Behavioral and Institutionalist Perspectives on Preference Formation in a Contested Political Context: The Case of Divesting from Nuclear Power DISSERTATION of the University of St. Gallen School of Management, Economics, Law, Social Sciences and International Affairs to obtain the title of Doctor of Philosophy in International Affairs and Political Economy submitted by Adrian Rinscheid from Germany Approved on the application of Prof. Dr. Rolf Wüstenhagen and Prof. Dr. Jale Tosun Dissertation no. 4850 Digitaldruckhaus GmbH, Konstanz 2019 The University of St.Gallen, School of Management, Economics, Law, Social Sciences and In- ternational Affairs hereby consents to the printing of the present dissertation, without hereby expressing any opinion on the views herein expressed. St.Gallen, October 19, 2018 The President: Prof. Dr. Thomas Bieger In loving memory of Elli Holder. Acknowledgements There are several people I would like to thank for supporting and encouraging me during my time as a PhD student. First, I am deeply grateful to my supervisor Professor Rolf Wüstenhagen. Thank you for all your invaluable input, the fruitful exchanges of ideas, and the fun and efficient collaboration on various projects over the last few years. Apart from being a critical and con- structive supervisor, thank you also for being a highly sympathetic and patient mentor during the difficult stages. And thank you too for being a great co-author! Besides my supervisor, I would also like to thank the rest of my thesis committee, Professor Jale Tosun and Professor Frédéric Varone. Jale, you drew my interest to the fascinating topics of climate and energy policy when I was a bachelor’s student, and your example has strongly motivated me to make my way in academia. Frédéric, thank you for inspiring my thinking about public policy processes (going far beyond the topics of this thesis), and for your profound com- ments on an early draft of the study about the Swiss nuclear divestment proposal. My other co-authors deserve special credit. Thank you to Burkard Eberlein, Patrick Emmeneg- ger and Volker Schneider, not only for the pleasant collaboration on our paper, but also for in- sightful discussions over the last few years. Besides Patrick Emmenegger, I would also like to thank James Davis, Klaus Dingwerth, Tina Freyburg and Dirk Lehmkuhl for the excellent courses they taught on the DIA doctoral program at the University of St. Gallen. Writing a PhD thesis does not feel so difficult if you are part of a pleasant and inspiring team. Thank you, Vreny Knöpfler-Mousa, for always (!) being there and for clearing all kinds of obstacles out of the way. Without you, I would not be where I am now. Thank you, Hans Curtius, for being an amazingly supportive and enjoyable office mate, and friend. Thank you, Doris Hoevel, for tolerating my curtness when I had 20 things to do at the same time. Thank you, Moritz Loock, not only for discussing research, but also for entertaining conversations about cellists, double bass players and other fascinating social phenomena. Moreover, I thank my colleagues and former colleagues at the Institute for Economy and the Environment for your help and encouragement: Tabea Bereuther, Yuliya Blondiau, Leonie Brühlmann, Sylviane Chassot, Nathalie Dällenbach, Samdruk Dharshing, Thomas Dyllick, Anna Ebers, Karoline Gamma, Nina Hampl, Stefanie Hille, Merla Kubli, Ramona Miron, Beatrice Petrovich, Emmanuelle Reuter, Sarah Salm, Fiona Stappmanns, Alexander Stauch, Andrea Tabi, and Pascal Vuichard. I also thank Michael Schrackmann from Intervista for his great help in fielding the survey. I am very grateful to the members of the Behavioral Science for Policy Lab (BSPL) at Prince- ton University, led by Professor Elke Weber, who hosted me during the final stages of my PhD. You provided me with an excellent intellectual environment to conclude my dissertation while, i at the same time, helping me to start conquering new research frontiers. Especially, I want to thank my parents, Gabriele and Klaus Rinscheid, and my parents-in-law, Elke and Thomas Carolus, for their unconditional support. Our visits to Bürberg and Netphen kept me grounded and helped me find new inspiration. I also thank my grand-parents, Johanna and Eberhard Fuchs, who could not accompany this work until the end. You nurtured my intellec- tual hunger when I was little, and without you, I would probably not have gone in this direction. Special thanks also to Johannes Carolus for insightful discussions about the meaningfulness of pursuing a PhD in the light of alternative career options. Thank you to Willy for giving me your smiles, and for reminding me from time to time that the nights are not just for working. Thank you to Theo for your sincere interest in my work, for critically reviewing my figures, and for in-depth discussions about how to decommission a power plant. Thank you to Almut, for being there, for loving me. Thank you for encouraging me to work when I needed to, and for stopping me when other things were more important. You are my sunshine. ♥ Princeton, June 2018 Adrian Rinscheid ii Contents Acknowledgements i Zusammenfassung vii Summary viii I Introduction 1 1 Why Study Preference Formation in Energy Policy? 