Policy Characteristics, Electoral Cycles, and the Partisan Politics of Climate Change

摘要

Domestic policies are the cornerstone of the new global climate governance architecture.However, what motivates vote-seeking politicians to pursue climate policies remainsremarkably unclear, as the climate politics literature suggests that climate policies are usuallynot perceived as a vote winner. The present article revisits this issue and argues that abetter understanding of the relationship between electoral competition and climate policymaking requires taking into account differences both in party ideologies and in policy characteristics.Studying twenty-nine democracies between 1990 and 2016, the analysis findsthat climate policy production overall tends to increase as the election approaches due toincreases in “soft” policies, such as subsidies, research grants, and information instruments,and relatively stable production rates of “hard” policies like taxes and regulationsover the electoral term. Regarding partisan politics, left governments are found to producemore hard, but not more soft, climate policies than center and right governments, especiallybefore elections. This suggests that partisan and electoral incentives are importantreference points in the fight against climate change.