2. Conceptual Framework
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- 2026
- OriginalPaper
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Abstract
While international climate negotiations, most notably the annual COPs, often dominate headlines, research has compellingly demonstrated that cities, regions, and other subnational actors are emerging as important players in global climate governance (Bäckstrand et al., 2017; Bulkeley et al., 2012; Hsu et al., 2019). Therefore, understanding how and why subnational governments engage in climate action has become a growing concern for both scholars and practitioners.
Our analysis builds on the well-established assumption, informed by extensive research, that subnational governments are not merely implementing policies decided elsewhere; rather, they are actively shaping climate policy through networks, initiatives, and innovative approaches that transcend traditional governmental boundaries (Busch et al., 2018; Hsu et al., 2019; Irepoglu Carreras, 2019; Tosun, Saad, et al., 2023). Furthermore, in multilevel polities, subnational governments benefit from having some degree of competence to adopt and implement their own climate policies. This is especially true in federal systems, where shared policy competences between central and decentralized levels can enable subnational governments to exceed the climate policy effort of the national government (Boyd and Olive 2021), and therefore to practice climate leadership.
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This chapter positions our research within the broader conceptual landscape of climate governance and climate leadership to illuminate the drivers and dynamics of subnational climate action. Our analysis focuses on subnational governments’ decisions to join the U2C and their subsequent climate policy effort as U2C members. By examining these processes, we seek to understand not only what motivates subnational governments to engage in transnational climate initiatives but also how their participation translates into sustained climate action.
To achieve this, we draw conceptually from two interconnected bodies of literature. First, we engage with the multilevel governance (MLG) literature, particularly the foundational work of Hooghe and Marks (2001), which provides essential analytical tools for understanding the complex institutional settings within which subnational governments operate. MLG theory helps us navigate the intricate web of relationships between local, regional, national, and international/supranational levels of governance that characterize contemporary climate action.
Following our exploration of MLG, we turn to the expanding literature on climate leadership, which contributes to our analysis in two significant ways. First, this literature offers a nuanced conceptualization of leadership that recognizes multiple types and forms—moving beyond narrow understandings that might overlook important manifestations of leadership. Second, we seek to contribute to the climate leadership literature by developing theoretical propositions about the conditions under which leadership is most likely to emerge and flourish among subnational governments that are U2C parties.
The remainder of this chapter follows this analytic structure, engaging systematically with both literatures before formulating specific propositions that will guide the empirical analysis in this book. The concluding section synthesizes these insights into a coherent conceptual framework.
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Multilevel Climate Governance
There exist different definitions of climate action and analytical perspectives for studying how climate action emerges. For the purpose of this book, our definition of climate action corresponds to decisions taken by subnational governments to reduce GHG emissions, thus encompassing different types of subnational climate policies (see, e.g., Almeida et al., 2024; Tosun, 2022). The question of how climate action occurs can be studied from two primary perspectives: politics or governance.
The politics perspective focuses on governmental actors such as members of parliament, government officials, and public administrators. This approach examines the climate policy preferences of these actors, their strategies for ensuring policy adoption, and how institutional and contextual factors shape the design of the climate policies eventually adopted (Jordan et al., 2022; Moore et al., 2024; Sullivan-Thomsett et al., 2024; Willis, 2020). The governance perspective differs fundamentally from the politics perspective in that it explicitly acknowledges that decision making and policy implementation involve both governmental and non-governmental actors (Bäckstrand et al., 2017; Bulkeley et al., 2012; Irepoglu, 2019; Jordan et al., 2018).
At first glance, our research might appear misaligned with the governance perspective since we focus primarily on governmental actors. However, this assessment would fail to account for important theoretical developments within governance scholarship. The governance concept has undergone numerous refinements, among which the concept of MLG, as developed by Hooghe and Marks (2001), stands as particularly influential. According to these authors, MLG captures the idea that multiple levels of authority—supranational, national, regional, and local—interact with each other in complex ways. More fundamentally, the core insight of MLG is that decision-making authority is dispersed across multiple territorial levels and involves various governmental and non-governmental actors operating within interconnected networks.
From this MLG perspective, our focus on subnational rather than national governments clearly qualifies our research for the application of the MLG framework. Subnational governments operate within the multilevel system on which MLG focuses, navigating relationships not only with higher levels of government but also with peer jurisdictions, international networks, and various non-state actors. This positioning makes the MLG perspective particularly apt for understanding how subnational climate action unfolds within broader governance arrangements.
