Madariaga&Allain - Contingent Coalitions

Policy Studies Journal, Vol. 48, No.
3, 2020
Contingent Coalitions in Environmental Policymaking:

How Civil Society Organizations Influenced the Chilean
Renewable Energy Boom
Aldo Madariaga and Mathilde Allain
This article analyzes the role of social movements and environmental organizations in crafting
contingent coalitions to advance renewable energies in Chile. Until recently, Chile presented several
conditions predicting the continuation of an arm’s-length energy policy and a deregulated energy
market heavily concentrated on environmentally and socially unfriendly sources. However, gradual
but transformative policy change in the last decade has made the country a world leader in renewable
energy development. Studying two key moments in energy policy reform, we argue that the contingency
of the coalitions that social movements and environmental organizations forged was crucial to the
advancement of renewable energy policy and the transformation of the energy sector in the country.
The paper advances our understanding of policy change in contexts of high path dependency and status
quo bias, and builds the concept of “contingent coalitions,” unifying similar but scattered and under-
theorized notions that capture the fluid dynamics of coalition formation and policy change in
environmental policymaking.
KEY WORDS: Chile, coalitions, environmental politics, renewable energy, social movements
本文分析了社会运动和环境组织的临时结盟对推进智利可持续能源的发展所起到的作用。根
据近来智利出现的一些情况，我们预计智利将在一段时间内保持“一臂之距”的能源政策模式和不
加管制的能源市场，如此，这样的市场将会集中在那些环境不友好和社会不友好能源上。然而，与
之相反的现实情况却是，在过去十年中，智利采取了逐步但具有变革性的政策变化，并使得该国成
为了可再生能源发展的世界领导者。本文研究了智利能源政策改革的两个关键时间点，由此认为社
会运动和环境组织结盟的临时性对于可再生能源政策的推进和该国能源部门的转型至关重要。本
文提出了作者对于在高度路径依赖和现状偏好背景下的政策变化的理解。尽管目前已有一些概念捕
捉到了环境政策决策中结盟形成和政策变化的流动性，但是这些概念过于分散且仍尚待理论化，
我们提出“临时结盟”这一概念以将这些分散的概念结合在一起。
672
doi: 10.1111/psj.12298
© 2018 Policy Studies Organization
Madariaga and Allain: Contingent Coalitions in Environmental Policymaking673
Introduction
Chile is currently undergoing a renewable energy boom. Energy displaced

mining as the first target for investment, and the great majority goes to so-called
“nonconventional” renewable energies (Madariaga & Gladina, 2018).1 Electricity
generated from these energy sources grew about four times since 2010 and is
expected to approach one fourth of the system by 2022. Meanwhile, the country has
climbed to a prominent position as a regional and world leader in the development
of renewables. Chile is today the second largest market for renewable energies in
Latin America, ahead of regional giants like Mexico (Nasirov, 2017). The country
owns more than half the installed solar capacity in Latin America,2 and in 2016 Chile
was the top-scoring renewable energy producer in the Americas and second in the
world, beaten only by China (Miroff, 2017). This process has been underpinned by a
gradual yet relentless change in energy policy since the early 2000s, promoting the
development of the sector.
Two decades ago, when this process started, this transformation was unthink-
able. In fact, Chile presented many features that predicted policy continuity, not
policy change (see Maillet, 2015).3 Chile’s electricity market was concentrated in
three companies, representing more than 90 percent of electricity generation and
an important part of electricity transmission and distribution.4 Investments were
heavily concentrated on environmentally and socially sensitive energy sources,
with about 60 percent going to large hydropower and 40 percent to fossil fuels.
In addition, Chile’s policymaking process was known for its bias toward status
quo preservation, given existing formal and informal institutions that favor pol-
icy consensus and continuity (Aninat, Londregan, Navia, & Vial, 2008; Siavelis,
2010), not to mention strong business power-blocking attempts at significant policy
transformations (Fairfield, 2015). During this time, public policy was notoriously
market conforming and therefore unable to develop a vibrant renewable business
sector that would constitute the backbone of a coalition pushing for changes. At
the same time, environmental actors lamented their weak position in civil society,
noting that “meaningful opportunities for influence remained scarce” (Risley, 2015,
p. 48; see Tecklin, Bauer, & Prieto, 2011).
How can we explain the Chilean transformation? Existing scholarship has
improved our understanding of policy change by focusing on the contexts in which
political agency takes place (Hysing & Olsson, 2017; Lowndes & Roberts, 2013;
Mahoney & Thelen, 2010). In this article, we contribute to this scholarship by reveal-
ing how subordinated actors can influence policy in contexts of high path depen-
dence and status quo bias, like the case of Chilean energy policy. We criticize existing
concepts of “coalition” in different scholarly traditions for being too static to capture
the dynamics of coalition formation under these conditions, and unify a range of
scholarly literature in environmental politics that point to similar but undertheo-
rized phenomena. Based on this, we develop the concept of “contingent coalitions”:
collective actors with conflicting but partly overlapping agendas and interests may
contingently coalesce to foster those interests and/or beliefs that they share, while
bracketing those that they do not. Subordinated actors tacitly and strategically ally
674 Policy Studies Journal, 48:3
with potentially conflicting ones, thereby fostering their preferences in a way that
would be impossible if they formed more stable coalitions to oppose incumbents.
We claim that this pattern of coalition formation and policy change is particularly
prevalent in environmental policymaking, and that the ability of environmen-
tal groups to “break out of their rigid environmental categories” (Di Chiro, 2008,
p. 278) is key to understanding the success of environmental policy in contexts
where change is a priori difficult.
This article is organized as follows. In the first section, we engage with the cur-
rent literature on political agency to show the existing gap when trying to under-
stand how subordinated actors can influence policy change in contexts of high path
dependence. In turn, we critically discuss the idea of coalitions used in different
scholarly traditions, from political economy to policy sciences. Building on a large
but scattered and under-theorized array of works in environmental policymaking,
in the second section, we present our argument that in the above-mentioned condi-
tions, successful coalitions are contingent coalitions. We develop this concept and its
main characteristics, analyzing its potential for understanding policy change. In the
empirical section, we show that the contingent coalitions crafted by environmental
organizations (EOs) in Chile have been crucial for fostering renewable energy policy
at two moments where key innovations were introduced. The analysis builds on
an intensive study of legislative processes and semi-structured interviews with key
actors.
Putting Political Agency in Context
The study of policy and institutional change is perhaps one of the most vibrant
yet open fields of inquiry in the public policy literature.5 The analysis of change is
particularly puzzling if we take institutions seriously: How can we conceptualize
change if institutions shape patterns of behavior and constrain action? One influen-
tial answer has been to reveal how different institutional scenarios affect political
agency and infer from there the chances available for change agents to transform
established policies and institutions. In other words, it is necessary to put political
agency in context. While initial responses to this highlighted the dynamics of punc-
tuated equilibrium, where critical junctures act as moments when the power of in-
stitutions decays and agency comes to the fore, recent contributions have developed
the idea of gradual and cumulative change (see Lowndes & Roberts, 2013, chap. 5).
One cornerstone of these developments is Mahoney and Thelen’s (2010) work
on gradual change. The authors conceptualize the conditions under which different
patterns of change are most likely to emerge, and the likely change actors exploit-
ing these conditions, using two basic contextual parameters: the degree to which
existing political institutions have a bias towards preserving the status quo, and
the degree of openness of institutions and policies to alternative interpretations and
enforcement. The authors provide two answers for situations in which the political
context has a high bias toward status quo preservation; i.e., the existence of strong
institutional veto powers and vested interests, as in the case of Chile. The first is
when the institutions or policies targeted for change allow degrees of freedom for
interpretation and enforcement. In this case, change agents can produce change by
simply not adapting them to changing external circumstances. They call this “drift.”
The second is layering, which occurs when change agents cannot change the mean-
ing of the institutions or policies that are the target of change, but can advance change
by incorporating “layers” of new policies and regulations, which accumulate over
time and eventually transform old policies and institutions. In both cases, change is
possible because change agents have power to either refuse adapting existing insti-
tutions or to incorporate new layers.
However, in many circumstances, change agents may not have the power to
even change policies and institutions in these less direct ways. This is frequently the
case in environmental policy. As Hysing and Olsson (2017) rightly point out, “green
change agents are structurally disadvantaged in relation to those who favor the sta-
tus quo” (p. 10). How can change be possible in this unlikely scenario?
Toward Contingent Coalitions in Environmental Policymaking
Existing literature on environmental politics has emphasized that the key for less
powerful actors to influence policy change is to build instrumental coalitions to
gradually foster their interests and institutionalize their preferred policies (see Díez,
2006; Hochstetler & Keck, 2007; Risley, 2015; Umlas, 1998). However, there is a sur-
prising lack of theorization about the nature of these coalitions and the contexts in
which they operate. This leads to theoretical confusion and, ultimately, to the mis-
understanding of political agency. To overcome this problem, we develop the con-
cept of contingent coalitions. We offer three reasons to justify this concept. First, the
literature on environmental policymaking offers a myriad of concepts with similar
characteristics but that are heavily under-theorized. Second, existing conceptual-
izations of coalitions in related fields (particularly in political economy and policy
sciences) fail to capture the fluid, dynamic, and instrumental character of successful
coalitions in environmental policymaking. Finally, while current conceptualization
efforts have revealed how insiders can give access to subordinated actors (see Díez,
2006; Hysing & Olsson, 2017; Olsson, 2009), we concentrate on situations in which,
in the absence of such insider help, subordinated actors need to gain influence from
the outside (cf. Rao & Giorgi, 2006).
Coalitions in Environmental Policymaking
Environmental policymaking has characteristics that make coalition formation

