Nives Dolsak - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Nives Dolsak

PLOS climate, May 11, 2023

Decarbonization creates a global public good but imposes costs on specific communities such as th... more Decarbonization creates a global public good but imposes costs on specific communities such as those employed in the fossil fuel supply chain. "Just Transition" (JT) policies that compensate cost-bearing communities are expected to build political support for decarbonization. In developing countries, JT policies are often financed by foreign aid and managed by governmental actors. To assess public support for JT, we identify four policy types, depending on whether they target individuals or the local government or community, and how quickly individuals receive benefits. These are: individual compensation (individual, quick), financial support to local governments (community, quick), individual reskilling (individual, delayed), and upgrading local infrastructure (community, delayed). To assess public preferences about JT policies, we focus on South Africa which has a large coal mining sector. Our in-depth interviews with 51 coal miners, Eskom power plant workers, and community members in Mpumalanga province reveal that most interviewees favor monetary compensation which provides direct support to individuals in a short period of time. Moreover, given the low trust in the government, interviewees do not want government or the labor unions to administer the JT funds. Instead, they favor independent actors, such as NGOs and the judiciary, to oversee JT disbursal.

The livestock sector accounts for 14.5% of global greenhouse emissions. Using an online survey ex... more The livestock sector accounts for 14.5% of global greenhouse emissions. Using an online survey experiment (n = 1200) in Italy, we examine respondents' willingness to support a public petition for a meat tax sponsored by a nongovernmental organization (NGO) after priming them with information on the environmental impact of meat and an embedded moral message. Aiming to test whether institutional authority enhances the appeal of the moral message, we include Pope Francis (a religious authority) and a Professor of Philosophy (a secular authority) as the treatment frames along with a no-messenger (control) frame. Overall, support for meat tax is not significant in any of the treatment frames. However, highly religious individuals (those that practice and intensely believe in religion) across denominations and frames are more supportive of the meat tax. Moreover, we also find that there is a slight backlash among highly religious individuals when they receive the message with the Pope as messenger.

Voluntas, Sep 30, 2021

An extensive literature identifies conditions under which markets and states work efficiently and... more An extensive literature identifies conditions under which markets and states work efficiently and effectively toward their stated missions. When these conditions are violated, these institutions are deemed to show some level of failure. In contrast to the study of market and government failures, scholars have tended to focus on non-governmental organizations’ (NGOs) successes instead of failures. This is probably because they view NGOs as virtuous actors, guided by principled beliefs rather than instrumental concerns, not susceptible to agency conflicts, accountable to the communities they serve, and working cooperatively with each other. A growing literature questions this “virtue narrative.” When virtue conditions are violated, NGOs could exhibit different levels of failure. In synthesizing this literature, we offer an analytic typology of NGO failures: agency failure, NGOization failure, representation failure, and cooperation failure. Finally, given NGOs’ important role in public policy, we outline institutional innovations to address these failures.

Energy Policy, May 1, 2022

Take-down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing... more Take-down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim.

PLOS climate, Nov 3, 2022

The 2015 Paris Agreement outlined the goal to limit temperature increases below 2˚C, preferably t... more The 2015 Paris Agreement outlined the goal to limit temperature increases below 2˚C, preferably to 1.5˚C. In response, several countries have announced net-zero emission pledges (NZEP). The credibility of these pledges varies because countries have committed to different target years. Moreover, some pledges outline sectoral as opposed to economy-wide targets and vary in how they monitor progress. To assess the pledge's credibility, we create a novel NZEP stringency score. We find that climate leaders with a higher share of renewable energy in final energy consumption are more likely to have announced more stringent NZEPs. However, economic development, the size of the economy, countries' embeddedness in international environmental treaties, and the robustness of domestic civil society are not associated with NZEP stringency.

International Interactions, Aug 30, 2016

How does strength of domestic NGOs influence participation in the Covenants of Mayors Program? La... more How does strength of domestic NGOs influence participation in the Covenants of Mayors Program? Launched by the European Commission in 2008, this program invites local and regional authorities to voluntarily commit to implementing EU climate change and energy policies. We focus on the transitional countries of Eastern Europe and Eurasia to examine whether the strength of their domestic NGOs correlates with cities' decisions to participate in this transnational program. To operationalize NGO strength, we suggest thinking of it as a stock variable that cumulates over time, instead of a single year, flow variable. With country year as the unit of analysis, we examine the percentage of urban population covered by the Covenant across a panel of 26 transitional economies for the period 2008-2014. We find that the key variable of interest, cumulative NGO strength, is a statistically significant predictor of program participation, even after controlling for domestic and international factors including the salience of international NGOs and the years since the country began the formal process to join the European Union.