Hooghe and Marks (2001) distinguish between two distinct types of MLG that reflect fundamentally different organizational logics. Type I MLG echoes federalist thought, conceiving the dispersion of authority as occurring within a limited number of non-overlapping jurisdictional boundaries at distinct territorial levels. Decision-making powers are dispersed across these general-purpose jurisdictions within a relatively stable hierarchical structure characterized by clear lines of accountability and nested relationships between levels.
Type II MLG provides a markedly different vision of governance, in which jurisdictions are characterized by overlapping boundaries and flexible arrangements that adapt to changing governance demands. Rather than being organized territorially, these jurisdictions are functionally differentiated. Multiple jurisdictions formed across various levels and entities interact, collaborate, and perform distinct functions within a more fluid governance system. As acknowledged, for instance, by Di Gregorio et al. (2019), Wurzel et al. (2019), and Heinen et al. (2022), this conception of MLG resonates strongly with the concept of polycentric governance developed by Vincent Ostrom et al. (1961) and further elaborated by Elinor Ostrom (2010), which emphasizes the relative independence of constituent units to establish their own norms and rules within their specific domains (see also Jordan et al., 2015, 2018).
The analytical implications of these two types are significant for understanding subnational climate governance. When adopting a Type I MLG perspective, the hierarchical relationship between national and subnational governments features prominently (Bakvis & Brown, 2010; Biedenkopf, 2017), with emphasis on how authority flows between clearly defined territorial levels. Conversely, when following the Type II perspective, the analytical focus shifts to individual jurisdictions and their multifaceted relationships—not only with national governments but also, and perhaps more importantly, with peer jurisdictions across similar and different governance levels. These interactions can take various forms, ranging from cooperative and collaborative to competitive or even conflictive (Heinen et al., 2022).
Our analytical approach aligns with Type II MLG even though we focus on subnational entities that are territorially defined. The justification for this approach lies in our primary interest in the climate action subnational governments take based on their own assessment of climate urgency and through collaboration with other subnational entities, whether located within the same country or across national boundaries. In other words, we presume that subnational governments who join U2C are willing to take climate action that not only complements the efforts of national governments but also moves significantly beyond what is required or expected at the national level.
This approach reflects the Type II MLG logic in several key ways. First, these subnational actors operate with some level of autonomy in defining their climate priorities and enacting appropriate policies in response to the demands of the national government. Second, their engagement in transnational networks like U2C demonstrates the kind of flexible collaboration that characterizes Type II governance arrangements. Third, their climate actions often transcend the hierarchical expectations of traditional intergovernmental relations, instead reflecting horizontal relationships and peer-to-peer learning that cut across territorial boundaries.
Leadership in Climate Governance
One of the key topics in international politics has been determining which governments act as leaders and which follow them (Underdal, 1998). Liefferink and Wurzel (2017) have adapted the concept of leadership to the realm of international climate politics and climate governance. Before we engage with the different types of leadership, it is important to justify that leadership is indeed the most appropriate concept for this research as there exist alternative concepts for establishing which actors demonstrate greater climate policy effort.
The most important alternative concept is that of the pioneer, on which Liefferink and Wurzel (2017) also elaborate. According to the authors, “pioneers carry out activities which, depending on the subsequent circumstances and events ‘in the field’, may or may not help others to follow” (Liefferink & Wurzel, 2017, p. 953). Thus, pioneers mainly focus on internal action without explicitly seeking to attract followers, though they may unintentionally set examples for others. “A leader, on the other hand, has the explicit aim of leading others, and, if necessary, to push others into a follower position. Therefore, leaders usually attract followers, or at least aim to do so” (Liefferink & Wurzel, 2017, p. 953). According to Torney (2019), followers adopt climate change policies, ideas, institutions, approaches, or techniques after observing their adoption by leaders or pioneers. Like the previously discussed concepts, followership represents intentional action.
Which of these two concepts—leadership or pioneer—is more accurate for our analysis? As is customary in research, at some point we must make assumptions about the actors we study, since without such assumptions it would be difficult to develop a compelling conceptual framework. It follows that both our theoretical argument and empirical insights must be evaluated against the backdrop of these foundational assumptions. Therefore, it is crucial to make these assumptions explicit and provide adequate justification for them.