processes differ from other policy contexts (Hysing & Olsson, 2017, pp. 1–2). First,
actor interests and policy preferences are ambiguous because environmental pol-
icies often involve multiple and conflicting values and goals. This means that en-
vironmental politics generates winners and losers in different realms. Second, the
complexity of environmental problems implies that solutions need to be addressed

at different institutional levels, transcending thereby established political, adminis-
trative, and even national frontiers. This is aggravated by the fact that environmen-
tal problems often have a cross-sectorial character. In this sense, the policy process
cannot be singularized in one reform, but rather over an extended period involv-
ing different interactions and changing coalitional bases (see Bomberg, 2012; Knox-
Hayes, 2012). That is why alliances tend to be more fluid, dynamic, and instrumental
than in other policy domains.
The environmental policy literature has captured these characteristics when
analyzing coalitions, but has used different labels to refer to them and has failed to
theorize what specific characteristics of these coalitions have causal value for under-
standing policy change or the specific scenarios under which policy change occurs.
The myriad of labels includes “issue-based” or “issue-oriented” coalitions (Lemos
& Looye, 2003, p. 351), “unlikely” coalitions (McGurty, 2000), “ad hoc coalitions”
(Risley, 2015, p. 10), “transcommunal alliances” (Di Chiro, 2008, p. 279), and “mobi-
lization networks” (Bomberg, 2012). They each share a number of characteristics.
First, there are a variety of heterogeneous actors involved, imbuing policy change
processes with a multi-stakeholder character. Second, they have an instrumental
character, guided by policy-oriented activities, which contrasts with the more politi-
cal goals of old social movements and some of their constituent organizations. Third,
the alliances are contingently formed, and are characterized by their fluidity, infor-
mality, and time-bound activity, as well as by their specificity to certain social and
political contexts. Finally, the policy success of these coalitions is largely explained
by this very contingency.
Beyond the descriptive value of these concepts, they are neither useful enough
to conceptualize political agency nor can they properly discern how change is possi-
ble in different contexts. An example of this is the work of Risley (2015). The author
conceives of a spectrum from consolidated partnerships she calls “alliances” to “ad
hoc coalitions” in the kinds of organization that subordinated groups develop as
strategy to increase their political clout. She sees “alliances” as stable and relatively
formal arrangements between groups, and “coalitions” as more tactical, flexible, and
time-bound activities (Risley, 2015, pp. 12, 23). But the choice of the labels (“alliance”
for formal and enduring; “coalition” for flexible and instrumental) is not warranted.
Moreover, as the analysis goes, she seems to conflate the idea of coalitions tout court
to that of “ad hoc coalitions,” thereby depriving the distinction between “ad hoc”
and “non–ad hoc” of its analytical value.
This lack of clarity becomes problematic when analyzing which characteristics
are crucial for coalitions to push policy change. For example, while Risley claims that
fluidity and lack of structure are key to overcoming problems of alliance building
in terms of “autonomy, unrepresentative leadership, and alliance fatigue” (Risley,
2015, p. 95), Umlas (1998) stresses the exact opposite, namely, that the key for push-
ing policy change is the formalization of group networks.
Taking inspiration from Hysing and Olsson (2017), to advance theoretical clarity
and analytical power, we see the need to streamline and unify existing concepts that
are relevant for environmental politics and policymaking. In the process, we also
look to adjacent disciplines.
Coalitions in Political Economy and Policy Sciences
The concept of coalition has been widely used in political economy and policy
sciences to denote groups of societal actors coming together to oppose other groups
and influence policy. Theoretically, we can identify a transit from more stable and
overarching coalitions in political economy (Gourevitch, 1986; Kingstone, 1999),
to stable coalitions that are specific to certain policy domains in policy sciences
(Jenkins-Smith & Sabatier, 1994; Sabatier & Jenkins-Smith, 1993), to the more plastic
idea of policy networks (Adam & Kriesi, 2007; Thatcher, 1998). However, while theo-
retically sounder, these notions fail to conceptualize coalitions as fluid, flexible, and
instrumental associations, which are found in environmental policymaking.
In political economy, authors usually refer to producer-group coalitions. These
are groups of employers and workers who support certain policies and whose
power vis à vis other groups explains policy adoption and change (Hall, 1997, p. 176).
Unlike in environmental politics, this idea portrays coalitions as relatively well-
defined and large sets of actors coalescing for a relatively long period of time and
making possible equally long periods of policy development. This macro perspective
makes political economy approaches overlook the array of societal actors bearing an
interest on a specific policy issue or domain, as is often the case in environmental
politics. Moreover, change in this context is mostly conceptualized as a function of
external events shifting the distributional consequences of different policies (e.g.,
Gourevitch, 1986), which makes it difficult to think about gradual and cumulative
change processes. Moreover, despite efforts to highlight coalition formation pro-
cesses, the pooling of power resources, and the investment in organization as cru-
cial to understanding the ability of coalitions to influence policy (Kingstone, 1999;
Meckling, 2011; Schneider, 2004), political economy approaches have a tendency to
employ a binary idea of coalitions—whereby one dominant coalition acts against
another subordinated coalition intending to overtake its power and influence—and
therefore overlook the myriad possibilities for subordinated actors to influence the
policymaking process.
In the case of policy sciences, influential theories such as the Advocacy Coalition
Framework (ACF) (Jenkins-Smith & Sabatier, 1994; Sabatier & Jenkins-Smith, 1993)
emphasize the policy specificity of coalitions, therefore highlighting that the politics
of public policy vary from one policy domain to another. As a result, the relevant
actors, their underlying interests, interaction dynamics, strategies, etc. need to be
studied in each specific context. Despite this focus on policy subsystems, ACF has
been criticized for not being able to illustrate collective action, coalition formation
strategies, or the influence of the political context (Albright, 2011; Nohrstedt, 2010;
Olsson, 2009; Weible, Sabatier, & Flowers, 2008, p. 6). Moreover, ACF’s focus on spe-
cific policy subsystems makes it fail to capture the possibility of “nested” political
games, that is, processes played simultaneously in different policy domains and
institutional levels (see Bomberg, 2012; Nohrstedt, 2010). More generally, ACF main-
tains that change comes mostly from external events (Albright, 2011; Jenkins-Smith,
St. Clair, & Woods, 1991; Nohrstedt, 2010), which tends to produce a similar effect
as found in political economy approaches, that is, understanding coalitions as well
delimited and durable in the absence of big ruptures. Finally, ACF focuses on policy
ideas and beliefs in bringing coalitions together, disregarding the possibility that
actors coalesce under more instrumental grounds (see e.g., Fischer, 2014; Olsson,
2009, p. 173).
Looking for less constrained models of coalition formation to understand pat-
terns of policy change, Olsson (2009) proposes approaching policy network studies
(Adam & Kriesi, 2007). The idea of policy networks tries not to have a preconceived
notion of what the actors are and what their relations can be, therefore offering a
notion of coalition that emphasizes the multiple and variable actors interacting in a
specific policy domain or sector. A policy network may involve an array of collective
and individual actors and is not defined as a confrontation between, usually two,
sets of actors within a policy space, but by the interaction patterns that the actors in
the network develop. Thus, in network approaches, the type of interactions within
the network are key to understanding policy change.
However, in this case, conceptual plasticity seems to come with decreasing the-
oretical leverage. As its very proponents complain, the analysis of policy networks
allows policy subsystems to be described, classified, and compared, but the con-
cept remains largely undertheorized (Adam & Kriesi, 2007, pp. 146–147; Thatcher,
1998). Moreover, actors in a policy network recurrently interact in the policy pro-
cess, developing stable patterns over time (Adam & Kriesi, 2007, p. 129) and tending
towards formalization (Umlas, 1998), which runs contrary to our quest for flexibil-
ity. As a result, scholars recognize that one of the more daunting problems of net-
work approaches is their inability to illuminate the origins and dynamics of change
(Adam & Kriesi, 2007, p. 130), particularly in contexts like environmental policy-
making that are characterized by “a lack of clear sectoral/subsectoral boundaries”
(Thatcher, 1998, p. 398).
From Insider Advantage to Outsider Instrumentalism
Starting from a similar point as ours, Hysing and Olsson (2017) and Olsson (2009)
have developed the concept of “green inside activism” to understand how subor-
dinated actors, particularly in environmental politics, can affect policy and institu-
tional change. The concept refers to the existence of a doorkeeper within the state
apparatus (the inside activist), an individual engaged in civil society networks and
committed to their work, but that holds a key power position within the state. The
inside activist can act therefore as a broker introducing the concerns, preferences,
and values of green civil society organizations and movements into the policymak-
ing process. By gradually importing the logic of actors with little access to policy-
making, the green inside activist can act as a catalyzer of policy change.
We recognize this as a major advancement in the understanding of policy and

