Between national soft regulations and strong economic incentives: local climate and energy strategies in Sweden

Abstract

This paper contributes to the current discussion on whether ‘soft’ regulation actually influences policy outcomes by examining the effects of national policy instruments on municipal climate and energy planning. Sweden has experienced shifts in the incentive context over the last decades complementing soft planning regulations with stringent conditions for getting national economic support to local energy and climate action. We hypothesize that when soft regulations are surrounded by detailed conditions for getting state support, there will be higher degrees of local institutionalization of climate and energy strategies. The importance of economic support as part of national policy is confirmed by evidence from local energy and climate strategies and from interviews with local decision-makers. We also find that specific municipal features such as earlier municipal engagement in national support programs and relevant inter-municipal networks function as drivers for the institutionalization of local action.

Keywords:

• soft regulation
• economic incentives
• local climate strategies
• degree of institutionalization
• shadow of hierarchy

Acknowledgements

I would like to pay tribute to my co-author, Sjur Kasa, who tragically passed away after the first submission of our manuscript in October 2015, having worked with me throughout the research and writing up the initial manuscript. Thanks are also due to the remaining project fellows, Hege Westskog, Stine Aakre and Larry Rose, whose comments on the revised manuscript were most helpful. The same holds for the anonymous referees which commented on both versions of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Norwegian Research Council [grant number 220575].