Our central assumption regarding the subnational governments participating in U2C is that they aim to act as leaders rather than pioneers. This assumption is primarily informed by the self-description of U2C and its member governments. The U2C members commit themselves to “acting as climate leaders” (Under2 Coalition, 2024, p. 2). This leadership orientation implies a deliberate strategy to shape the behavior of others, distinguishing these actors from pioneers, who may advance ambitious policies without necessarily seeking to influence followers. By adopting this assumption, we can better analyze how these subnational governments position themselves within broader climate governance networks.
Building on this, we assume that they have both high internal and external ambitions for climate leadership. The external dimension is twofold: first, it refers to acting as leaders within U2C itself, thereby stimulating the overall level of ambition within the coalition. Second, given that U2C is composed of subnational governments, this external dimension also refers to influencing other subnational governments within the countries where the members are based and which are not U2C members.
Within the concept of leadership, actors seeking to be leaders are expected to adopt certain strategies for inducing others to follow them. Liefferink and Wurzel (2017) identify four types of climate leadership. The first is cognitive leadership, which relies on the power of ideas, knowledge, and expertise. This leadership type involves promoting ideas that shape subsequent action by other actors. Tobin et al. (2023, p. 189) argue that the EU’s adoption of the European Green Deal can be regarded as an example of cognitive leadership by the United States. US politicians such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez established the idea of an ambitious and comprehensive green growth agenda, which the EU picked up and established its own version of.
Second, entrepreneurial leadership involves diplomatic and bargaining skills, encompassing the ability to draw attention to issues, propose innovative solutions, and broker compromises. This type of leadership has been frequently discussed in the literature in relation to the EU’s aspirational role in international climate politics (Tobin et al., 2023). While the application of this leadership concept appears most intuitive in the international domain, entrepreneurial leadership can, in principle, also be observed at the subnational level.
Third, structural leadership relates primarily to military and economic power, though in climate governance, economic dimensions are most relevant. This includes market power for businesses, consumption power for consumers, and systemic relevance based on an actor’s contribution to climate problems. For example, large GHG emitters may have significant “issue-specific” structural power in international negotiations, derived from their centrality to climate mitigation efforts (Tobin et al., 2023). At the subnational level, economically affluent entities may have greater structural power since producers of goods might be inclined to design their products according to the preferences and standards of these wealthy markets.
Finally, exemplary leadership consists of providing good examples for other actors, either intentionally or unintentionally. Subnational governments can serve as “living laboratories” that demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of climate policies. When a subnational government successfully implements innovative climate measures, other subnational actors can observe these examples and adapt similar approaches suitable to their own contexts.
Leadership over Time
As with any policy decision taken by a government—at any level of the political system—leadership is a deliberate choice, and choices are the outcomes of decision-making processes. Several factors affect the process and outcomes of decision making, most of which are dynamic in nature. Consequently, climate leadership must also be regarded as a phenomenon that is inherently dynamic, subject to both strengthening and weakening forces that shape how governments prioritize and address climate change across different temporal and political contexts.
Strengthening Effects
Crisis events often serve as powerful catalysts for enhanced climate governance. Natural disasters, extreme weather events, or environmental catastrophes can create critical windows of opportunity where public demand for action intensifies and the political costs of inaction become starkly apparent. The 2003 European heatwave, for instance, significantly elevated climate concerns across the continent and resulted in most European cities adopting comprehensive prevention and warning plans for extreme temperatures (García-Herrera et al., 2010). These crisis-driven policy responses demonstrate how acute environmental or climate-related events can rapidly transform political priorities and create momentum for sustained climate action.
Technological developments can substantially reinforce leadership by making climate solutions more economically attractive and politically feasible. As renewable energy costs plummeted dramatically over the past decade (Abbott et al., 2023), governments found it increasingly easier to champion clean energy transitions that simultaneously addressed climate goals and enhanced economic competitiveness. This technological shift has fundamentally altered the political calculus surrounding climate policy, transforming what was once seen as an economic burden into a potential source of competitive advantage. Consequently, this technological evolution might have significantly strengthened leadership in climate governance by aligning environmental objectives with economic interests.
