Graduate Exit Seminar- Federico Holm

Federico Holms’s Graduate Exit Seminar is on Monday, April 9th at 12:30 P.M. in Kottman Hall 333C.

He will be presenting  Early Involvement and Multi-stage Coalitions in Environmental Rulemaking – A Stakeholder Analysis of the Clean Power Plan 

Climate change-related policies and regulations have been particularly contentious since their emergence on the U.S. national agenda in the late 1980s. This thesis examines stakeholder participation in the policymaking process of the Obama administration’ s Clean Power Plan, the cornerstone rule designed to tackle climate change by lowering greenhouse emissions from power plants in the U.S. This thesis addresses the structural characteristics of the network for stakeholders’ participation in meetings during the first two stages of the Clean Power Plan, explores the effect of shared policy beliefs on coalitional behavior throughout the rulemaking process and examines the relationship between coalition participation and activity. Results showed the topology of the network of meetings is characterized by the existence of a core-periphery structure. Most of state governments and agencies are in the core of the network. Similar patterns arise for the most prominent environmental NGO’ s. We also find evidence of stable coalitions throughout the process. Belief congruence is a major driver in coalition formation, but the effect of shared beliefs is greater for the anti- rule coalition.