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Beyond (and Within) City Limits: Climate Policy in an Intergovernmental System
Author(s) -
Simon Rosenthal Cindy,
Rosenthal James A.,
Moore Jonathan D.,
Smith Jamie
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
review of policy research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.832
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1541-1338
pISSN - 1541-132X
DOI - 10.1111/ropr.12136
Subject(s) - realm , federalism , climate policy , government (linguistics) , state (computer science) , politics , political science , local government , climate change , public administration , political economy , economics , ecology , linguistics , philosophy , algorithm , computer science , law , biology
This analysis explores the role of city‐level and state‐level variables to explain why some cities make more progress on climate‐related policy implementation than others. Using multilevel modeling, we find little support for the influence of state factors on local government leadership among the 812 cities in the dataset, but local government institutional and community variables are strongly associated with climate policy initiatives. We argue for a rethinking of the notion of the limited and constrained city and suggest that, in the realm of climate protection and environmental policy, cities are leading a bottom‐up federalism. Moreover, where some political analysts and scholars have argued that climate protection and environmental policies may not be economically rational for cities to pursue, we theorize that cities are acting locally to further their self‐interest in an increasingly global economy.