Nonprofit policy forum, 2017

Social capital generated by frequent, face-to-face interactions provides the foundation for colle... more Social capital generated by frequent, face-to-face interactions provides the foundation for collective action. Does this also hold for a community action in post-communist, Central European countries where modern NGOs are perceived to be ineffective? This article examines this question in the context of the cleanup of illegal dumpsites organized by a Slovenian NGO, Ecologists without Borders, in 2010. This community cleanup effort sought to produce local public goods such as improved aesthetics, sanitation, and ground water quality. Local participation levels (percentage of adults contributing to the cleanup effort) varied across 192 districts of Slovenia. Analyzing an original, micro-level dataset, this article finds that, all else equal, social capitals rooted in frequent faceto-face interactions (the common Catholic religion and membership in Hunters clubs) are associated with increased participation levels. However, social capital generated via common native language does not show statistical association with participation levels.

Sustainable Energy Policy and Strategies for Europe,14th IAEE European Conference,October 28-31, 2014, Oct 28, 2014

The European Union (EU) has adopted an ambitious target of 20-20-20. The target entails an increa... more The European Union (EU) has adopted an ambitious target of 20-20-20. The target entails an increase of consumption of energy from renewable sources to 20%, a reduction of the EU greenhouse gas emissions by 20%, and a 20% improvement of energy efficiency by year 2020. Meeting these targets among others require that firms invest in enegy efficiency and environmental technologies. Therefore, it is important to understand what factors impact firms' investment decisions. This paper contributes to our understanding of the factors influencing firms' decisions to invest in such technologies before and during the economic crisis. It examines investment decisions of Slovenian manufacturing firms during the period of 2005-2011. This paper draws on theories of energy efficiency gap (Jaffe and Stavins, 1994; DeCanio, 1993) and energy efficiency paradox as well as on the existing empirical work. Empirical studies in various countries have examined various factors impacting investment decisions (

Public Administration, 2020

Public support for policy instruments is influenced by perceptions of how benefits and costs are ... more Public support for policy instruments is influenced by perceptions of how benefits and costs are distributed across various groups. We examine different carbon tax designs outlining different ways to distribute tax revenues. Using a national online sample of 1,606 US respondents, we examine support for a $20/ton carbon tax that is: (1) revenue neutral: revenue is returned to citizens via tax cuts; (2) compensation‐focused: revenue is directed to helping actors disproportionately hurt by the tax; (3) mitigation‐focused: revenue funds projects reducing carbon emissions; and (4) adaptation‐focused: revenue is directed to enhancing community resilience to extreme weather events. We find devoting revenue to mitigation raises overall support for carbon tax by 6.3 per cent versus the control (54.9 per cent) where no information on spending is provided. Other frames raise support in specific subgroups only. Revenue neutrality raises support among lower‐income households (+6.6 per cent) and ...

The drama of the commons, 2002

Social Science Research Network, 2021

PLOS ONE, Feb 25, 2022

The decarbonization of the electricity sector is leading to a substantial increase in the demand ... more The decarbonization of the electricity sector is leading to a substantial increase in the demand for wind energy. Will tribal nations, which account for 7.8% of utility-scale wind capacity, benefit from this policy shift? To examine why tribal nations vary in translating wind energy potential into wind installed capacity, we have constructed an original dataset of the potential as well as the location of wind turbines across tribal nations. Our statistical analysis of 286 tribal nations suggests that wind energy potential is not associated with wind installed capacity. Instead, casino square footage, a proxy for tribal nation's administrative capacity and business acumen, is associated with wind installed capacity. Political orientation plays a role as well: tribal nations are more likely to have wind installed capacity when they value tribal sovereignty. While tribes suffering from natural disasters do not install more wind turbines, those receiving federal grants for wind energy projects, and located in states that already have a substantial number of wind turbines, are more apt to have wind turbines. Surprisingly, tribes located in states with renewable portfolio standards do not show an association with installed wind turbines capacity.

Annual Review of Political Science, May 12, 2022

There is overwhelming consensus about the science of climate change. Climate politics, however, r... more There is overwhelming consensus about the science of climate change. Climate politics, however, remains volatile, driven by perceptions of injustice, which motivate policy resistance and undermine policy legitimacy. We identify three types of injustice. The first pertains to the uneven exposure to climate change impacts across countries and communities within a country. Socially, politically, and economically disadvantaged communities that have contributed the least to the climate crisis tend to be affected the most. To address climate change and its impacts, countries and subnational units have enacted a range of policies. But even carefully designed mitigation and adaptation policies distribute costs (the second justice dimension) and benefits (the third justice dimension) unevenly across sectors and communities, often reproducing existing inequalities. Climate justice requires paying careful attention to who bears the costs and who gets the benefits of both climate inaction and action.