Electoral cycles and changing public opinion represent another strengthening mechanism with multifaceted implications. Younger generations tend to demonstrate higher levels of climate concern (Parth et al., 2020), and as their political influence grows through increased voter participation, politicians increasingly view climate action as electorally advantageous rather than politically risky. In particular, the rise of influential social movements, such as Fridays for Future, has induced German politicians to adopt a more pronounced pro-climate stance, illustrating how grassroots mobilization can directly influence policy positions (Tosun & Debus, 2025).
Related to this demographic shift, increasing electoral support for green and ecological parties can fundamentally alter climate leadership dynamics through two distinct pathways. First, green parties can directly join governing coalitions, thereby strengthening climate leadership through direct participation in policy-making processes and cabinet positions. Second, an increasing vote share for green parties can exert significant competitive pressure on other political parties, compelling them to adopt more pro-climate positions and engage in strengthened climate leadership as a strategic response to shifting electoral preferences.
Weakening Effects
The same or similar factors can result in a weakening of climate leadership. Among these factors are economic pressures, which frequently undermine climate governance. During recessions or periods of high energy costs, governments may prioritize short-term economic relief over long-term climate investments, viewing environmental policies as luxury expenditures that can be deferred during times of fiscal constraint. As Liefferink and Wurzel (2017) argue, the 2008 financial crisis led several countries to delay or scale back environmental regulations as they focused on economic recovery, demonstrating how economic crises can rapidly shift policy priorities away from climate action (see also Burns & Tobin, 2020).
Political transitions can equally alter climate leadership trajectories in dramatic ways. Changes in governing parties, especially those with fundamentally different ideological orientations toward government intervention and climate policy, can result in significant policy reversals and institutional dismantling. Leadership changes may result in the instatement of officials who view climate action as economically burdensome, scientifically questionable, or ideologically objectionable. A particularly illustrative case is provided by the recent oscillations in US climate policy across presidential administrations (Smith, 2024; Tosun, Heinz-Fischer, & Luo, 2023).
Furthermore, effective climate governance requires sustained attention across multiple policy domains over extended timeframes. As initial enthusiasm wanes and implementation challenges emerge, political leaders may prioritize more immediate, tangible issues that offer clearer political rewards, as already predicted by Downs (1972).
Interaction Between Factors
These factors often interact cyclically. Strong leadership phases may generate backlash that empowers opposition forces (Patterson et al., 2025), while periods of weak leadership can create conditions for renewed mobilization. Understanding these dynamics suggests that sustainable climate governance requires building institutional resilience that can weather political transitions while maintaining long-term policy continuity across changing political landscapes. Furthermore, different institutional architectures shape climate policy development of which the constitutionally defined distribution of policy competencies is the most fundamental one.
Propositions
This section integrates the individual elements of the preceding conceptual discussion to establish a coherent conceptual framework for understanding climate leadership dynamics and to formulate specific propositions that will guide the subsequent empirical analysis.
Our analytic foundation rests on the premise that subnational governments participating in U2C operate within multilevel governance systems that structure their climate policy choices. They adopt climate policies not merely as isolated responses to U2C commitments, but as strategic decisions that reflect their policy preferences, institutional capacity, and their aspirations to influence climate governance at multiple scales (Irepoglu, 2019). In doing so, they deliberately seek to exercise leadership directed toward other subnational entities within their domestic contexts as well as toward the broader U2C network.
Drawing on Liefferink and Wurzel’s (2017) typology, we distinguish four analytically distinct yet often overlapping forms of leadership: cognitive leadership (shaping ideas and problem definitions), entrepreneurial leadership (brokering new solutions and coalitions), structural leadership (leveraging institutional position and resources), and exemplary leadership (demonstrating best practices through action).
While our empirical analysis engages with these different leadership types and identifies them wherever the empirical evidence permits, we acknowledge the inherent methodological challenge of distinguishing between them definitively. Such differentiation would require comprehensive knowledge of the underlying motivations and strategic calculations of subnational governments—data that is rarely accessible or reliably documented. Our analytic approach therefore focuses on observable policy actions while recognizing that these actions represent attempts to exercise one or more forms of leadership, even when the precise type or combination remains ambiguous. We equally recognize that in the case of some subnational governments, policy action can also be the outcome of a deliberate choice to follow leaders, which can be motivated by the wish to remain followers or eventually become leaders themselves.