institutional change in environmental policymaking when the political context offers
few possibilities for change. However, it leaves open the theorization and analysis of
situations in which change agents do not have an inside activist acting as a doorkeeper,
and therefore need to gain influence from the outside, either by rebelling against exist-
ing policies and opposing them with their own preferences, or by appropriating exist-
ing logics and trying to integrate their preferences (see Rao & Giorgi, 2006). In fact,
civil society organizations that are aware of their low chances of influencing policy,
often engage in negotiation with authorities and try to work “within the realm of pos-
sibility” (Risley, 2015, p. 46). We claim this is precisely what contingent coalitions do.
Theorizing Contingent Coalitions and their Effect on Policy Change
We define a contingent coalition as a group of actors that gets together to foster

specific policy reforms. The basis of the coalition is its instrumental character: the
actors in the coalition differ in substantial ways and the coalition is not meant to en-
dure after the specific policy process is over. This makes contingent coalitions differ
markedly from existing concepts of coalition, where involved actors are expected to
converge significantly in terms of their values and/or interests, and where coalitions
are expected to endure over time and form part of stable patterns of interaction in
specific policy domains. In what follows, we further develop these characteristics
and explain how they make contingent coalitions influence policy in contexts char-
acterized by a high-status quo bias.
Contingent Coalitions Are Instrumental Coalitions. This means that the bases holding
contingent coalitions together are diverse and the actors in a contingent coalition
may coalesce on different grounds. Instrumental alliances are often associated
with pooling common resources and exchanging information (Baldassarri &
Diani, 2007). For example, in Bomberg’s (2012) study of mobilization in favor of
climate change policies in the United States and the EU, the bases holding together
different stakeholders are resource exchanges and bargaining (e.g., policy ideas
in exchange for financial support). However, contingent coalitions can also be
formed based on common interests. For example, Frundt (2010) notes that labor and
environmental organizations fighting banana plantations in Costa Rica “worked
interactively, seeing themselves as bound by common interests. They integrated
pesticide concerns with union struggles, family trauma, migrant dilemmas,
mistreatment of women, and interest in organic production in a way that encouraged
each stakeholder’s contribution” (p. 108).
And yet, contingent coalitions may also be formed on ideational bases.
Researchers here underscore the fact that this does not mean sharing identities and/
or values—although these need to be “compatible” (Di Gregorio, 2012; Frundt,
2010). Rather, they point to the formation of a common discourse. In other words,
contingent coalitions get involved in processes of framing and discourse creation,
rather than adopting existing and preconceived beliefs that actors either agree with
or discard as in the ACF (Fischer, 2014; Hajer, 1993).
Contingent Coalitions Are “Unlikely Coalitions.” Given the dynamic character of

coalition formation processes, contingent coalitions cater support from unexpected
actors. Unlikely coalitions are “intriguing” alliances (Bomberg, 2012, p. 416) that
“contain internally destabilizing forces” (Frundt, 2010, p. 99). For example, Bomberg
(2012, p. 416) mentions a case where climate policy spurred alliances between envi-
ronmental activists and security hawks, including war veterans, keen on increasing
renewable energies to limit reliance on politically unstable energy sources like oil.
In the case of the Warren County controversy exposed by McGurty (2000), chang-
ing discursive frames made possible an alliance of white middle-class homeowners
with black civil rights leaders, a highly unlikely one given the history of racial
tension in the area (McGurty, 2000, n. 1).
Although the concept of contingent coalition here developed is based on existing
insights and ideas from the literature, we argue that it brings novelty and analytical
leverage for understanding processes of policy change, particularly in environmen-
tal policymaking, where established institutions leave little room for policy change
and where subordinated actors do not have inside activists to act as doorkeepers
to the policy process. We argue that, in these contexts, the crafting of contingent
coalitions has two main causal effects on policy change. These effects are associated
with two forms of expansion of the capacity for political agency, as conceptualized
in Lowndes and Roberts’s (2013) 5C model: they broaden political support, expand-
ing combinative possibilities, and they allow the accumulation of actions over time.
Broadening Political Support and Expanding Combinative Possibilities. The diversity of

