The political institutional framework and renewable electricity: The impact of political institutional quality and regional authority

Abstract

Accelerating the global transition to renewable electricity is critical for achievingclimate targets, yet progress remains uneven across countries. This study examinesthe role of political institutional quality in shaping renewable electricity deploy-ment. A review of recent literature identifies key conceptual and empirical gaps.Using a panel of 75 developed and emerging and developing countries from 1990to 2018, we conduct an in-­ depth empirical analysis incorporating both compositeand disaggregated measures of political institutional quality, alongside the moder-ating effect of regional political-­ administrative authority. We further compare theeffects of institutional improvements across different development contexts. Ourfindings indicate that aggregate measures of institutional quality obscure hetero-geneous effects among their components. In emerging and developing economies,corruption control is positively associated with renewable electricity deployment,particularly under low to moderate levels of regional authority. Conversely, higherbureaucratic quality may hinder deployment, potentially due to regulatory com-plexity. In developed countries, democratic accountability emerges as a key driver,especially in moderately decentralized systems. These results underscore the con-ditional and context-­ specific nature of institutional effects, suggesting that policyinterventions must align institutional reforms with governance structures to effec-tively support renewable electricity expansion.