1 2 Nuclear Power: Arguments and Politics 3 2.1 Sketching out the Arguments on Both Sides of the Nuclear Controversy ..... 3 2.2 The Nuclear Controversy and Public Policymaking in Historic Context ...... 6 3 Divesting from Energy Assets: Concepts and Challenges 8 3.1 Delimiting Divestment and Phase-out Policies ................... 11 3.2 Barriers to Divestment: Path Dependence at the Macro Level... .......... 12 3.3 ... and Status Quo Bias at the Micro Level ..................... 13 4 Conceptual Anchors for the Case Studies 14 4.1 Critical Junctures .................................. 14 4.2 Preference Formation ................................ 15 4.2.1 Institutionalist Perspectives ......................... 15 4.2.2 Dual-process Models and Beyond: Concepts from Behavioral Decision Research .................................. 16 4.2.3 Who Shapes Citizens’ Preferences? The Role of Elites .......... 17 4.3 Putting it together .................................. 18 5 Methods 19 6 Overview of the Dissertation Papers 21 References 23 II Why Do Junctures Become Critical? Political Discourse, Agency, and Joint Belief Shifts in Comparative Perspective 33 iii 1 Introduction 33 2 Institutional Change and Critical Junctures 35 2.1 Introducing Agency ................................. 36 2.2 Summary ...................................... 39 3 Comparative Case Studies: Policy Discourses and Responses to Fuku-shima 40 3.1 Case Selection .................................... 40 3.2 Discourse Network Analysis: Method and Data .................. 42 3.3 Japan ........................................ 44 3.3.1 Pre-Fukushima Actor Constellation and Conflict Dynamics ........ 44 3.3.2 Post-Fukushima Beliefs and Actor Constellations ............. 46 3.3.3 Bottom Line: Continued Polarization and the Last Opportunity for Major Change ................................... 48 3.4 Canada ....................................... 49 3.4.1 Pre-Fukushima Actor Constellation and Conflict Dynamics ........ 49 3.4.2 Post-Fukushima Beliefs and Actor Constellations ............. 50 3.4.3 Bottom Line: The Advent of Polarization - But no Joint Belief Shift and Institutional Change ............................ 52 3.5 Germany ...................................... 52 3.5.1 Pre-Fukushima Actor Constellation and Conflict Dynamics ........ 52 3.5.2 Post-Fukushima Beliefs and Actor Constellations ............. 53 3.5.3 Bottom Line: Collective Dynamics of Belief Shift Lead to Major Institu- tional Change ................................ 56 3.6 Case Comparison .................................. 57 3.7 Competing Explanations .............................. 59 4 Conclusion 60 References 62 Supplementary Materials 65 III Divesting, Fast and Slow: Affective and Cognitive Drivers of Fading Voter Support for a Nuclear Phase-Out 76 1 Introduction 77 iv 2 Literature Review and Hypotheses 78 2.1 Voters’ Evaluation of Nuclear Power in a Contested Political Setting ....... 79 2.1.1 Perceptions of Nuclear Risk and Benefit .................. 79 2.1.2 Affective Evaluation of Nuclear Power .................. 80 2.2 Cognitive and Affective Precursors of Fading Voter Support for Divestment . 80 2.2.1 Preference Reversal via the Cognitive Route ................ 80 2.2.2 Preference Reversal via the Affective Route ................ 80 2.2.3 Modeling the Interplay of Affect and Cognition: The Affect Heuristic . 81 2.3 Preference Formation and Choice Architecture: The Asymmetric Dominance Effect 82 3 Material and Methods 84 3.1 Sampling Strategy and Survey Design ....................... 84 3.2 Measures and Aggregation Techniques ....................... 85 3.2.1 Outcome Variable .............................. 85 3.2.2 Explanatory Variables ........................... 86 3.2.3 Control Variables .............................. 88 4 Empirical Analysis and Results 89 4.1 Changes in Cognitive and Affective Evaluation of Nuclear Power ......... 89 4.1.1 Changes in Risk and Benefit Perceptions ................. 89 4.1.2 Changes in Affective Evaluations ..................... 90 4.2 Explaining Fading Voter Support for Divestment ................. 91 4.2.1 Direct Influence of Cognition and Affect ................. 91 4.2.2 How Affect Shapes Cognition ....................... 92 4.3 The Influence of Choice Architecture ........................ 94 4.3.1 How the