, by studying positive feedback dynamics between policy and markets over time. The project will examine what we define as snowballing dynamic, a process during which policy-market feedback effects--which create new resources and incentives for affected businesses and trigger self-reinforcing processes of technology and economic change--strengthens and expands market demand and regulatory coalitions for more policy over time. Furthermore, the project will investigate conditions under which snowballing may culminate in a tipping point where i) a critical mass of market actors has begun to support or demand more stringent and comprehensive policy, and/or ii) a critical amount of market activity coordinates around, adapts or switches to a new technology. It will also explore the conditions under which such tipping points may trigger reinforced political action enabling major institutional transformation. In addition, it seeks to identify barriers that may cause snowballing to stall and upward spiraling policy trajectories to plateau. It will both deductively test and inductively explore the workings of snowballing and tipping mechanisms through empirical studies of developments within and surrounding two policy and market domains, power generation and car transportation, focusing on three key regions, China, the US, and Europe. Ultimately, the project aims to expand and advance existing knowledge on policy-market feedback in the creation of upward momentum by focusing on temporal change-dynamics towards the end of a policy cycle, and advance theory on the role of markets in gradual and cumulative institutional change.

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FRIHUMSAM-Fri prosj.st. hum og sam