The elephant in the room: How to study parties in the field of energy transition?

Decarbonization of the energy sector is key to mitigating climate change while the deployment of low-carbon renewable energy technologies is highly dependent on the availability of targeted government support. Yet, the implications of profound electoral changes, which have swept over Europe the last decades, have not been thoroughly analyzed in the context of government efforts to steer energy transition. Drawing on the insights from the traditional party literature and energy transition studies, this paper highlights the specific features of party politics in the context of energy transitions and outlines the analytical framework for studying party competition and policy influence of parties in the energy transition policy field. We illustrate the value of the framework with recent empirical evidence on party and voter positions across different national settings.