coalitional bases underpinning contingent coalitions confer on them the capacity
to expand the political reach of the coalition. For example, instrumental alliances
based on exchanges of information and resources make it possible to “operate across
clusters, integrating [organizations] into broader civic network[s]” (Baldassarri &
Diani, 2007, p. 737), while elaborating a common discourse provides coalitions
with a “unifying force (...) that can accommodate different yet compatible values”
(Di Gregorio, 2012, p. 6).
The ability to broaden frames to incorporate new values, interests, and actors
seems particularly relevant in this respect. In fact, many authors have highlighted
ideas and discourses as fundamental for bringing subordinated actors to act as
collective actors, and to influence policy change (Benford & Snow, 2000; Risley,
2015; Schmidt, 2008). As Di Chiro (2008) states, “[d]efining what counts as an envi-
ronmental problem and what doesn’t invites certain alliances and inhibits others”
(p. 279). By elaborating and broadening discursive frames, contingent coalitions
not only broaden the scope of support for their preferred policies, but also widen
the reach of their preferences to key actors within the policymaking process. For
example, McGurty (2000) shows how, in the context of a local struggle to stop
the construction of a landfill in Warren County, USA, the change from a NIMBY
(not-in-my-back-yard) frame to an “environmental racism” frame, and from this
to an “environmental justice” one, allowed the initial opposition group not only
to incorporate other aggrieved groups locally and nationally, but also to increase
the coalition’s policy influence as the new frame allowed the struggle to acquire
a stronger historical, political, economic, and social connotation, increasing both
the salience and public support for the cause nationwide. Other examples of
broadening the scope of coalitional activities include links between environmen-
tal and feminist concerns (Di Chiro, 2008, p. 277) and environmental and labor
issues (Frundt, 2010). According to Di Chiro (2008, p. 279), this tactic of broadening
frames has been part of a decade-long search among environmentalists to expand
environmental concerns through framing them as interconnected with other social
and economic ones (Di Chiro, 2008, p. 279).
Contingent Coalitions Allow the Accumulation of Actions Over Time. The actors
in a contingent coalition coalesce to foster those policy goals that they share,
keeping open the possibility of future cooperation on these topics despite
having disagreements on other topics. In fact, although the goals of contingent
coalitions are instrumental and time-bound, the process of coalition formation itself
creates possibilities for future collaboration as actors share information and learn
to work together. Contingent coalitions are easier to activate in the future because,
in the process of coalition formation, allies “have already constructed the path for
agreement” (Knox-Hayes, 2012, p. 547).
This is relevant for two reasons. First, it allows contingent coalitions to produce
cumulative and long-term impacts and not just local isolated effects associated with
the specific reforms for which they assembled. Second, this allows contingent coa-
litions to overcome what Risley (2015, p. 95) calls “alliance fatigue,” which occurs
when members of groups with few resources cooperate routinely and on the same
topics. The temporary nature of contingent coalitions allows participants to dissolve
it or suspend its activities and revive them later, therefore avoiding problems such
as continued functioning, the establishment of structures inside the coalition, and
the elaboration of governance and democratic procedures (Risley, 2015, pp. 98–99).
These two positive causal consequences of forging contingent coalitions in terms
of policy change come with their own perils in terms of the consistency of the policies
that are fostered, the demobilization of more contentious supports, and the dilution of
reform momentum over time. We will come back to some of these in the conclusion.
Contingent Coalitions in Chilean Renewable Energy Policy
In this section, we show the influence of the contingent coalitions crafted by EOs
on Chile’s renewable energy policy.6 Before that, we briefly explain our methodolog-
ical strategy.
Methodological Strategy
Given that existing concepts were not useful guides for our field research, we de-
cided to conduct an iterative process of inductive theorization, theory building, and
empirical refinement (see Blagden, 2016).7 In doing this, we derived inspiration from
the “focused” and “structured” grounded theory methods advocated by Richards
and Farrokhnia (2016). According to the authors, these methods can be successfully
utilized in policy research for understanding the “innate contradictions, diverse im-
peratives, and often conflicting perspectives which inform the meanings of policy
positions as well as documents across different contexts” (Richards & Farrokhnia,
2016, p. 1). Our inductive part included a qualitative data collection strategy aimed
at identifying: (i) the main actors in the energy policy process, (ii) their underlying
policy preferences and beliefs, (iii) their alliances, and (iv) how the characteristics
of these alliances affected their ability to influence policy. This inductive strategy
followed three steps.
First, we identified the changes undertaken in energy policy legislation and
the main actors in the policy process through a review of legislative proceedings
and related press notes. At this stage, we identified four categories of change
actors: (i) environmental activists (composed of EOs and local movements), (ii)
private sector actors promoting renewable energies, (iii) political advisors and
energy experts, and (iv) politicians and policymakers (parliamentarians and gov-
ernment officials).
Second, we codified the discourses associated with each type of actor and the
meanings they gave to renewable energies by analyzing the corresponding legisla-
tive proceedings and press notes, plus additional material from secondary sources.8
Third, we identified the links and relations between these actors, following two cri-
teria: (i) the density of their ideological and historical relations, and (ii) the relations
and interactions they had in different periods of time, their circulation in different
organizations, and their participation in different moments of the policy process. We
did this by conducting semi-structured interviews with representatives of the actor
categories identified above. Table 1 offers a summary of the actors we interviewed
and their characteristics.
From this interview material and the previously coded written material, we
reconstructed the coalitions that fostered different policy alternatives, their per-
sistence in time, and the underlying motives for coalescing, as well as whether and
how they managed to overcome the existing constraints for influencing policy. We
chose to focus on a limited number of moments when key innovations were intro-
duced into the legislation to understand the concrete effects of the coalition in each
policy moment.
We derived theoretical propositions from the pattern of alliances and influence
that we encountered, and used these propositions to build the concept of contingent
coalitions. We refined the concept by relating it to those existing in the literature,
revealing its contrasting characteristics and specific causal value for understanding
policy change. Finally, we “reassess[ed] the significance of [the] evidence” (Blagden,
2016, p. 3) by returning to the observed patterns of alliance formation and policy
influence in the Chilean case and analyzing them with our theory of contingent
coalitions.
Table 1. List of Actors Interviewed
Interview Number Description Type of Actor
1 Former board president, Chilean Association of 2

