Democracy, Economic Development and Low-Carbon Energy: When and Why Does Democratization Promote Energy Transition?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a very interesting article and it is based on a well-designed OLS-analysis. The theme is relevant and the results are valuable. 

I would develop the discussion on the correlations between democracy and energy systems. Droubi et al. 2021; Burke and Stephen 2018; Szulecki 2017 are used as references, however other relevant articles are omitted, and the authors fail to explore  some of the essential theoretical concepts in the literature. A weakness in this respect is that authors are mainly highlighting  arguments for democracy to influence the development of energy system. Parts of this literature focus instead on associations between the different energy systems and power relations. I am not suggestion that the authors should explore the reverse associations, however they need to discuss these aspects and clarify why the energy mix may also influence the democratic development, and not the other way around. 

I find the theoretical discussion interesting, however I miss some relevant contributions in the democracy-climate nexus, as for instance Selseng et al. 2022, Lu et al. 2002,  Kammerlander & Schulze 2021. 

I think the hypotheses applied are solid, yet would rephrase them, and talk about "low carbon electricity generation in the national energy mix...". You are focusing on electricity generation, and leaving energy sources such as bioenergy out, which is often used for heating. Note that in the wider energy mix bioenergy is relevant in several countries, but less so for electricity generation. 

I would also recommend the authors to develop the discussion on economic development. It is suggested that economic development, might lead to an increasing positive relationship with share of low carbon energy. I would like to see the discussion on the Kutznet curve to be developed, and I miss a focus on the EKC. Several studies suggest that democracy might have an easing effect on the carbon intensity of growth, as for instance Laegreid & Povitkina 2018. The correlations here might be more complex than what is suggested by the authors. I would not say you need to change H2, yet you need to motivate it better. 

I find the OLS and RIM models well-designed and the variables included are indeed relevant. Possibly you could discuss some of the weakness in the OLS model (for a discussion on this see Selseng et al 2022, p. 327.) 

I find the conclusions drawn in the article very interesting, and the empirical evidence robust. The finding could be slightly more convincing if you develop a discussion on alternative models for explaining the variations between various democracies, thus connect to 2.1.

The authors use a couple of concepts that are not widely known nor explained, such as lowess curves and democratic spell. The articles could be improved with additional proof-reading. 

Author Response

This is a very interesting article and it is based on a well-designed OLS-analysis. The theme is relevant and the results are valuable. 

Thank you for taking the time to review our paper and suggest how might improve it.

I would develop the discussion on the correlations between democracy and energy systems. Droubi et al. 2021; Burke and Stephen 2018; Szulecki 2017 are used as references, however other relevant articles are omitted, and the authors fail to explore  some of the essential theoretical concepts in the literature. A weakness in this respect is that authors are mainly highlighting  arguments for democracy to influence the development of energy system. Parts of this literature focus instead on associations between the different energy systems and power relations. I am not suggestion that the authors should explore the reverse associations, however they need to discuss these aspects and clarify why the energy mix may also influence the democratic development, and not the other way around.  As suggested, we have expanded our theoretical discussion about the relationship between democracy and energy systems by drawing on the literature about the opposite causal pathway, by which energy systems influence democratic development. We have added citations about this to the third paragraph of section 2.1 and situated the literature that we are primarily concerned with – the influence of democracy over energy portfolios – within this broader discussion.

I find the theoretical discussion interesting, however I miss some relevant contributions in the democracy-climate nexus, as for instance Selseng et al. 2022, Lu et al. 2002,  Kammerlander & Schulze 2021. We have also incorporated the references you mentioned (Selseng et al. 2022, Lu et al. 2022 and Kammerlander and Schulze 2021) to expand our discussion of research about democracy and climate policy outcomes more broadly.

I think the hypotheses applied are solid, yet would rephrase them, and talk about "low carbon electricity generation in the national energy mix...". You are focusing on electricity generation, and leaving energy sources such as bioenergy out, which is often used for heating. Note that in the wider energy mix bioenergy is relevant in several countries, but less so for electricity generation. We have rephrased the hypotheses as suggested.

I would also recommend the authors to develop the discussion on economic development. It is suggested that economic development, might lead to an increasing positive relationship with share of low carbon energy. I would like to see the discussion on the Kutznet curve to be developed, and I miss a focus on the EKC. Several studies suggest that democracy might have an easing effect on the carbon intensity of growth, as for instance Laegreid & Povitkina 2018. The correlations here might be more complex than what is suggested by the authors. I would not say you need to change H2, yet you need to motivate it better. We have developed our discussion of the role of economic development in influencing democracy effects over low carbon electricity generation by adding more references and discussion about the EKC literature in section 2.3 (paragraphs 1 to 3).

I find the OLS and RIM models well-designed and the variables included are indeed relevant. Possibly you could discuss some of the weakness in the OLS model (for a discussion on this see Selseng et al 2022, p. 327.). We have expanded the rationale for our random effect research design by referring to previous works that employ similar methods (including Selseng et al.’s study) in section 3.3.

I find the conclusions drawn in the article very interesting, and the empirical evidence robust. The finding could be slightly more convincing if you develop a discussion on alternative models for explaining the variations between various democracies, thus connect to 2.1. As suggested by the second reviewer, we have expanded our discussion of results by comparing our results to previous findings throughout section 4.

The authors use a couple of concepts that are not widely known nor explained, such as lowess curves and democratic spell. The articles could be improved with additional proof-reading. We have added a brief description of lowess curves (starting on line 585) and democratic spells (abstract) to relevant parts of the article where these terms are first mentioned.

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript titled “Democracy, economic development and low-carbon energy: When and why does democratization promote energy transition?” has been reviewed. The present study is likely to contribute to the literature in its field. Here are my minor suggestions which can improve the manuscript.

·         The authors should create “Keywords” for the manuscript.

·         For the revised study, I strongly suggest authors to use the template of the Sustainability journal

·         Sentences should be justified.

·         To strengthen the introduction section, the authors should underline the research problem, objective, and novelty and explain it in the last paragraph of the Introduction section.

·         Table 1 has two different numbers 1 and 3 . this issue must be fixed

·         Table 3 should be Table 2

·         The meaning of the level of significance must be defined at the bottom of the tables for the symbols of *, ** and ***.

·         The authors should improve the literature review by involving the energy – environment – politics nexus. The author might use the following studies to construct this section.

o   https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-17707-9

o   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.113463

o   https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-19455-w

o   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.116043

o   https://doi.org/10.1080/1331677X.2021.2012710

o   https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-19951-z

·         The main findings should be discussed in detail. Moreover, the authors should compare and contrast the findings with existing empirical and theoretical findings 

Author Response

Thank you for taking the time to suggest improvements on our paper. We have added keywords below the abstract. We have used the template. We have given the article a thorough proof read and re-edited to ensure that all sentences are justified. We have expanded the introduction by adding a paragraph that addressed the core research problem, objectives and novelty of the article (starting at line 75). We have fixed table numbering and added keys to relevant tables. We have developed the theoretical discussion (section 2) by incorporating the suggested references as well as others and the sources suggested by the first reviewer. We have developed our discussion of results by comparing with previous research throughout section 4.