Coalition Cascades: The Politics of Transformational Policy Change

When and how does transformational policy change occur that enables systemic technological change? We argue that transformational technological change requires policy change across policy subsystems. Such transformative change can be triggered by coalition cascades: cumulatively growing political coalitions of heterogenous interests that expand vis-à-vis policy feedbacks across policy subsystems. To develop our argument, we conduct a comparative case study of two recent policy transformations in California’s energy system. First, we study the rapid expansion of EV charging infrastructure. We find that as policymaking turned from greening power to greening transport, utilities started to view transport electrification as an opportunity to project load growth. Utilities, which had originally opposed decarbonization of power, forged a powerful new coalition with environmental groups and private charging interests, and started to advocate for transport electrification. We argue that this coalition cascade was triggered by a positive resource effect and unlocked significant public investment for charging infrastructure. Second, we examine the adoption of California’s first energy storage mandate. Here we find that policymakers, utilities and ratepayer organizations initially opposed a mandate, out of fear that it would prove too costly. Political support for a mandate rapidly expanded, however, after lithium-ion batteries crystalized as a cost-effective means to increase grid flexibility and regulators signalled a credible commitment to the creation of a new storage market: utility scepticism turned into support, and a whole range of industries sought to quality their respective energy resources as eligible storage assets under the prospective mandate. In this case, the coalition cascade was sparked by a negative resource effect and enabled California’s energy system to further reconfigure around intermittent energy resources. As climate and energy policymaking in industrialized economies turns to more systemic decarbonization, there is an urgent need to better understand the conditions that can lead to transformational policy change. In this paper we show how coalition cascades can spark such change.