Explaining Energy Transitions in Germany and Sweden in the Light of Changing Party Competition – A Comparative Case Study

In the wake of global climate change, far-reaching socio-ecological transitions have set off in various sectors in nation-states all over the world. In Europe, these transitions coincide and partly inter-relate with fundamental transformations of party competition which are foremost indicated by a ceasing influence of traditional governing parties and the widespread rise of right-wing populist parties (RWPP). The latter developments have often led to a more fundamental swan song for political parties, which ignores that these continue to function as (formal) key actors in policy-making processes and, thus, can be understood to be ultimately responsible for the implementation of sustainability transitions. In classic policy analysis partisan theory takes up this claim, yet, limiting all partisan influence to governing parties it seems to miss important parts of the truth. While a certain role of opposition parties was acknowledged quite early in the scientific debate, it was not until more recently that their impact on policy output was further developed. Importantly, Zohlnhöfer has indicated a number of environmental conditions, of which a crucial one is the degree of politicisation of a policy. Despite these progresses much of partisan influence, i.e. exact causal mechanisms, still appears to be rather vague. This holds especially true for research on socio-ecological transition processes in which political parties represent an often-neglected factor. The proposed paper, therefore, takes a closer look at how political parties shape socio-ecological transition processes by comparing energy transitions in Germany and Sweden. The cases have been selected since they, historically, reveal interesting parallels in their treatment of nuclear energy until 2011, when in the wake of Fukushima-catastrophe developments in the policy field diverged. Besides this variance on the dependent variable, two other factors substantiate the case selection: the energy issue has been highly politicised in both cases and – returning to the more recent transformations of party systems – RWPP have made significant gains in the course of the last decade in each country. On this empirical basis and in accordance with literature on party competition and RWPP respectively, the paper hypothesises that oppositional parties in general and RWPP in particular have exerted influence on policy making processes in energy transitions. Despite this special focus on political parties as explaining factors, by applying causal process tracing research will be arranged in a causes-of-effects-design which assumes a configurational understanding of causality and thus takes further explaining factors into account. In terms of data collection, the research will be based on an elaborated document analysis and an intensive literature review. Overall, the paper aims at providing a better understanding of how political parties affect sustainable public policy developments and furthermore, it seeks to give further insights into the effects of RWPP.