Conflicts in Energy Policy Mixes – Mapping Trade-Offs Between Instruments and Actor’s Preferences

This paper assesses trade-offs within policy mixes and puts them into relation with actors’ beliefs and preferences. The paper advances recent developments in the study of policy instrument studies by innovatively combining a policy mix perspective and an actor-centered perspective to a comprehensive assessment of energy policy dynamics. The increase of renewable energy (RE) production is a central factor for reaching current climate mitigation targets. To reduce the share of nuclear and carbon-intensive energy in the current energy mix, policy makers employ policy mixes designed to overcome market failures, time-inconsistency problems and help new technologies push into the market. However, at the current pace, many nation-states will miss their respective targets. This is partially the case because instruments promoting RE (e.g., subsidies) stand in conflict with policies designed for other purposes (e.g. landscape protection) which may lead to lacking coherence, congruence or consistency in the overall policy mix. Furthermore, the problem is accentuated because political actors involved in energy policy making possess different beliefs about their ideal targets for the energy sector that lead to diverging preferences for instruments. Inconsistencies in the design of policy mixes thus originate not only because instruments by themselves do not fit together but also because actors do not agree on the strategies to pursue. In order to understand and reduce conflicts in policy mixes systematic empirical research is needed. An assessment of trade-offs thus helps understanding how such conflicts can be resolved. The goal of the paper is to identify trade-offs in renewable energy policy and assess how they compare on the instrument level and on the actors’ level. The paper determines conflicts within the policy mix for the promotion of RE in Switzerland and assesses them based on different evaluation criteria such as congruence and coherence. At the same time, the paper maps the diverging beliefs and preferences of the relevant political actors by applying factor analysis and social network analysis. It then compares trade-offs within policy mixes and differing instrument preferences among political actors and assesses whether there are overlaps between instruments that work well together and are supported by the relevant actors. The paper thus not only offers insights in how policy instruments interact with each other but also discusses how potential conflicts can be mediated or maybe resolved. On a theoretical level, the paper draws from recent literature on policy mixes and instrument interactions. The discussion is complemented with literature on beliefs and preferences relevant for instrument selection. Original survey data were compiled among elite actors in Switzerland that cover their beliefs, preferences for their ideal policy mixes for the promotion of RE and the networks in the policy process.