Environmental Communication-a Journal of Nature and Culture, Sep 12, 2018

Climatic Change, Jan 7, 2020

Complex policy problems such as climate change that spill over multiple issue areas or jurisdicti... more Complex policy problems such as climate change that spill over multiple issue areas or jurisdictions often require new policy approaches because sectoral (or territorial) policies are not designed to tackle the issue of policy spillovers. Yet, cross-sectoral policies upset the status quo and invite a political backlash from departments and individuals who fear erosion of their power, authority, budgets, or status. We offer one of the first studies to systematically examine conditions under which tribal governments develop cross-sectoral climate plans. Drawing on an original dataset of 239 tribes, our statistical analysis shows that tribal governments embedded in cross-tribal networks are more likely to develop cross-sectoral climate plans. While developing such policies is costly, the availability of monetary resources does not change tribes' odds of developing cross-sectoral climate plans. Thus, the role of embeddedness in networks, as opposed to financial capacity, motivates tribes to adopt new policy approaches that are risky and yet more suitable to solve a problem with cross-sectoral spillovers.

Climatic Change, 2019

Humans increasingly experience climate change through its influence on water availability, qualit... more Humans increasingly experience climate change through its influence on water availability, quality, and timing. Droughts threaten the availability of water for drinking, energy, irrigation, and inland navigation, which in turn threaten the food supply, commerce, and industry. Hurricanes and extreme precipitation events threaten homes, infrastructure, fisheries, and local economies. Rising seas compound these threats while encroaching on freshwater aquifers and rendering many long-inhabited areas unlivable. Increased ocean temperatures and acidity threaten seafood availability (the source of 70% of human protein intake), biodiversity, and ecosystem services. Increased humidity magnifies threats from insects and other vectors of disease. This special issue of Climatic Change investigates what, if anything, humans are doing to adapt to a world that at various times and places is both wetter and drier, more hazardous, and less inhabitable. Adaptation is the reduction of the vulnerability of human and natural systems to climate change. It involves changes in business-as-usual practices and policies so that we better protect ourselves. Are humans actually taking such precautions? Of the many water impacts of climate change, those that involve water excess are the focus here: storms, flooding,

Annual Review of Environment and Resources, Oct 17, 2018

Climate action has two pillars: mitigation and adaptation. Mitigation faces collective action iss... more Climate action has two pillars: mitigation and adaptation. Mitigation faces collective action issues because its costs are focused on specific locations/ actors but benefits are global and nonexcludable. Adaptation, in contrast, creates local benefits, and therefore should face fewer collective action issues. However, governance units vary in the types of adaptation policies they adopt. To explain this variation, we suggest conceptualizing adaptation-aspolitics because adaptation speaks to the issues of power, conflicting policy preferences, resource allocation, and administrative tensions. In examining who develops and implements adaptation, we explore whether adaptation is the old wine of disaster management in the new bottle of climate policy, and the tensions between national and local policy making. In exploring what adaptation policies are adopted, we discuss maladaptation and the distinction between hard and soft infrastructure. Finally, we examine why politicians favor visible, hard adaptation over soft adaptation, and how international influences shape local policy.

... W. Cash, Clark C. Gibson, Matthew J. Hoffmann, Anna Knox, Ruth S. Meinzen-Dick, and ElinorOst... more ... W. Cash, Clark C. Gibson, Matthew J. Hoffmann, Anna Knox, Ruth S. Meinzen-Dick, and ElinorOstrom Index 361 ... Policy Analysis, Indiana University, Bloomington), Ruth Meinzen-Dick (International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC), Calvin Nhira (International ...

Sustainability, Dec 17, 2019

We examine why India's Supreme Court has selectively intervened to enforce environmental laws. Wh... more We examine why India's Supreme Court has selectively intervened to enforce environmental laws. While the Indian Judiciary has substantial political insulation, judges recognize the need for tactical balancing to preserve the legitimacy of their institution. We examine four cases: judicial interventions to check water pollution from tanneries and to phase out diesel engines, and judicial non-intervention to prevent degradation of wetlands and to check crop burning in states adjacent to Delhi. We suggest that judges intervened to correct enforcement failure when they do not anticipate pushback from organized constituencies. Where judicial action imposes costs on a large number of actors and motivates protests from organized groups, the justices have tended to overlook enforcement failures. In sum, in spite of political insulation, judges remain attentive to the popular mood and interest-group politics.