Chapter 2 sets the theoretical framework for the book, which provides tools to operationalize the regime complex mechanisms of effectiveness. The chapter operationalizes the regime complex’s mechanisms of effectiveness as the utility modifier mechanism, social learning mechanism, and capacity-building mechanism to break down the major impacts of the regime complex on barriers to renewable energy development on the ground in EMDEs. This study advances novel theorizing on regime complex effectiveness by combining approaches from private governance and regime theory to conceptualize mechanisms of impact. The theoretical framework thus provides tools to guide the examination of the interaction between regime complexes and domestic political actors, and more specifically, shows how the regime complex impacts financial, regulatory, and technical barriers to renewable energy development as analyzed in the comparative case studies in Indonesia and the Philippines (Chapters 4–6).

Chapter 6 transitions to the case of the Philippines to provide a comparative analysis of regime complex effectiveness. The chapter begins with a political economy analysis of the domestic actors and interests involved in the energy sector in the Philippines, then delves into the history of geothermal development with an analysis of the impacts of the clean energy regime complex actors on barriers to geothermal development over time. The major findings of this chapter indicate that early domestic political support for geothermal development under the Marcos and Ramos regimes was a response to the exogenous shocks of energy crises. This response to exogenous shocks opened pathways of change that were key in catalyzing geothermal development in the country that later placed the Philippines as the world’s second largest producer for several decades. In the Philippines, an embrace of the energy transition enabled the positive impact of the clean energy regime complex on geothermal development. In Indonesia, domestic political resistance to the energy transition limited regime complex effectiveness.

The book concludes in Chapter 8 with a summary of the major theoretical and empirical findings on the clean energy regime complex’s emergence and effectiveness across Indonesia and the Philippines, and a discussion of the theory’s broader generalizability, further research opportunities, and policy implications and recommendations for fostering energy transitions in a world of complex governance.

Chapter 7 provides a comparative analysis of regime complex effectiveness across cases to better perceive the conditions for impact and how intervening variables such as energy crises or domestic political interests mediate effectiveness. Through the three mechanisms – utility modifier, social learning, capacity building – the regime complex has had a notably different impact in moving renewable energy development in Indonesia and the Philippines. This chapter examines and explains the variable outcomes in geothermal development between the Philippines and Indonesia by illuminating the key role of political will at the domestic level. Major findings of this chapter reveal that throughout the case studies, diverging domestic political interests and lack of political will to develop geothermal energy or adopt renewable energy regulations are key in explaining the variation in effectiveness of the clean energy complex across case studies.

Chapter 5 shifts focus to the impacts of the regime complex – particularly financial and technical assistance (utility modifier and capacity-building mechanisms) coupled with policy advising (social learning mechanism) – on the removal of barriers to geothermal development in Indonesia. The chapter provides a political economy analysis of the domestic actors and interests involved in the energy sector in Indonesia, and then recounts the history of geothermal development in Indonesia with a focus on the impacts of the clean energy regime complex on the dynamics of barriers to geothermal development. This analysis reveals that the clean energy regime complex, through financial and technical assistance combined with policy advising, is critical to impacting geothermal development in Indonesia by filling gaps in financing for high-risk exploration and early-stage development. This chapter provides insights on how the regime complex impacted domestic politics and geothermal barriers despite the absence of a legally binding framework. It also sheds light on the narrow pathway of change in the face of domestic political barriers and energy security concerns affecting political will.

This chapter presents an institutional theory of miscalculation on the road to war. The central proposition is that leaders face a trade-off between good information and political security. This trade-off is discussed in two parts. The chapter first discusses the informational constraints faced by leaders contemplating beginning an international crisis, explaining why integrated institutions that feature inclusive and open information flows tend to deliver better information to leaders. The chapter then discusses the political logic by which many leaders choose to forgo integrated institutions in favor of institutional alternatives that deliver less complete and less accurate information but provide political protection from bureaucratic punishment.

Does the US administration exercise more informal influence over the World Bank when it has less control over US bilateral aid because of opposition from Congress? Replicating four studies of the World Bank, we show that years with a divided US government account for earlier findings of informal influence. This link between donor domestic politics and the exercise of influence in multilateral settings is important for understanding informality in international organizations and provides an alternate explanation to persistent questions about the role of international organizations in the international political economy.

