Politics of Renewable Energy

In this article we seek to understand the political determinants of renewable energy performance across the world. Our overall argument is that more centralized political institutions have more success in generating policies that increase the production of renewable energy sources. We test our political variables across 127 countries over 4 decades and find support for the hypothesis that countries with fewer veto players (or less political constraints) are more likely to increase their share of electricity production from renewables. We also find that when we distinguish between hydro and non-hydro renewable sources, the political effects drop for the latter. By focusing on outcomes as opposed to policy, this study makes it possible to compare a large number of countries and subject various structural, economic, and institutional explanations to multivariate statistical analysis. As such, we build on and help generalize the explanations generated by individual country studies on the challenges and opportunities of clean energy reform.