Norway, New Zealand and British Columbia all have a price on carbon emissions, though each instrument varies considerably in design and implementation. Why should this be the case, given that the goal of each tool is to reduce emissions, and why did three different jurisdictions all decide to adopt market-based instruments? A careful combination of Paul Pierson’s theory of historical institutionalism and John Kingdon’s theory of multiple streams produces the argument that the character of the carbon price in each case is a both a consequence of past policy choices and context-specific and time-limited policy windows. While past policy choices constrained the choice set available to decision makers in the present by providing the broad institutional and organizational context in which they must operate, the specific choice-in-the-moment arrived at was influenced by more immediate political concerns. For example, New Zealand’s reliance on hydroelectricity for power and agricultural products for export gave it a unique historical emissions profile, while its system of proportional representation produced coalition-based governments which needed to engage in perpetual horse-trading to remain in power. One implication of this study is that scholars interested in providing a more thorough understanding of why policy changes over time must build on a foundation of theories and methods which are as sensitive to the influence of history on the decision making arena as they are to the antagonisms of the moment, and how each contributes its own collection of relevant independent variables. A combination of historical institutionalism and multiple streams can produce such an understanding while simultaneously addressing the limitations of each theory.
