Can Credibility Overcome Elite Polarization?

Abstract

Political scientists Alexander Gazmararian and Dustin Tingley's incisive new book Uncertain Futures: How to Unlock the Climate Impasse contends that credibility is key to unlocking the deadlock over climate policy. They claim that fossil fuel communities have often been skeptical of any transition away from fossil fuels with good reason. In similar situations, policymakers have often failed to follow through on policies meant to mitigate economic dislocation. Drawing on a wealth of quantitative and qualitative evidence from energy-producing communities, including surveys of residents and officials alike, Gazmararian and Tingley find that different policy features that bolster credibility can build support for a transition to clean energy sources. The book provides a much-needed view of the energy transition from the ground-up. Yet the book pays less attention to a principal-agent problem at the heart of the clean energy transition: many of the elected representatives of the communities most affected by the transition don’t acknowledge any need for a transition. What's more, in a highly polarized environment, the impact of policy feedbacks is likely to be muted. Drawing on the experiences of the ACA and Canada's carbon tax, we suggest that even when the policy features that the authors propose are present, support for clean-energy policies may not rise dramatically.