Green Energy Transition, Vested Interests, and Democratic Institutions: Policy retrenchment in renewables in Europe

The theory of policy retrenchment suggests that once granted, economic privileges are difficult to take back due to concentrated opposition. I argue that policy retrenchment also holds in the case of renewable policy support and that underlying policy dynamics can be susceptible to vested interests, as in any other policy issue areas. Moving forward, I argue that the design of political institutions mediates the way the organized interests of renewable energy sectors influence governmental decisions as institutions can enhance policy constraints in decision-making process by diffusing political power horizontally and hierarchically and by offering better interest representation at different institutional layers/levels. To specify causal pathways in my argument, I utilize a comparative case study drawing on Germany and the UK. I complement my analysis with a large-N study based on an original dataset which covers 104 episodes of policy support reduction in 18 OECD countries between 2009 and 2025.