Solarize America : how policy networks adopt and adapt good ideas

Abstract

To address the need for massive change in the electric power industry, state and local actors are experimenting with creative policy approaches in the clean energy space. I investigate the facilitating role that networks play in the production and implementation of these policy ideas. I look at policy networks through the case of Solarize, a community-based solar energy group-purchasing program that has grown rapidly since its emergence in 2009. I compare and contrast the strategies of private, public, and civic policy actors that have implemented Solarize campaigns in the Pacific Northwest and in New England. In the Pacific Northwest, a robust set of community organizations has spearheaded a decentralized, grassroots-based approach to Solarize. In New England, where state agencies offer strong and consistent leadership on clean energy, Solarize has been primarily a government-led program. My central finding is that network attributes guide the efforts of policy entrepreneurs. Networks vary greatly across contexts, as do the pathways they offer for policy development. Ideas that are successful in one state or local network may not be successful in another without modification. When networks of actors adopt new ideas, they take differences in resource availability and institutional capacity into account both by adapting policies to suit local needs and by redefining their relationships with each other to better support implementation. Policymakers can improve their network's ability to support innovation by establishing strong cross-sectoral ties, by encouraging public agencies to be flexible in their relationships with private and civic actors, and by consciously learning from and adapting policy successes elsewhere in ways that reflect local constraints.