Unraveling the conditions for backlash to climate policy in OECD countries

Acceleration of domestic climate policy action is urgently needed, but doing so raises questions about the risk of policy backlash. This is particularly so for ‘hard’ climate policies, which impose costs on policy recipients backed by the threat of sanction or force and can trigger strong negative reactions among mass publics and other actors. However, while scholars increasingly warn about climate policy backlash, we lack understanding of the conditions under which it occurs. Patterns in the occurrence of backlash are puzzling because sometimes hard climate policies face negative reactions while at other times, they are accepted and even actively supported. Therefore, unraveling the socio-political conditions under which backlash occurs is crucial for explaining the fractious political dynamics involved in realizing ambitious and durable climate policy. In this paper, we analyze the conditions under which backlash to climate policy occurs through fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) of a systematic sample of 30 national-scale hard climate policies in OECD countries from 2009-2022. These conditions encompass both policy design and policy context. Embracing the qualitative essence of QCA, we interpretively draw on a variety of in-depth data sources, including over 50 structured interviews with national policymakers, as well as policy documents and media analysis, along with existing quantitative data, to systematically score the explanatory conditions. We score the presence/absence of backlash through media analysis to detect and evaluate public contention. Together, this provides a qualitatively rich and triangulated assessment of conditions and outcomes. Findings underscore the importance of combinations of policy design and policy context conditions for explaining the occurrence of policy backlash. Conditions such as policy stringency, implementation approach, and equity within policy design, along with political polarization, economic vulnerability, and societal inequality in the broader policy context, seem to be associated with backlash. Overall, the paper makes three key contributions. Conceptually, it provides valuable insights into the political dynamics of contentious policymaking, enriching theoretical debates on the drivers of policy backlash going beyond design-focused analysis to also encompass the wider policy context. Methodologically, it advances systematic medium-N comparative analysis by looking beyond single case studies to draw comparative insights about policy backlash which is so far lacking in the literature. Strategically, it helps to identify key elements in policymaking that can help to avoid backlash while also scrutinizing increasing warnings about backlash, which could generate undue hesitancy among policymakers over ambitious climate policymaking.