The Politics of the Energy Transition: Evidence from Mexico
The political challenges of phasing out fossil fuels are some of the most important hurdles to achieving climate goals worldwide. Professor Martinez-Alvarez, who recently became our colleague at UCSB, explains the intersection of declining oil production and electoral politics, offering lessons for designing policies that can make the energy transition more politically feasible in resource-rich democracies like Mexico.
—Mark Buntaine, Professor, Bren School
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ABSTRACT
The transition from fossil fuels to cleaner sources of energy requires both the deployment of clean energy and the phase out of fossil fuels. Although the technological and economic conditions to do so have improved dramatically over the past few decades, one large obstacle remains: politics. Research in the social sciences suggests that large-scale economic transitions are likely to result in opposition from affected stakeholders. Nonetheless, we know relatively little about the political implications of declines in oil production. This project studies the political economy of the energy industry in Mexico, a young and resource-rich democracy in the Global South that has experienced a decline in hydrocarbons production for years. After describing the historical development of the industry, I present the results of our empirical analysis. We use fine-grained electoral and oil-extraction data and various statistical methods to explore the political consequences of this decline; we find that places with access to oil wealth showed more electoral support for the candidate in favor of the industry’s revival and less for the party historically associated with the development of the sector. We also posit the presence of two different mechanisms that could explain this finding. This research agenda highlights the importance of politics to understand the challenges and opportunities of the energy transition.
BIO
Cesar B. Martinez-Alvarez is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research focuses on the political economy of global environmental challenges, such as climate change and deforestation, with a regional focus on Latin America. His recent work focuses on the impact that extractive industries have on local communities, the drivers of community-based forest management, and the politics of the energy transition. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a MA in International Policy Studies from Stanford University. He was a Donnelley Postdoctoral Environmental Fellow at the Yale School of the Environment. Prior to graduate school he worked at Mexico's National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change.