The Energy Crisis and Retrospective Voting: obstacles to a more energy-efficient Europe

by Daria Venikova

Worrying newspaper articles are popping up all over Europe with the rise of record-breaking energy bills: Europe is in a state of energy crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine have been named among the main catalysts for this crisis, however warnings about the possibility of crisis were in place years in advance.

There are many reasons why European countries continued to have low energy resilience and were slow at implementing energy efficiency laws.

There are many reasons why European countries continued to have low energy resilience and were slow at implementing energy efficiency laws.  The different energy profiles among EU countries prevent the Union from making unified decisions.  An active lobby of powerful energy companies and even memory politics, making some countries more inclined to trade with Russia, are also contributing factors. But today, we will talk about the link between the nature of democratic decision-making and implementing effective long-term energy resilience decisions.

First off, all political leaders try to stay in power for as long as possible and in democracies, leaders do so by winning the majority of votes. It is that simple: make your voters happy and be re-elected in four to six years. However, this makes it hard for them to implement unpopular measures that will not be beneficial in the short term. This is exactly what often prevents democratic leaders from implementing measures to develop the energy resiliency of their country.

But what happens if the government needs to implement measures that will negatively affect people’s well-being in the short term, but will be good in the long run?

This phenomenon is called retrospective voting. It happens when voters base their decisions on economic prosperity and livelihood. If these indicators improve, voters are more likely to vote for the incumbent. In this way, people hold governments accountable for their living conditions, which is one of the basic principles of democracy. But what happens if the government needs to implement measures that will negatively affect people’s well-being in the short term, but will be good in the long run? There are other factors to consider, such as the fact that people are not always rational when it comes to voting, as well as the presence of partisanship in voter behavior (when people historically vote for the same party). However, research suggests that retrospective voting does in fact exist (Healy 2013).

At the same time, opting for more green energy sources or a more diversified energy profile would mean in the short term more expensive energy for consumers, increased prices, and struggling businesses. An experiment carried out in Canada concluded that voters’ preferences can influence democratic accountability, thus creating barriers to addressing climate change (Stokes 2016). As a result of voters mobilizing, the government of Ontario froze the policy to install more windmills in 2012 (which was a more climate-friendly alternative energy resource), because climate policy would have imposed large costs for the public.

All over Europe, it is understood as a necessary step to help Ukraine by refusing to buy Russian energy resources.

In conclusion, we can suggest that a better framing of unpopular energy decisions can help ease the effect of retrospective voting. As an example, the war was not only the catalyst for crisis, but also a massive shock leading to change. It made leaders rapidly change their energy policies, which will cause severe economic burdens on people, yet it was faced with minimal resistance from the public. All over Europe, it is understood as a necessary step to help Ukraine by refusing to buy Russian energy resources. Of course, this is an exceptional case, but it begs the question: would the transition to green energy be smoother if it was more often framed as something necessary, rather than just a concern of only a small group of people?

 

Daria Venikova is a student of a double degree MA program in International Relations and Eastern European Studies at the University of Tartu (Estonia) and Freie Universität Berlin (Germany). Her areas of interest include Russian foreign policy, regime transitions and memory politics. Her Master’s thesis covers the topic of authoritarian regimes resisting democratic diffusion with a case study of Russian law on foreign agents.

This blog is a part of a blog series written by the BAMSE Tartu intensive course students. The blog series analyses the impact of crises on the politics of history, challenges of democracy, biopolitics and energy security. This blog is belongs to the energy security part of the blog series. Read more about the blog series on Bamse News & Events website.

 

References:

Healy, A., & Malhotra, N. (2013). Retrospective voting reconsidered. Annual Review of Political Science, 16, 285-306.

Stokes, L. C. (2016). Electoral backlash against climate policy: A natural experiment on retrospective voting and local resistance to public policy. American Journal of Political Science, 60(4), 958-974.

Jastramskis, M., Kuokštis, V., & Baltrukevičius, M. (2021). Retrospective voting in Central and Eastern Europe: Hyper-accountability, corruption or socio-economic inequality?. Party Politics, 27(4), 667-679.