Between 2006 and 2010, the bilateral relationship between Australia and Japan blossomed in new and important directions. Most significantly, Australia and Japan mobilised bilateralism into regional and global spheres, representing a balancing of relations in the areas of politics and security to complement the hitherto robust history of trade and investment. In an era of new security challenges and shifting geopolitical circumstances in the Asia–Pacific region and beyond, Australia and Japan included each other in their evolving regional diplomatic strategies. At the same time, political leaders in both countries dealt with the vexed issue of Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean by playing to the charged emotions prevalent in their respective domestic constituencies, while simultaneously sending a ‘business as usual’ message between officials. The disconnect between policy-makers’ pragmatism concerning the political situation in the partner nation, on the one hand, and popular outrage stoked by media reports and official statements, on the other, undermined the momentum achieved in the broader bilateral relationship.

This chapter describes the relationships between domestic political institutions and war. Moving beyond older debates comparing democracies and autocracies, it presents a conceptual structure for differentiating among different types of autocracies. Autocracies vary as either being personalist or non-personalist, and also as being led by either military officers or civilians. Personalist regimes are less constrained by domestic audience costs, and military leaders are more likely to embrace the effectiveness and legitimacy of using force. The likely onset and outcome of conflicts vary across autocracy types. The chapter explores other ideas linking domestic politics and war, including the diversionary theory of war, coup-proofing (when autocrats take steps to reduce their risk of being overthrown in a military coup d’état), and the marketplace of ideas (when foreign policy issues can be freely debated in government and society). The chapter applies many of these ideas to a quantitative study on what kinds of political systems are more likely to win their interstate wars, and a case study of Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

The Strategic Value Framework introduced in this chapter offers a unified explanation, linking macro- and micro-sectoral-level changes and continuities, of what appears to be contradictory and irreconcilable forces at work within globalizing countries. It first identifies historically and institutionally rooted values, objective and intersubjective in nature, which arise from state elite responses to political and economic pressures internal and external in nature experienced during significant moments of national consolidation. The perceived strategic value orientation evolves and transforms overtime; and interacts with sectoral structures and organization of institutions. The resultant dominant patterns of market governance vary by country and sector within country and filter the relative impacts of an open economy, global norms and international organizations, resource and factor endowments, regime type and political institutions, and national characteristics and domestic structures. The Strategic Value Framework is tested and substantiated with a multilevel comparative case research design, which systematically conducts across case and within case analysis at (time, country, sector, and company). The case studies leverage historical process-tracing and triangulation of qualitative and quantitative data, including in-depth interviews with state, subnational government, business, and industry stakeholders and primary and secondary documentation collected during extensive fieldwork.

This conclusion makes two arguments. First, it contends that containment strategies need sound “theories of change,” which are predictions about how the pressures of containment will compel the target state to change its behavior without the need for war. A robust theory of change is crucial for maintaining both strategic coherence and domestic political support for containment strategies. I explore this point with a comparison of Cold War and Iraqi containment strategies in which I show that the former policy had a robust theory of change while the latter did not. Second, the conclusion argues that US foreign policy-makers, politicians, and intellectuals have long interpreted the ultimate cause of other states' behavior as stemming from the nature of their political regimes. This type of thinking, inherent to certain strains of liberalism, has often pushed the United States to pursue total solutions by seeking to fundamentally change other states' regimes, as it did with Iraq.

Chapter 8 examines the Cold War during 1984, a presidential election year. It featured a dramatic shift in US foreign policy, as the need to avert a major crisis conjoined with domestic imperatives. The pragmatists grasped the symbiosis. If his ambition of reducing nuclear arms was to be realized, Reagan would need to win a second term. His immediate political interests would be served by forging a more flexible, constructive approach with Moscow. Reagan would now emphasize the peaceful side of “peace through strength” – a candidate who could be peacemaker and statesman. The chapter provides in-depth analysis of Reagan’s move toward the center. A string of new US initiatives were undertaken without any Soviet movement: Reagan’s conciliatory address on US–Soviet relations; the pursuit of new agreements with Moscow (diplomatic and military); the reversal of Carter’s 1980 sanctions; and a White House invitation to Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko. Although these events did not yield a major diplomatic breakthrough, 1984 witnessed a thaw in US–Soviet relations, in which the sense of fear, paranoia, and distrust were eased. Orwellian scenarios did not come to pass.