A selection from Stockholm University publication database

• The political economy of bioenergy in the United States

  2017. Jorge Ernesto Rodriguez Morales, Fernando Rodriguez Lopez. Energy Research & Social Science 27, 141-150

  Article

  The paper analyzes the historical evolution of the production of liquid bioenergy in the US on the basis of the political economy of fuels for road transport, largely determined by the dynamics of the opportunity cost that arises from the connection between energy and agricultural markets. We have developed an analysis framework to build a set of scenarios suitable to explain the evolution of biofuel markets in the historical period analyzed. These scenarios, strongly associated with conditions of convergence and conflict between the regulatory state and the agro-industry, have then been statistically verified using an interrupted time series analysis. The analysis shows that the evolution of governance, institutions, and markets around bioenergy have been determined not just by the political goals of the US regulatory state, but also by private economic drivers related to agro-industry. This suggests that bioenergy transition in the US can be understood as the agricultural dimension of the political economy that underlies the socio-technical regime of energy for transport in the US, characterized by institutional inertia and technological lock-in.

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• Policy transfer processes and renewable energy penetration

  2020. Stefan Bößner (et al.). Sustainable Earth 3

  Article

  Background

  Low-carbon technologies must be widely adopted at a large scale to address climate change and enhance access to affordable, reliable and sustainable energy. The uptake of those technologies is often supported by specific policies developed at a national or regional level and those policies, like the technologies themselves, can diffuse from one place to another. This paper sheds some light on this ‘policy transfer’ and investigates the dynamics, the actors and the processes involved. We illustrate what happens when renewable energy support policies in one country inspire renewable support policies in another country using three case studies in Peru, Thailand and Uganda as examples.

  Results

  Using an adapted version of the policy transfer framework first elaborated by Dolowitz and Marsh (Polit Stud 44:343–57, 1996; Governance 13:5–23, 2000), we describe the policy transfer process in the three case study countries according to several criteria. We find that policy transfer is not a straightforward process where a ‘borrower’ country simply adopts policies from a ‘lender’ country, but instead a complex process where many actors - national and international – interact to shape the outcome of the process. And while experiences particularly in the EU as well as international developments have influenced the policy transfer in case study countries significantly, domestic issues also play a key role in shaping the transferred policies and in adapting them to local contexts. Moreover, the policy transfer process is not an one-off event, but a continuous process where iterative learning helps the policies to evolve over time.

  Conclusions

  Policy transfer is a complex matter, involving many stakeholders during a continuous process over time. The Dolowitz and Marsh framework proved useful to analyse policy transfer and the actors involved although questions for further research remain. For instance, against what kind of criteria should the ‘success’ of a policy transfer be measured? Moreover, while comparing three illustrative case studies is a first, useful step, having a larger set of case studies and data might enhance our understanding of the details of the processes involved even further.

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• Loving the mess

  2019. Jasper O. Kenter, Jorge Rodríguez‑Morales, Samarthia Thankappan. Sustainability Science 14 (5), 1439-1461

  Article

  This paper concludes a special feature of Sustainability Science that explores a broad range of social value theoretical traditions, such as religious studies, social psychology, indigenous knowledge, economics, sociology, and philosophy. We introduce a novel transdisciplinary conceptual framework that revolves around concepts of ‘lenses’ and ‘tensions’ to help navigate value diversity. First, we consider the notion of lenses: perspectives on value and valuation along diverse dimensions that describe what values focus on, how their sociality is envisioned, and what epistemic and procedural assumptions are made. We characterise fourteen of such dimensions. This provides a foundation for exploration of seven areas of tension, between: (1) the values of individuals vs collectives; (2) values as discrete and held vs embedded and constructed; (3) value as static or changeable; (4) valuation as descriptive vs normative and transformative; (5) social vs relational values; (6) different rationalities and their relation to value integration; (7) degrees of acknowledgment of the role of power in navigating value conflicts. In doing so, we embrace the ‘mess’ of diversity, yet also provide a framework to organise this mess and support and encourage active transdisciplinary collaboration. We identify key research areas where such collaborations can be harnessed for sustainability transformation. Here it is crucial to understand how certain social value lenses are privileged over others and build capacity in decision-making for understanding and drawing on multiple value, epistemic and procedural lenses.

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• Convergence, conflict and the historical transition of bioenergy for transport in Brazil

  2018. Jorge Ernesto Rodríguez-Morales. Energy Research & Social Science 44, 324-335

  Article

  The history of liquid bioenergy in Brazil is a meaningful source of information vis-à-vis the political economy dynamics that underlie low-carbon energy transitions. By studying the political economy of bioenergy under a historical long-run perspective, this research seeks to shed light on the interplay between governance and bioenergy transition. Understanding governance as the dynamic interface between private and public interests, in turn conditioned by the natural, institutional and technological context, we explore the sources of institutional and economic change regarding bioenergy development. Using an analytical framework designed to study bioenergy governance in the US, this inquiry addresses the Brazilian bioenergy transition. The analysis reveals that beyond the incremental learning process of institutional and industrial transformation, the historical patterns of bioenergy evolution result from the dynamics of governance between the agro-industry and the government, a historical process of convergence and conflict of opportunity costs regarding bioenergy penetration. Thus, by altering the expected gains of the key actors, contextual factors related to energy and agricultural markets affects the decision-making process at the private and public dimension of governance, determining by convergence or by conflict, the pace of institutional change, the development of markets and the historical transition of liquid bioenergy in Brazil.

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Show all publications by Jorge Ernesto Rodriguez Morales at Stockholm University