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Policy Convergence as a Multi-faceted Concept: The Case of Renewable Energy Policies in the EU

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The European Dimension of Germany’s Energy Transition

Abstract

The literature on policy convergence has identified numerous facets and causal drivers of convergence. Distinguishing four dimensions of convergence (object, benchmark, drivers, and directed process) helps to clarify why and in what form policy convergence may occur (or not). Thus, depending on, e.g., the object of analysis (policy outcome or instruments used), the same empirical case may give rise to opposing assessments. Furthermore, both economic and political drivers are necessary to account for successful policy convergence: economic convergence partly explains why countries may face similar problems and political mechanisms explain why they might choose similar policies to solve a given problem. The paper illustrates the multi-faceted character of convergence for the dynamic field of renewable energy policies in the EU. The empirical results indicate temporary convergence in the case of policy support instrument choices and conditional convergence in terms of renewables shares. However, the results suggest divergence of public R&D subsidies targeting renewables.

Copyright notice: This article has first been published as: Strunz, S. et al. (2018). Policy convergence as a multi-faceted concept: the case of renewable energy policies in the EU. Journal of Public Policy, 38(3), 361–387, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0143814X17000034. © Cambridge University Press, 2017. Reprinted with permission.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Throughout the paper “RES” stands for electricity from renewable energy sources.

  2. 2.

    http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/38154/4956088/The_average_share_of_electricity_from_RES-2004-2014.pdf/df494f3c-6bea-4dab-b767-5d8f9ad2b007

  3. 3.

    Moreover, Member States sometimes employ separate policy instruments in addition to what has been agreed on the EU level, as, for instance, the UK’s carbon floor price as add-on to the EU emissions trading scheme demonstrates.

  4. 4.

    For instance, Fig. 1 does not elaborate on the role of stakeholder involvement in policy formulation.

  5. 5.

    Certainly, there may be cases where policy convergence is viable without economic convergence—namely if policies are of a mostly symbolic nature and without major economic implications.

  6. 6.

    There are also wider notions of diffusion to be found in the literature that allow for top-down mechanisms, but we focus on a narrower concept of diffusion as bottom-up process to make the matter not overly complex.

  7. 7.

    This companion paper has a much narrower scope than the present one. Specifically, it provides a panel-data based econometric analysis of the growth of the R&D-based knowledge stock for RES in the EU. The analysis indicates, for instance, how the changes in this stock have been influenced by energy import dependence, electricity regulation, GDP growth etc., and it permits a test of whether there is evidence of convergence (or divergence) in terms of public R&D support across EU Member States. The paper and the detailed results are available directly from the authors on request.

  8. 8.

    This is not meant to imply, however, that the free-riding countries see no reasons to invest in own public R&D support to RES. For instance, there is often a need to adapt the new technology to local conditions (e.g., research on the icing of wind turbines in northern Europe). Moreover, in order to benefit from previous R&D efforts societies must also invest in own R&D since it contributes absorptive capacity, i.e., the ability to recognize and make use of the information generated through others’ development activities.

  9. 9.

    http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/GDP_per_capita,_consumption_per_capita_and_price_level_indices.

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Acknowledgment

This work was supported by the German Helmholtz Association under Grant HA-303. Replication materials are available at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/DPHUCO

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Leipzig, Germany

    Sebastian Strunz, Erik Gawel & Paul Lehmann

  2. Institute for Infrastructure and Resources Management, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany

    Erik Gawel & Paul Lehmann

  3. Economics Unit, Luleå University of Technology, Luleå, Sweden

    Patrik Söderholm

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  1. Sebastian Strunz
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  2. Erik Gawel
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  4. Patrik Söderholm
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Correspondence to Sebastian Strunz .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Leipzig, Germany

    Erik Gawel

  2. Department of Economics, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Leipzig, Germany

    Sebastian Strunz

  3. Department of Economics, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Leipzig, Germany

    Paul Lehmann

  4. Department of Economics, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Leipzig, Germany

    Alexandra Purkus

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Strunz, S., Gawel, E., Lehmann, P., Söderholm, P. (2019). Policy Convergence as a Multi-faceted Concept: The Case of Renewable Energy Policies in the EU. In: Gawel, E., Strunz, S., Lehmann, P., Purkus, A. (eds) The European Dimension of Germany’s Energy Transition. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03374-3_9

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