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Electricity system decarbonization is key for environmental sustainability. From a consumption-production perspective, much attention has been paid to changes in how electricity is generated and used, but electricity systems also rely on a grid infrastructure that connects and integrates production and consumption, and which will also need to transform. At the same time, new technologies in the electricity system, including the grid, offer the potential for more socially sustainable ways of producing and consuming energy. However, in practice, change has been slow, uneven, and often dysfunctional. A socio-technical transitions approach offers insights into why this is so, seeing electricity system change not simply in technical and economic terms, but also as the outcomes of interactions between technology and social and political processes. The approach draws attention to the particular challenges of achieving rapid transitions in complex critical infrastructures like electricity with strong institutional logics of security. This article applies this approach to the case of Great Britain, where despite strong commitments to sustainability in the form of high-level climate policy, the electricity grid has often been a constraint on the pace of change. The nature of the British transition is explained partly by weak links between these high-level goals on the one hand and the detailed rules and practices in the electricity system on the other. It is also explained by patterns of ownership and grid regulation in the British case that protect incumbents and make it difficult for new actors to develop the system in more socially sustainable directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interest in policy feedback processes in energy transitions has grown rapidly in recent years. However, while it has provided interesting accounts of the mechanisms of stability or change, the policy feedback framework begs the question of why policy feedback dynamics vary so widely across cases. Existing accounts have tended to focus on the influence of ideas on policy design and on the role of interest groups. By contrast, the role of background institutional context in shaping policy feedback processes has been understudied. In this article, I develop a framework for identifying relevant types of institution that potentially shape policy feedback across different analytical stages of the feedback cycle. This approach is illustrated through the example of support policies for solar PV, where it is argued that a relatively small set of political, political economy and social institutions are likely to be important. The argument is then applied through a comparison of the evolution of solar PV policy in the UK and Germany, and the role of institutional context in explaining divergent policy pathways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is increasing evidence that right-wing populist parties (RWPPs) and their supporters are hostile to climate and low-carbon energy policies. In this article, we provide a quantitative analysis of the effects of RWPP representation in the legislature and executive on climate and renewable energy policy for a number of countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development over the period 2007–2018. After controlling for other political, economic, and environmental factors, we find evidence for a significant and large negative effect of RWPPs in power on climate policy. Importantly, we also show that these negative effects vary with the proportionality of the electoral system and European Union membership. Both of these factors significantly moderate the negative influence of RWPPs. In countries with majoritarian electoral systems, the effects of RWPPs on climate policy work through both indirect legislative and direct executive routes. In contrast to climate policy, there is no overall significant relationship with renewable policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Credible commitment is central to regimes for climate mitigation policy. In the climate policy literature, it is widely argued that the solution to the credible commitment problem is legislation and delegation of goal-setting to a technical body insulated from political incentives, and the UK's Committee on Climate Change is in part modelled on this approach. However, drawing on the comparative politics literature, this paper argues that the focus on legislation and delegation as the solution to the credible commitment problem is too narrow. Seen within the context of comparative political institutions, it is a response that fits the political logic in countries with majoritarian electoral systems. By contrast, in countries with electoral systems based on proportional representation, while legislation plays a role, an important element in the creation of credible commitment comes in the form of negotiated long-term agreements between political parties. This contrast is explored through a comparison between the Climate Change Act and associated Committee on Climate Change in the UK on the one hand, and a series of Energy and Climate Agreements in Denmark over the 2010s. Both approaches appear to have worked to date. However, while negotiated long-term agreements typically have an internal process for managing conflicts that inevitably arise after the respective mechanisms have been put in place, disputes arising following legislation and delegation must be resolved within the more informal processes of intra-party politics. Mechanisms of accountability also differ between the two approaches. Key policy insights Legislation and delegation is widely seen as the key route to credible commitment for climate policy, but other routes are possible. Legislation and delegation is particularly suited to countries with majoritarian, or first-past-the-post electoral systems and resulting political dynamics. In countries with proportional representation, an alternative route to credible commitment is possible via formal agreement between political parties. Both routes can work well, but political agreements tend to have internal mechanisms for mediating conflicts that subsequently arise, whereas delegation relies on intra-party politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an analysis of the origins and effects of UK climate governance. It is centrally concerned with the relationships between politics and climate institutions, both in how political conditions have shaped the emergence of climate governance, and in how the resulting institutions subsequently structure climate politics. The analysis brings out three key themes. First, a focus on the CCA can overlook the enduring importance of the parallel climate governance architecture provided by the European Union. Second, it is important to see UK climate governance within a wider political and institutional context, as these results of this context, especially tensions between ambition and instability, have influenced its evolution. Third, this design, and other aspects of the evolution of UK climate governance framework, have in turn had implications for the strengths and weaknesses of the framework and how it has met key governance challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses how Brexit poses some immediate and direct challenges for the security and costs of energy supply. Topics discussed include development of the Internal Energy Market and the associated infrastructure in European Union (EU) member states; Great Britain dependence on energy imports, many of which come from or pass through the EU; and issues for energy and climate policy in a post-Brexit Britain.

