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This page provides an overview of my dissertation. My dissertation examines how local governments and nonprofit organizations govern clean energy transitions under state preemption and centralized utility regulation, using Florida as a hard case. I develop and apply Contested Rule Formation to explain how early governance takes shape when authority, venues, and institutional capacity exist but do not fit emerging socio-technical change, and what these arrangements mean for equity and energy justice.
This page provides an overview of my dissertation. My dissertation examines how local governments and nonprofit organizations govern clean energy transitions under state preemption and centralized utility regulation, using Florida as a hard case. I develop and apply Contested Rule Formation to explain how early governance takes shape when authority, venues, and institutional capacity exist but do not fit emerging socio-technical change, and what these arrangements mean for equity and energy justice.
Dissertation
My dissertation, titled "Governing Clean Energy under Preemption: Institutional Mismatch, Nonprofits, and Contested Rule Formation in Florida’s Local Energy Transitions," investigates how renewable energy and energy-justice initiatives emerge when local ambition collides with constrained authority. Using an interpretive, mechanism-oriented, multi-site case study (interviews and document analysis), I show how governance is built in the gray areas of federalism: nonprofits act as intermediaries and shadow rule-makers, municipalities construct local governance infrastructure (offices, ordinances, advisory bodies, partnerships), and equity efforts are often institutionalized as project-based interventions rather than durable changes to core energy rules.
Paper 1: Local renewable energy transitions under limited state support
Paper 1: Local renewable energy transitions under limited state support
This paper explains how Florida cities pursue renewable energy goals despite weak or oppositional state support. It shows how municipalities build local capacity (leadership, sustainability offices, policy tools), how cross-sector collaboration expands what is feasible, and how nonprofits supply technical expertise, resources, and regional coordination that help cities move from commitments to implementation while equity objectives are unevenly embedded across local programs.
Under Review: Elsevier Cities
Paper 2: Contested Rule Formation and institutional mismatch
Paper 2: Contested Rule Formation and institutional mismatch
This paper introduces Contested Rule Formation, a framework for understanding early governance when the rules of the game are unsettled. It explains how actors compete to define the problem, claim jurisdiction, and stabilize decision venues and procedural templates under institutional mismatch as a condition where rules, venues, and capacities exist but fit poorly with new socio-technical challenges. The framework clarifies why early venue and authority choices shape what kinds of policies become possible later.
Under Review: Policy Studies Journal
Paper 3: Nonprofits, constrained polycentricity, and projectized energy justice
Paper 3: Nonprofits, constrained polycentricity, and projectized energy justice
This paper examines how nonprofits shape local clean energy governance under constraint. I show how nonprofits operate as intermediaries and shadow rule-makers by designing templates, brokering expertise and funding, and creating informal venues when formal arenas are closed. I also develop the concept of projectized energy justice to describe how equity goals often appear as short-term, grant-dependent projects rather than durable changes to core regulatory rules, revealing both the promise and limits of local action under preemption.
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