The central variation we seek to explain concerns both the type of climate action U2C members take and the temporal sustainability of their policy effort. To theorize this variation, we draw on reputation theory, a well-established framework in International Relations scholarship that posits reputation as a valuable strategic asset (Pfeiffer et al., 2012). For governmental actors, cultivating and maintaining a positive reputation—whether for reliability, innovation, or environmental stewardship—can yield tangible benefits including enhanced access to international funding, stronger partnership opportunities, and increased influence in policy networks. Conversely, a damaged reputation can result in diplomatic isolation, reduced credibility, and diminished capacity to achieve policy objectives.
We presume that joining U2C but demonstrating no or low climate policy effort could damage a subnational government’s reputation, while high policy effort could strengthen it. Nonetheless, we contend that while reputation considerations matter for all U2C members, their impact varies systematically according to the timing and circumstances of membership. We therefore distinguish analytically between founding members (those instrumental in establishing U2C), early joiners (those who joined shortly after its inception), and later joiners (those who joined after the coalition had become established).
Our theoretical framework generates the following proposition: Founding members face the strongest reputational incentives and therefore demonstrate the highest levels of sustained climate policy effort. Having invested their credibility in launching the organization, they bear primary responsibility for its success and face the greatest reputational costs from organizational failure or their own policy backsliding. Early adopters also confront significant reputational pressures, as their visible, early commitment signals strong climate policy credentials, but these pressures are somewhat attenuated compared to founders since they bear less direct responsibility for organizational outcomes. Later entrants, while still subject to reputation effects through their voluntary association with the coalition’s goals, face comparatively lower stakes since they joined an already-established network and therefore experience less pressure for exceptional performance. They could also see more benefit in being followers than leaders (Proposition 1).
Our second proposition builds on the membership characteristics framework while incorporating the crucial temporal dynamics of both climate policy effort and reputation formation. The relationship between reputation and sustained policy commitment represents a well-established research domain in International Relations, with scholars examining whether positive or negative reputational consequences exert stronger behavioral constraints on state actors and how reputational capital accumulates and depreciates over time (e.g., Baser, 2024).
Extending our earlier analysis, we argue that founding members face not only the strongest initial incentives for ambitious climate action but also the most compelling pressures to sustain and potentially enhance their commitments over time. This dynamic stems from reputational lock-in effects—the phenomenon whereby early, visible commitments to policy leadership create escalating expectations that make policy retreat increasingly costly (Panke, 2015). For founding members, any perceived weakening of climate ambition would signal fundamental inconsistency between their stated values and actual behavior, potentially undermining their credibility across multiple policy domains and damaging their capacity to exercise future leadership.
This theoretical insight connects directly to the growing literature on climate policy durability, which seeks to understand the mechanisms that enable climate policies to survive political transitions, economic pressures, and shifting public priorities (Jordan & Moore, 2020). Our contribution to this debate is to highlight how reputational costs can serve as an endogenous stabilizing mechanism, particularly for actors who have made highly visible commitments to leadership. Founding members of organizations face what economists would recognize as a “sunk cost” problem in reverse: having invested heavily in building reputational capital around environmental leadership, they have strong incentives to protect this investment through continued policy effort.
The reputational stakes create an asymmetric incentive structure where the costs of policy retreat significantly exceed the benefits of maintaining the status quo. This asymmetry should be most pronounced for founding members, who face the highest reputational exposure, followed by early joiners, who benefit from association with organizational success but bear somewhat lower responsibility for its continuation. Later entrants, while still subject to reputational consequences for dramatic policy reversals, face comparatively lower stakes since their environmental credentials are less tightly bound to the organization’s trajectory. Consequently, they could be inclined to lower climate ambition in response to changes in economic, political, and social conditions (Proposition 2).
Conclusion
This chapter has established a conceptual framework for understanding subnational climate policy effort and leadership within multilevel governance systems. Drawing on characterization of Type II multilevel governance systems, we position subnational governments as autonomous actors operating within polycentric networks.
Our framework adopts Liefferink and Wurzel’s (2017) typology of climate leadership—cognitive, entrepreneurial, structural, and exemplary—while acknowledging the practical challenges of distinguishing between these forms empirically. Central to our framework is the application of reputation theory to explain variation in climate policy effort among U2C members. We argue that reputation considerations create differential incentives based on membership timing, with founding members facing the strongest pressures for sustained climate action due to reputational lock-in effects. This dynamic generates two key propositions: first, that founding members demonstrate higher levels of climate policy effort than early and later joiners; and second, that founding members exhibit greater policy durability over time due to escalating reputational costs of retreat.
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