Renewable Energies business association
(ACERA)
2 Former executive director, ACERA 2
3 Energy expert, former collaborator, Ministry of 3+4
Energy
4 Energy expert participating in Energia 2050 3+4
5 Energy expert, Independent 3
6 Energy expert, Ministry of Energy 3+4
7 Energy expert, German Cooperation Agency (GIZ) 3
8 Energy expert participating in Energia 2050 3
9 Energy expert participating in Energia 2050 3
10 Public policy expert participating in Energia 2050 3
11 Environmental expert, Economic Commission for 3
Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)
12 Political advisor and energy expert, former 2+3
collaborator, ACERA
13 Former member of parliament, Party for 4
Democracy (PPD)
14 Environmental activist, Terram organization 1
15 Environmental activist, Political Ecology Institute 1
organization
16 Environmental activist, Ecosistemas organization 1
17 Former environmental activist, Chile Sustentable 1
organization
18 Political advisor and former environmental 1+3
activist, Chile Sustentable organization
19 Local environmental activist, Patagonia Without 1
Dams campaign
20 Local environmental activist, Patagonia Without 1
Dams campaign
Note: 1 = environmental organizations, activists; 2 = private sector; 3 = political advisors, energy experts;
4 = policymakers, politicians.
Source: Authors’ elaboration.
Environmental Politics and Energy Policy in Chile
Until recently, in the extremely liberalized Chilean energy market, any attempt
at regulation—including the introduction of environmental concerns—was seen as
close to central planning. In this context the promotion of renewable energies or en-
vironmental concerns was out of the question. If anything, state intervention meant
supporting the investment plans of the big players in the sector. Due to their high
stakes in socially and environmentally unfriendly energy sources, these actors were
unlikely to support the development of renewable energies.
The environmental movement in Chile has been an active actor on the politi-
cal scene since the 1980s (Altieri & Rojas, 1999; Carruthers, 2001). It is, however, a
diverse movement, with a myriad of organizations espousing different approaches
(e.g., environmentalist, conservationist, and ecological) (Carruthers, 2001). In this
context, energy policy has become a focal point for the development of environmen-
tal claims. In fact, today, environmental activists perceive renewable energies as a
relevant tool to protect the environment and to reinforce local populations’ decision
power over their territories (Interview 19). During the 1990s, these movements and
organizations were vocal activists against the installation of large hydropower plants
in the center-south of the country, promoting as an alternative the development of
small-scale renewable energy projects. This background of mobilizations helped to
sediment a specific know-how and to establish valuable relationships (Interview
15). At the same time, the outcome of these struggles helped the movement see the
need to switch from an adversarial strategy to a more cooperative one, and under-
stand the need to improve its technical expertise in order to have influence in policy
debates (see Tecklin et al., 2011).
From the environmental movement’s power resources and mobilizational expe-
rience, two parallel ways of affecting the politics of energy policy emerged: the first
came from local grassroots organizations with varied ties to national EOs that led
the opposition to large hydropower and thermoelectric plants in their territories;
the second came from professionalized EOs, mostly at the national level, composed
of experienced activists and experts, and specialized in specific environmental
fields. While the first maintained social pressure on specific projects and raised the
salience of energy-related environmental conflicts nationwide, the second deployed
lobby actions and technical expertise aimed at directly influencing the public policy
agenda and design. As will become clear below, EOs used these resources to craft
contingent coalitions promoting renewable energy policy. Although we focus on the
work of EOs, we stress that their influence cannot be understood without consider-
ing the social pressure coming from below.
We claim that the ability of Chilean EOs to craft contingent coalitions was
decisive for the success of renewable energy policy in Chile in at least two crucial
moments. First, the “Ley Corta 1” and “Ley Corta 2” from 2004 to 2005, contain-
ing the first mentions and promotion instruments for renewable energies, and the
developments leading to the Energía 2050 policy process (2010–15), that ended up
with the most important energy policy in 50 years, containing high quotas for the
introduction of renewable energies. In turn, we analyze the impact of contingent
coalitions on the development of renewable energy policy in these two moments.
The “Ley Corta 1” and “Ley Corta 2” Bills
The “Ley Corta 1” (LC1) and “Ley Corta 2” (LC2) bills9 were a direct response to
the energy crisis of 1998–99 that produced blackouts and energy shortages in the
country (Madariaga & Gladina, 2018). The official diagnosis was that the energy
sector suffered from a lack of incentives for investment, and that this stemmed from
the incompleteness of the energy market. Therefore, new regulations should aim
at making price signals more transparent so that private actors could propose and
plan their investments with certain information (BCN, 2004). In line with this, the
LC1 draft bill separated the generation and transmission subsectors inside the en-
ergy market, and established new ways of calculating transmission tariffs so that
companies could transparently calculate profits for the expansion of transmission
and generation infrastructure. Similarly, the LC2 incorporated auction mechanisms
to secure long-term generation contracts and thereby protect the income of electric
generators. The draft bills did not mention environmental issues whatsoever, nor
refer to renewable energies in particular. However, their approved versions intro-
duced the first regulations promoting small renewable energies in the country.
How did contingent coalitions influence this outcome? We analyze three
moments: (i) the installation of the renewable energy issue on the policy agenda,
(ii) the building of alliances with green and regionalist parliamentarians, and (iii)
the negotiations with the executive. As we shall see, one crucial characteristic of
contingent coalitions—namely, the broadening of discourse to expand combinative
possibilities and increase political support—was key to introducing renewable ener-
gies into the Chilean energy policy.
The impulse to install renewable energies in the agenda was led by two EOs, the
Instituto de Ecología Política (IEP) and its spin-off, Chile Sustentable (CHS). These
organizations’ members had a long history of environmental activism and participa-
tion in the environmental protests of the 1990s. Within the division of labor among
EOs, IEP and CHS specialized in energy issues. Sara Larraín, the long-time direc-
tor of CHS, was a presidential candidate in the 1999 elections, with support from
left-wing organizations, EOs, and the Ecological Party. Her key campaign message
called for a more sustainable development model. In this scenario, the promotion of
renewable energies was closely bound to environmental issues. As she stated during
the campaign, “Chile needs a new energy policy based on sustainability criteria”
(Gómez et al., 2000, p. 70). Based on this discourse and in parallel to the discussions
on the LC1, in 2003 CHS led the elaboration of a draft bill promoting renewable
energies. This included two components: (i) the elimination of price distortions pre-
venting renewables from entering the electricity market and (ii) direct promotion
measures through a renewable energy fund. Many participated in the elaboration
of this project: a small group of other EOs, experts from local universities—mainly
from the Engineering School of the University of Chile—and from ECLAC, and a
handful of incipient small renewable energy companies.
A crucial step in putting renewable energies on the policy agenda was to widen
this initially narrow coalition, garnering support from established political par-
ties. In fact, despite many efforts and active political activity, environmentalists
had not been able to build a competitive Green Party (Altieri & Rojas, 1999, p. 140;
Somma & Medel, 2017, p. 42). CHS presented the project to parliamentarians across
the political spectrum in the Chamber and the Senate looking for support. Two
groups responded: what became known later as the “green” and the “regionalist”
caucuses. The green caucus was composed of parliamentarians participating in the
commission on “Environment and Natural Resources” in both chambers, many of
whom were also serving at the respective “Mining and Energy” commissions. It
was characterized by a concern for and support of environmental issues as well as
for its cross-partisan stances, especially at the Senate. The most visible face of this
group was Antonio Horvath from the conservative Renovación Nacional (RN) party,
president of the “Environment and Natural Resources” commission in the Senate.
Horvath represented the Patagonian region of Aysén, 2,000 km south of the capital
Santiago, which was historically a place wanted by hydropower companies for the
placement of large dams (Horvath, 2004). Horvath (2004) argued for the need to sup-
port renewable energies for two reasons: (i) to protect the environment, i.e., reduce
fossil fuel emissions, and (ii) to foster local development, i.e., contribute to more har-
monious development (since local communities usually bear the cost of large-scale
projects). Over time, the green caucus developed a close relationship with CHS and
other EOs. Describing this relationship, a former collaborator of CHS told us:
There is a group of parliamentarians that stay in touch, and I feel there is a

mutually reinforcing relationship. Any parliamentarian who wants to see
him or herself as green, needs to be close to a renowned [environmental]
activist; and, at the same time, activists have no chance of having influence
in Congress without parliamentarians. These are strategic and contingent
alliances. (Interview 17)
The second source of support, the regionalist caucus, was composed of parliamen-
tarians from provinces distant from Santiago. Regionalists were not necessarily
green, but they coincided on several issues with the greens, including that of pro-
moting renewables over a common ground of “environmental sensibility”:
We agreed to promote ERNC [nonconventional renewables] and the dis-

agreement—though never explicit—was that we wanted, in addition, to
force energy and mining companies, and everyone in general, to pay re-
gional taxes. Not only to recover the rents for the region, but also to stop
this sort of subsidy to these companies that exploit natural resources (...) I
would not say these were necessarily differences, but there wasn’t as much
coordination on these aspects. The environmentalists lobbied both [green
and regionalist caucus], and we, the regionalists with an environmental
sensibility, followed them. (Interview 13)
Most importantly, regionalists emphasized decentralization and regional

development, and saw the promotion of renewable energies as a means to achieve
these ends. According to deputy Waldo Mora, representative of a northern province
and then president of the “Energy and Mining” Commission at the Chamber, “[i]n
provinces of northern Chile, we need a strong impulse to the utilization of renew-
able sources of energy, which thanks to their characteristics, increase the chances of
regional development” (Mora, 2004, p. 33). The regionalists also looked for political
returns in supporting small renewable energies against big polluting and highly
salient conflicts in their regions. According to one parliamentary advisor and for-
mer EO member:
There is a clientelistic relation, but also a stronger connection with the re-
gion. In smaller regions, [conflicts] are known—you cannot miss them. Here
in Santiago you represent a number of people that you cannot keep count of
(...). Therefore, the regionalists, when there is a conflict in their region, they
immediately react; but when there isn’t one, they don’t. (Interview 18)
By appealing to renewable energies’ “local development” capacities, EOs broad-

