Path Dependency and the Politics of Renewable Energy in Sub-National Jurisdictions

About Me:

Hello! My name is Alex Miller. I am a PhD candidate in Environmental Planning at Queen's University Belfast. I am one of 15 Early Stage Researchers funded by the MISTRAL Project.

I have an MSc from the University of Oxford (UK) and a BA Hons from St. Francis Xavier University (Canada). Prior to starting my PhD, I worked as a policy analyst for the Government of Canada. For my full CV, click here.

This website is intended to share information and updates about my PhD research and other areas of interest related to climate change, renewable energy, and environmental policy.

To view my blog, click here.

About my research:

My project is titled Path Dependency and the Politics of Renewable Energy in Sub-National Jurisdictions. This research is one of 15 work packages organized under the MISTRAL European Training Network.

Contemporary decision-making processes regarding energy policy, including the development of renewable energy systems, are conditioned by their historical contexts. Policy decisions are not made in a vacuum; they are influenced by various factors including institutional frameworks, political interests, economic trends, and infrastructural legacies.

Path dependency offers a useful conceptual framework for understanding the ways in which these contextual elements influence the contemporary struggles for decarbonisation in the energy system. Path dependency is a phenomenon which results from the historical co-evolution of social, technical, political, and institutional systems, and can result in the entrenchment of certain systems at the expense of novel approaches.

Through my research, I seek to investigate the influence of the historical contexts of energy systems on efforts to decarbonise and reform existing practices along a sustainable trajectory. Through case studies from the United Kingdom and Canada, the evolution of low carbon energy systems will be examined.

For a complete description of the research, please visit the MISTRAL website.