The rise of right-wing populism (RWP) poses a challenge for the climate agenda, as leaders and supporters tend to be climate sceptics and hostile to policy prescribing action on climate change. However, there is a surprising dearth of research that investigates the nature and causes of this association. Two kinds of explanation are considered, drawing on the literature on populism. One is termed ‘structuralist’, drawing on accounts of the roots of populism in economic and political marginalisation amongst those ‘left behind’ by globalisation and technological change. A second focuses on the ideological content of RWP, especially its antagonism between ‘the people’ and a cosmopolitan elite, with climate change and policy occupying a symbolic place in this contrast. It is argued that there are limits to the structuralist approach, and that an ideologically based explanation is more compelling. An agenda for future research on RWP and climate science and policy is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade, pressure to reduce subsidies for energy (especially fossil fuels) in developing countries has mounted, but reform is politically controversial. The debate on reform is dominated by a liberal narrative that employs an understanding of energy subsidies as political rent, based on public choice theory. Here, it is argued that this approach takes too static and limited a view of rent, and that engagement with theories of the state in the development process suggests a more dynamic view. The degree of centralisation of political power is also argued to be a key factor in the use and reform of subsidy. This application of the framework is then illustrated in the case of Indonesia. Finally, implications for reform strategies are drawn out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eight years after the launch of the Stern Review of the economics of climate change, a new major report on economic growth and climate change ( Better Growth, Better Climate) has been published by a Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, chaired by Nicholas Stern. While this comprehensive review of recent evidence has some overlap with the original Stern Review, it focuses more on the short-term costs and benefits of action needed to reduce carbon emissions in specific parts of the economy such as cities, energy and agriculture. Perhaps the most noted conclusion of the report is that policies which governments should be pursuing anyway, because they will reduce pollution, improve health, raise productivity and reduce congestion, will cut carbon emission by between 50 and 90 per cent of what is needed to get to a 2°C pathway. This is an important report that will have considerable influence, although it has had lower public visibility than the original Stern Review. However, it also points to the need for a better understanding of the politics of climate policy, and why the opportunities to adopt policies that have multiple long-term public benefits do not get taken. While Better Growth, Better Climate does have a chapter on the political economy of change, the analysis is limited, and could be deepened by bringing in the growing literature on the politics of climate policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After a decade in which public concern for climate change seems to have peaked and fallen away in the face of economic priorities and political populism, Matthew Lockwood asks how the environmental movement can build broad coalitions of support to tackle these vital issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been relatively little thinking about the political context of climate-adaptation policy in sub-Saharan Africa, what this means for the quality of governance, and the capacity to plan and deliver what are often quite complex policies and programmes. This is all the more surprising given the quantity and depth of what is already known about politics and governance in Africa. This article asks what can be learned from this body of knowledge and experience that is relevant for climate-adaptation policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In early modern England the crime of treason was not limited to rebellion against the monarch or state, but also included similar rebellions against domestic authority. Women accused of killing their husbands, servants accused of killing their masters and ecclesiastics accused of killing their superiors could be charged with petty treason. Because those charged with petty treason were tried under the rules of treason, positive defences available to those accused of homicide, such as self-defence and provocation, were not available to suspected petty traitors. Through an examination of both legal writings and court records this article demonstrates how learned and popular understandings of petty treason shifted in early modern England and further indicates how this shift affected the trials of petty traitors in practice. Beginning in the early decades of the seventeenth century, this reconceptualization of domestic treason involved a shift from a view of petty treason as a species of treason to one which considered the crime to be a type of homicide. This reconceptualization was important because it allowed mitigating factors such as self-defence and provocation to be considered when trying those charged with petty treason and brought a measure of gender equality to the treatment of spousal homicide. The article