• Media type: E-Article
  • Title: Political Strategies to Overcome Climate Policy Obstructionism
  • Contributor: Srivastav, Sugandha; Rafaty, Ryan
  • imprint: Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2023
  • Published in: Perspectives on Politics, 21 (2023) 2, Seite 640-650
  • Language: English
  • DOI: 10.1017/s1537592722002080
  • ISSN: 1537-5927; 1541-0986
  • Origination:
  • Footnote:
  • Description: <jats:p>Great socioeconomic transitions bring about the demise of certain industries and the rise of others. The losers of the transition tend to deploy a variety of tactics to obstruct change. We develop a political-economy model of interest group competition and garner evidence of tactics deployed in the global climate movement. From this we deduce a set of strategies for how the climate movement competes against entrenched hydrocarbon interests. Five strategies for overcoming obstructionism emerge: (1) appeasement, which involves compensating the losers; (2) co-optation, which seeks to instigate change by working with incumbents; (3) institutionalism, which involves changes to public institutions to support decarbonization; (4) antagonism, which creates reputational or litigation costs to inaction; and (5) countervailance, which makes low-carbon alternatives more competitive. We argue that each strategy addresses the problem of obstructionism through a different lens, reflecting a diversity of actors and theories of change within the climate movement. The choice of which strategy to pursue depends on the institutional context.</jats:p>