Drivers of Energy Transition: How Interest Groups Influenced Energy Politics in Germany

Wolfgang Gründinger explores how interest groups, veto opportunities, and electoral pressure formed the German energy transition: nuclear exit, renewables, coal (CCS), and emissions trading.

His findings provide evidence that logics of political competition in new German politics have fundamentally changed over the last two decades with respect to five distinct mechanisms: the end of 'fossil-nuclear' corporatism, the new importance of trust in lobbying, 'green' path dependence, the emergence of a 'Green Grand Coalition', and intra-party fights over energy politics.