Sweetness and power: the political economy of sugar policy change

Completed

Renewable Energy Sources(Bio-Energy, Production of transport biofuels (incl. Production from wastes))
Other Cross-Cutting Technologies or Research(Environmental, social and economic impacts)

Basic and strategic applied research

SOCIAL SCIENCES (Economics and Econometrics)
SOCIAL SCIENCES (Politics and International Studies)

Sociological economical and environmental impact of energy (Policy and regulation)
Sociological economical and environmental impact of energy (Other sociological economical and environmental impact of energy)

Professor RW Ackrill
Nottingham Business School
Nottingham Trent University

Standard

ESRC

01 June 2009

30 September 2011

28 months

£78,047

No relevance to Underpinning Sectors

East Midlands

Professor RW Ackrill, Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University

Prof A Kay, Crawford School of Economics and Government, Australian National University, Australia

There is a long history of public policy intervention in food production, but concerns over energy security have led to public policies promoting 'alternative' energy supplies which compete for inputs. This project seeks to explain the dynamics of domestic biofuels policy change, where there is interaction and spillovers between food and energy policy areas and, increasingly, between countries. This project uses structured-focused case analysis to study Brazil, the EU and the US, three important and diverse cases of biofuels policy change. This project draws on and develops refinements in historical institutionalism - such as layering and conversion - that have been used to adumbrate historical causality beyond a strict duality of policy stability and change. The project is designed to reveal the complex interaction between different causal factors and between causal factors and specific contexts. Data from interviews with key policy-makers will be used to explore one crucial set of causal mechanisms, the intentions/motives of actors, their perceptions at decisive moments, and the factors which influence these perceptions.

Abstract not supplied

06/02/12