ened the initial frame, centered around renewable energies’ “environmental”
characteristics, incorporating to their coalition not only parliamentarians with
“environmental sensibilities,” but also those in the “regionalist caucus” advocat-
ing local development. This allowed them to craft a contingent coalition in favor of
promoting renewable energies with cross-partisan support in Congress. In fact, the
green and regionalist parliamentarians supported the EOs renewable energy pro-
motion draft bill; and, in the chamber, parliamentarians wrote a protocol of support
demanding the introduction of this bill.
Despite this backing, the executive did not support the EOs’ bill and it was
not presented for consideration. In order to achieve its aims, the contingent coa-
lition broadened its base further by garnering support from the executive. EOs
as well as green and regionalist parliamentarians negotiated with the Minister
of Economy—then the highest authority in the Energy sector—and reached an
agreement: while the renewable energy promotion draft bill was finally discarded,
several parts of it were incorporated into the laws under discussion in parliament
(see below).
To convince the executive to support this process, a further broadening of the
initial frame, this time linking renewable energy with the idea of energy security and
the need to diversify the energy matrix, was crucial. Energy security had become a
key preoccupation for the executive after the reduction of natural gas imports from
Argentina ushered an energy crisis around 2003–04 while the LC1 and LC2 bills
were being discussed (Madariaga & Gladina, 2018). According to a high official
within the Ministry of Energy:
There were two objectives in energy policy, and in this one [environmental
protection] it was obvious that renewables were going to contribute to it. But
it was not only the environmental issue, it was also the security of supply;
and if you want to assess them, then in the last decade this second objective
was much more important than the environmental issue from the point of
view of energy policy. Even more so after the crisis we had of gas supply
from Argentina, when energy dependency became not just a theoretic prob-
lem, but a practical one. (Interview 6)
Therefore, linking energy security with renewable energies opened the door for
the executive’s support of renewables. EOs strategically linked the two ideas in their
draft bill in the following way:
To face in the short run the problems of energy dependency and vulnerabil-
ity that the country suffers from, and to secure the reliability of supply, we
must accelerate the process of diversification of the energy matrix, and en-
sure that this diversification takes place mainly through the incorporation
of nonconventional renewable sources (ERNC), which are national, clean,
and renewable. (Aedo & Larraín, 2004, p. 9)
Interestingly, this further broadening of the initial frame provided a way to cir-
cumvent the overarching market-conforming discourse hitherto prevalent in the
executive. In fact, during the discussion of the LC2 bill, the Minister of Energy recog-
nized that “the market has been incapable of solving the problems that the country
has had to face [in terms of energy security]” (BCN, 2005, p. 79), therefore opening
the door to the introduction of promotion instruments for renewable energies.
The first amendments promoting renewable energies were introduced to the
LC1 by Senator Horvath in the Senate, with support of the executive branch, and
was approved in both Chambers, despite criticism from traditional right-wing par-
liamentarians and the big players in the energy market. These included the defini-
tion of “nonconventional” renewable energy sources,10 the liberation of payments of
transmission tariffs, and the obligation that renewable energy production be remu-
nerated at market prices (Aedo & Larraín, 2004, p. 120). Following this, a second pro-
motion instrument was introduced in the LC2 bill by Senator Prokurica, president of
the Mining and Energy Commission in the Senate and member of the conservative
RN party. It established that 5 percent of energy auctions should be saved for renew-
able energies. In this case, the development of renewable energies was explicitly tied
with the idea of diversifying the energy matrix and increasing autonomous sources
of energy generation.
The policy process analyzed above shows evidence of the causal effect of forming
contingent coalitions. First, change agents’ (in this case EOs) broadening of their dis-
cursive frame on renewable energy to include not only “environmental sensibility,”
but also “regional development,” and “energy security” successfully expanded the
support for promoting renewable energies among more powerful actors. These dis-
courses provided a common ground for mutual understanding and support, but not
a common identity nor common values. Additionally, these were not pre-established
ideas, but were developed in the process of crafting the coalition while different
actors strategically enacted different discourses. Subordinated actors (EOs) played
a key role in amplifying the scope of the green discourse, interacting constantly
with different political actors and making them contingent and strategic allies. One
energy expert told us she understood this process as one of translation of environ-
mental concerns into the language and interests of energy sector actors (Interview 7).
In terms of the actors involved, the broadening of the discourse around renewable
energies allowed the formation of an unlikely coalition. In fact, some of the greatest
supporters in Parliament were conservative parliamentarians known in Chile for
defending market mechanisms and incumbent business concerns. The same goes
for the support received from the executive, which was closely associated with this
pro-market discourse.
Energia 2050: The Most Ambitious Energy Policy in Decades
In 2015, the government of Michelle Bachelet launched the “Agenda Energía

2050,” which was intended to establish the first national long-term energy policy in
decades. This process—marked by the unprecedented participation of private com-

panies, experts, and NGOs—produced the Energia 2050 policy document, which
stated that the country should aim for 70 percent of its energy matrix to come from
renewable sources (including large hydropower) by 2050.11 Even if EOs only partic-
ipated grudgingly in the policymaking stage of this process (see below), the con-
tingent coalitions they were able to craft were key for establishing the conditions
leading to Energia 2050.
A rise in social mobilizations played a great role in influencing the policy pro-
cess leading to Energia 2050. In this context, EOs influenced the process in three
moments: (i) disrupting the policy agenda by opposing large energy projects, (ii)
elaborating an alternative policy blueprint, and (iii) forcing the rejection of large
generation projects, making renewable energies inevitable in order to close the
resulting gap in supply capacity. In every moment, EOs managed to craft contin-
gent coalitions by greatly relying on previous allies. This supports our second point
related to the effect of contingent coalitions on policy change: they allow cumula-
tive change actions in time and the maintenance of coalitional possibilities, thereby
overcoming the problems of more stable alliances that suffer from what Risley (2015)
calls “reform fatigue.” EOs also managed to bring new allies to the coalition—nota-
bly renewable energy producers—based on the strategic coincidence of interest in
promoting renewables. However, the contingent nature of this alliance also reflected
its perils: their continued disagreement over significant topics, such as the scale of
projects and the democratization of policymaking, led to a breakup and the replace-
ment of EOs as leaders of the renewable coalition.
At the beginning of the 2010s, local organizations and several national-level EOs
organized massive protests against large and polluting energy projects. Worthy of
mention is the Patagonia Without Dams (Patagonia Sin Represas, PWD) movement
and campaign that organized the opposition to the Hidroaysén mega-dam in the
southern Aysén region (Schaeffer, 2016). The platform organizing the campaign,
the Council for the Defense of Patagonia, was composed of more than 70 civil soci-
ety organizations including 25 international ones from six countries. Protests were
crucial for shaping the energy policy agenda during 2010–14 in at least two ways.
First, increasing the salience of energy issues. Although located in small towns away
from the capital Santiago, opposition to the Castilla and Barrancones thermoelectric
plants during the presidency of Right-wing Sebastián Piñera gained national atten-
tion, eventually resulting in the revocation of construction permits by judicial and
governmental authorities. In the case of Hidroaysén, despite a strong initial support,
the Piñera government decided to postpone its approval until the next presidential
period due to the high political consequences its approval could have. In fact, the
PWD campaign’s strong communicational strategy and massive protests influenced
public opinion, making three out of four Chileans reject the dam’s construction. In
this context, the decision to withhold the project’s construction was strongly hurting
presidential approval rates (Madariaga & Gladina, 2018).
The second consequence was the triggering of discussions about energy pol-
icy. At the time of the protests, the Chilean energy sector was under heavy stress
due to the renewed reductions in natural gas imports from Argentina, which had
increased energy prices dramatically. This revealed again the lack of investment in
the sector and the inadequate supply to respond to a growing demand. In this con-
text, environmental protest brought the country to the brink of blackout. In fact, the
three plants that were paralyzed were supposed to increase the installed capacity
of the energy sector by 50 percent and secure energy supply for at least another
decade.12 This triggered a context of energy crisis and urged authorities to look for
alternatives. As a direct consequence, in 2011, the Piñera government convoked an
advisory council, the Comisión Asesora para el Desarrollo Energético (CADE), with the
participation of renowned experts and business representatives, to look for a long-
term solution.
In order to spur these opposition activities and increase their policy influence,
EOs crafted a new contingent coalition, re-launching their contacts with the green
and regionalist caucuses in parliament. One activist who worked at the PWD cam-
paign recalls that the “key ally was Antonio Horvath” and that this led to the “con-
quering [of] several other deputies and senators who have a higher environmental
sensibility (...)” (Interview 14, italics added). As the same activist highlights, while
many of these actors were old allies, the alliances were still instrumental and contin-
gent: “They built the group and we delivered information, and they asked and we
answered, and it was a practical relation so to speak” (Interview 14). The height of
this cooperation was in 2011 when parliamentarians from different parties lifted a
banner with the PWD slogan in the middle of the annual presidential address. Later,
the coalition launched a campaign called “Vote without dams” to maintain the issue
on the public agenda during the 2013 elections. They managed to make seven out of
nine presidential candidates sign a commitment to kill Hidroaysén.
EOs also garnered support from new actors, notably renewable energy produc-
ers organized under the ACERA organization. For some time, ACERA had been
doing its own work in promoting renewables and, while not openly opposing the
Hidroaysén project, when choosing sides in this dispute they chose the contingent
coalition promoting renewable energy. In this case, support was certainly more
interest-based. According to one environmental activist:
ACERA supported this [Patagonia Without Dams] because we always