goes on to describe the intellectual, social, religious and political context in which the reconceptualization of petty treason took place in order to suggest a possible causal explanation for such a change in legal interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Public support for climate policies is essential to underpin their credibility, but evidence suggests that an environmental basis for that support is not strong. It has been suggested that framing climate policies in other terms, such as energy security or job creation, will build a more sustainable political basis for bold climate policies. This approach is explored using data from a survey in 157 UK marginal constituencies. Framing does make a difference to support for the expansion of renewable energy, but not to support for policies on energy efficiency and financial assistance to developing countries. The data also show key differences in levels of support for policies between different socio-demographic and voter groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two different proposals for a political basis for a low carbon transformation in Britain have been put forward in recent years by the Miliband brothers. In 2006, David Miliband argued for a new 'environmental contract' between state and citizens, in the spirit of the post-war social contract. Last year Ed Miliband proposed a 'politics of the common good'. The historical sociology of citizenship suggests that the environmental contract approach will not work, mainly because of the pure public bad nature of the climate nature and the politics that flow from this. The 'common good' approach is more promising, but to make any headway, will have to tackle the strengthening of materialism and populism over the last generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proponents of personal carbon trading (PCT) make strong claims for the policy on the basis of environmental effectiveness, efficiency and equity, in comparison with alternative policies such as 'upstream' trading schemes. However, this review of the relevant theory and evidence suggests that these claims are not as strong as they may first appear. Effectiveness is qualified by the strong likelihood of a safety valve on grounds of political risk. The case for efficiency is challenged by the fact that the administrative costs of PCT will inevitably be higher than those of an upstream scheme. The additional effects of PCT would have to be significant in order to offset these costs sufficiently to make it the more efficient option. The case for equity is stronger. However, a PCT scheme in the UK would still create groups of net losers on low incomes who could not be compensated easily, and this would have some impact on its political acceptability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Matthew Lockwood and Andrew Pendleton argue that to escape the recurrent nightmare of climate change policy requires a radical revision of priorities [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Book reviewed in this issue. BOOKS Kyoto2 How to Manage the Global Greenhouse Oliver Tickell (2008) Staring at the Sun Overcoming the dread of death Dr. Irvin D Yalom (2008) FILM Frost/Nixon dir. Ron Howard (2008) EXHIBITION Unspeakable: The Artist as Witness to the Holocaust Imperial War Museum, London [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the late 1980s, Poverty Assessments have emerged as the most important statements by the World Bank about poverty in particular countries. This article examines, in some depth, a set of Assessments from four sub-Saharan African countries from a gender perspective. These Assessments display an enormous variation in the extent to which gender is present, and they also show a sharp contrast between the treatment of gender issues in the measurement of poverty, particularly in the participatory elements of the Assessments, and their absence in the policy sections of the documents. The article goes on to analyse why the inclusion of gender in these World Bank country-specific poverty documents has been so problematic. In the absence of a clear analytical framework in the Bank for understanding gender, its treatment in the Assessments is driven on the one hand by a set of epistemological and methodological choices about measuring poverty, and on the other hand, by a set of prescriptions for reducing poverty which originate in the Bank's 1990 World Development Report. The key conclusion of the paper is that it is impossible to integrate gender into an understanding of poverty unless the reading of evidence, analysis and policy are all based on relational processes of impoverishment or accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines how states organize themselves internally to address climate change. Topics covered include the definitional categories for climate institutions, the ways that states address three core climate governance challenges, including through coordination, building consensus, and strategy development, and the ways that institutions and national political contexts influence and shape each other.

In the wake of the global recession and signs of fragility in the UK's own recovery, a panel of eminent economics thinkers and innovators gathered to debate whether and how the notion of government intervention in industry might be resurrected as part of a new approach to economic policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]