Measuring the Role of Policy Diffusion in American Cities’ Climate Mitigation Actions Open Access

Abstract

As international institutions have failed to take sufficient action to mitigate climate change, cities have emerged as leaders in tackling this challenge. Policy commitments on climate mitigation lack concrete benefits for cities, as the actions of one city does not reduce future impacts of climate change for that city in particular. Policy diffusion, the established patterns through which policies spread across municipalities, is often cited as an explanation for policy adoptions, but the collective action feature of climate policies, and the inability to determine short term success, interfere with conventional ideas of diffusion. This study seeks to answer the question of whether policy diffusion can explain adoptions of climate mitigation policies in American cities. Event History Analysis is used to measure the influence of diffusion on adoptions of climate action plans, chief sustainability officers, and green building policies. The results indicate that conventional learning and imitation are not occurring in the spread of these policies. This research gives insight into the sequencing of different climate policy adoptions among cities of varying sizes and locations in the U.S., and the motivations of these cities to adopt those policies.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

I.              Introduction…………………………………………..........................1

II.            Diffusion of Policy Innovation- Review of Literature…....………….3

A.  Learning………………………………………………….…........5

B.   Economic Competition…………………………….………...…..6

C.   Imitation………………………………………………………….6

D.  Coercion………………………………………………….……....7

E.   Environmental Policy Diffusion………………………….……...8

i.              Climate Risk……………………………….……………11

III.          Research Design……………………………………...……..……...13

A.  Analytic Framework…………………………………….……...13

B.   Defining Policy Choices………………………………………..14

C.   Defining Diffusion………………………………………….......17

D.  Key Hypotheses………………………………………………...19

IV.         Data and Measurements……………………………..……………...20

A.  Construction of Sample…………………………...………...….20

B.   Data Collection………………………………………………....20

i.     Climate Action Plan………………………………….....21

ii.   Chief Sustainability Officer………………………….....22

iii.  Green Building Plan……………………………....….....23

C.   Independent Variables: Diffusion Mechanisms……………….. 24

i.              Learning………………………………………………...24

ii.            Imitation………………………………………………...26

D.  Controls………………………………………………………...26

i.     Climate Risk…………………………………………….27

ii.   Ideology and Partisanship……………………………....28

iii.  Fiscal Capacity……………………………………...…..29

iv.  Population Size………………………………………....30

E.   Analysis……………………………………………………........31

V.           Results…………………………….………………………………...32

Table 1……………………….……………………………….....33

Table 2: ……………………….………………………………..35

Figure 1……………………….………………………………...39

Figure 2……………………….………………………………...41

Table 3……………………….………………………………....42

Table 4……………………….………………………………....43

Table 5……………………….………………………………....44

VI.         Discussion……………………………………………..…………....45

VII.       Conclusion……………………………….…………………………49

Appendix A……………………………………………...………….50

Works Cited………………………………………………………...53

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Environmental Studies
Degree	B.A.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Political Science, General Sustainability Environmental Law
Keyword	Diffusion Policy City Climate Change
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Dr. Michael Rich, Emory University
Committee Members	Dr. Eri Saikawa, Emory University Dr. Alex Bolton, Emory University

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