showed them that the options were wind, solar, sea waves and geothermal
energies. So, for ACERA, the synchrony was very good, and many times
they also took the discourse on renewable energies from there (…). But they
did not constitute a bulwark position against Hidroaysén. (Interview 14)
The second step in influencing the energy policy process was proposing an alter-
native policy blueprint. After criticizing the executive’s advisory council (CADE), the
coalition promoting renewable energy led by organizations like Chile Sustentable,
Instituto de Ecología Política, and Terram, as well as influential parliamentarians
from the “green caucus” like Antonio Horvath (independent), Patricio Vallespín
(Christian Democratic Party), and Alfonso de Urresti (Socialist Party), organized
a parallel policy panel known as the Citizen-Parliamentary-Technical Commission
(Comisión Ciudadana Técnico Parlamentaria, CCTP). The two commissions, CADE

and CCTP, worked in parallel during 2011 and produced two widely opposed docu-
ments. While the CADE report concentrated on measures to make large thermoelec-
tric and hydroelectric investment projects viable, and gave space for the exploration
of nuclear alternatives in the country, the CCTP categorically rejected the nuclear
option, and concentrated on demanding the expansion of renewables—for example,
through doubling the existing mandated renewable energy quota (from 10 percent
to 20 percent) by 2020, with a view of achieving a 100 percent renewable matrix by
2050. Crucially, the CCTP presented its policy recommendations 10 days ahead of
the CADE, therefore gaining media attention and the upper hand in the successive
discussions.
Here again, ACERA was on the side of the contingent coalition. An ACERA
executive explained that, at the time, they opposed the CADE’s recommendations
and felt much closer to the CCTP. He described the coalition in the following way:
[the CADE advocated] filling Chile with coal-fired power stations as a solu-
tion for energy problems, and all that; well, the citizenry, environmental
NGOs, renewables energies associations, were sharing a common cause,
saying “look, this can’t be, this has to be well-thought-out, this has to take
another direction,” so it was easy to find a common cause. (Interview 1)
Although some EOs were critical of the business-oriented advocacy of renew-

ables by ACERA, privileging instead renewables as a source of distributed gen-
eration and citizen empowerment, they nevertheless valued the incorporation of
ACERA to the coalition. An environmental activist told us: “There was a strong
support for ACERA to be considered from the conceptual point of view. (...) We have
strategic objectives in common” (Interview 15). In other words, at this stage, stra-
tegic considerations related to the need to broaden the coalition to include other
actors interested in promoting renewables and opposing large-scale polluting proj-
ects were more important than the differences in the way they envisaged the future
renewable energy sector.
The third step in the process was to achieve the final rejection of Hidroaysén,
making the development of renewable energies inevitable. When Michelle Bachelet
entered office in 2014, the coalition led by Senator Horvath in parliament bargained
the rejection of Hidroaysén in exchange for voting in favor of a flagship reform of the
new government, namely, the change of the electoral system inherited from Pinochet
to which the right had stubbornly been opposed for more than 25 years.13 Albeit an
important triumph, the rejection of Hidroaysén was just the beginning of a larger
process. In fact, given that the project represented about one-quarter of projected
generation capacity, in the context of an ongoing supply-induced crisis, the govern-
ment needed to give quick answers. According to one commentator, this is crucial to
understand the rapid development of renewables thereafter:
Hidroaysén, with its 2750 MW, would have inhibited the development of
nonconventional [renewables]. In other words, it would have occupied the
space and made the two investor groups so strong—Colbún and Endesa—
that it would have made it very difficult for the entry of other groups.
Besides, it would have produced an electric surplus, after which you say:
“well, why do we need the nonconventional [renewables] if we have enough
with this?” (Interview 5)
In fact, a local publication revealed that in 2016 the fast development of renewables
in Chile already equaled 58 percent of the supply capacity projected by Hidroaysén
(Vargas, 2017). To promote this, Minister of Energy Pacheco launched several initia-
tives. The most visible one was a participatory process to design the most important
energy policy in decades, the Energía 2050 process. After a 2-year process involving
the participation of market actors, experts, and civil society, the Energía 2050 doc-
ument was elaborated, containing the pillars of energy policy for the next 30 years.
This document included the target that, in 2050, 70 percent of energy should come
from renewables, including large hydropower, and involved a series of parallel leg-
islation pieces to this end.
The Energía 2050 process shows again the contingent character of the coalitions
that pushed renewable energies in Chile. Many EOs participated in the previous
roadmap (Hoja de Ruta) of the Energía 2050 process, but then opted out. Following
similar experiences of civil society participation in policymaking, EOs believed
participation was only a strategy for validating what the government had already
decided, namely, fostering natural gas installations. According to one environmental
activist:
the process demanded too much work and not all of the positions of the
organizations were included. Participation was very symbolic. Therefore, it
made us lose time and there was the chance of ending up without our views
being considered in the conclusions, so we opted out. (Interview 17)
In contrast to this, ACERA, the association of renewable generators, and other

civil society organizations gained prominence during the Energía 2050 policy pro-
cess. International organizations dedicated to fostering social dialog between civil
society, business, and governments—like Fundación AVINA and Fundacion Futuro
Latinoamericano—had led a previous consultation and scenario generation process,
“Escenarios 2030,” with the participation of renewable and nonrenewable energy
producers (ACERA, Generadoras de Chile) as well as Chile Sustentable. With the
withdrawal of EOs from Energia 2050, these other organizations gained prominence
as representatives of civil society. Interestingly, this implied that not only the co-
alition that initiated the policy process changed over time, but also that some of
its core members—notably, EOs like Chile Sustentable and Terram participating
in the PWD campaign and in the CCTP policy blueprint—left it. This evidenced
the re-emergence of those aspects in which the old partners had diverging views.
Reflecting about this, one activist told us:
The only thing they [ACERA] want is that big players don’t control every-
thing. So they are more like “I like the market and the competition, but just
make it right so that I can participate.” But ACERA is not concerned about
effective participation nor territorial organization. (...) these guys want to
make money. (Interview 17)
Thinking more generally about the contingency of the alliances between envi-
ronmentalists and ACERA, one environmentalist noted: “It is like the saying: the
same road that brings you together, separates you” (Interview 18).
When analyzing the different steps that led to the Energia 2050 process, we
clearly see the causal effect of contingent coalitions for fostering policy change in an
adverse context. First, despite their contingency, the process of coalition formation
in an earlier moment in time—the LC1 and LC2 bills—facilitated coalition formation
at a later moment, as the Hidroaysén campaign shows.
Second, coalitions at different points during the process were contingent on the
realization of a specific goal, and were not coalitions supporting whole issues or pol-
icy fields. This facilitated coalescing with actors which had different views on other
policy reforms, even within the same policy subsystem, as seen in the case of EOs
and ACERA. For example, this point was emphasized by one activist with respect
to the PWD campaign:
Hidroaysén was rejected, we celebrated, and that group did not exist any-
more. Now, probably, if Hidroaysén is activated again, we will work to-
gether again, under a different name, with other people, other partners, and
probably the same senators will oppose the project. It is normally like that.
But we don’t have continued work together (...). It was a group that was very
functional to the [Hidroaysén] project. It is not a group that would support
other projects that are in conflict with hydropower, or that would support
other topics related with energy. (Interview 14)
Third, we can observe again that the bases of the contingent coalition were mixed
and changing: resource-based for some, belief-based for others, and interest-based
for others still, and that this allowed the broadening of the coalition to unlikely ac-
tors. Interestingly, as this instrumental mix worked in order to push certain specific
goals (like stopping Hidroaysén), it did not necessarily work for keeping the coali-
tion together for a seemingly related goal (like supporting the Energía 2050 process).
Most importantly, the opting out of EOs, once the engine of the contingent coalition,
from the Energía 2050 process, reflects the downsides of having constructed such
a wide and diverse coalition. After all, as one activist told us, “the environmental
movement has sacrificed a lot for renewable energies” (Interview 15).
Conclusions
Chile has lived through a fascinating energy transition in a context that was
highly biased toward status quo preservation. We argue that one crucial explanation
for this is the contingent coalitions that EOs have been able to craft. We illustrated
this with two crucial moments in which policy concerning renewable energies was
drafted: the LC1 and LC2 bills, which introduced the very concept of renewable en-
ergy into Chilean legislation, and passed the first regulations concerning renewable
energies; and the Energia 2050 process, which was a participative policy process
that incorporated a mandated quota for renewable sources to comprise 70 percent of
energy production by 2050.
In this conclusion, we would like to put some of our findings in perspective,
building on the concept of contingent coalitions and its explanatory value. Our
notion of contingent coalitions points to the formation of alliances that are specific to
a particular policy reform. These alliances may involve broad actors such as busi-
ness and civil society organizations, but are usually formed by smaller units such
as particular companies (or groups of them), NGOs, experts, and political actors.
Their contingent nature implies that partisan logics do not usually apply, and that
the alliance is undone once the policy goal for which it was crafted is solved. This
means that actors participating in a contingent coalition may diverge in other reform
processes, even within the same policy subsystem. However, the coalition formation
process may lay the ground for a future alliance or, eventually, an alliance on a dif-
ferent policy issue or subsystem. In this context, unveiling the politics of contingent
coalitions’ formation is key to understanding policy change in strongly path-depen-
dent contexts. We argue this may be especially so in environmental politics, where
change actors like environmental civil society organizations usually try to influence
policy from a subordinated position.
The crafting of contingent coalitions seems to be an extremely instrumental yet
effective way of pushing forward policy agendas that would otherwise not be con-
sidered. One key aspect of this success is agnosticism over the grounds on which
coalitions are formed. While the idea of instrumentality often brings material inter-
ests to the fore, one interesting way of incorporating relevant actors into the coali-
tion is by broadening the framing of the policy issue at hand into diverse avenues. In
the case of the LC1 here studied, environmental organizations showed flexibility in
their ability to put environmental concerns into different frames (regional develop-
ment, energy security), to the extent of even downplaying environmentalism. In this
sense, discourses—and not only some pre-established ideas—become crucial for the
capacity of broker actors to craft coalitions.
Second, participation in a contingent coalition builds ties that can be reacti-
vated in the future when similar issues arise. Here, the idea of contingent coali-
tions needs to be better specified. For, in one sense, contingency implies that actors
coalesce to support one specific issue. However, cooperation and the process of
coalition crafting itself seems to allow the activation of these ties in later moments.
For example, the coalition between EOs and green and regionalist caucuses, that
pushed renewable energies during the development of LC1 and LC2 in 2004–05, was
reactivated during the Patagonia Without Dams campaign. It is interesting to note
the openness with which members of the coalition recognized the contingent and
instrumental character of it, without expecting stronger cooperation on other issues
with the same set of actors.
Third, contingent coalitions are characterized by no issue specificity. In our case,
we saw that they do not necessarily coalesce on all issues related to renewable ener-
gies, which was confirmed by the pivotal role played by renewable energy produc-
ers (ACERA) during the Energia 2050 process. In fact, we observed a major break
in the coalition in the way EOs and renewable businesses’ representatives saw the
future evolution of renewable energies in the country. Now, this also speaks to the
perils of crafting contingent coalitions. While they might be very effective in push-
ing certain topics onto the agenda, thanks to their capacity to forge quick compro-
mises, they also entail the danger of easily derailing the objectives of some actors
in the coalition, even those actors central to it. In the case of renewable energies in
Chile, the center of gravity on renewable energies seems to have moved toward the
positions of renewable energy producers and international organizations devoted to
social dialog, whose openness to the idea that large-scale projects are a better way to
guarantee both energy security and environmental concerns seems to garner greater
support among political actors and the executive, and is at odds with the EOs’ vision
of small-scale and participative renewable projects.
More substantively, our analysis provides insights to understand the difficulties
social movements, and civil society in general, face when mobilizing for environ-
mental claims. As we have showed, in contexts of strong path dependency and sta-
tus quo bias, if they want to influence policy, they need to build contingent coalitions
in order to raise awareness on a specific matter, and frame their claims in a way that
can appeal to more powerful actors. Because this involves broadening frames and
garnering support from actors with different values and interests, this strategy is
often developed to the detriment of a wider conception of environmental protec-
tion and at the cost of the more contentious local movements. In this sense, we may
contrast the positive effect of contingent coalitions in influencing the public policy
process with their inability to alter the way of doing politics. This became evident in
our analysis of the Energia 2050 process, the deception of EOs with its participatory
mechanisms, and their opting out from the process. This reflection should act as a
caveat when thinking about the potential of contingent coalitions to produce trans-
formative action. While contingent coalitions may be useful to influence specific
policy processes in contexts where change is difficult to achieve, crafting contingent
coalitions is not enough to ease the constraints on civil society actors to influence
policy more broadly.
Aldo Madariaga is “Cátedra Conacyt” Professor at the Programa Interdisciplinario

sobre Políticas y Prácticas Educativas (PIPE), Centro de Investigación y Docencia
Económicas (CIDE), Mexico, and associate researcher at the Centro de Economía y
Políticas Sociales (CEAS), Universidad Mayor, Chile. His research interests focus on
the political economy of development and sustainability.
Mathilde Allain is postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Social Conflict and
Cohesion Studies (COES), Chile, and associate researcher at Centre Émile Durkheim,
University of Bordeaux. She holds a PhD in political sciences and a master’s in in-
ternational cooperation and development from Sciences Po Bordeaux. Her areas of
interest are social movements, politicization processes, and local participation in
public policies related to land and natural resources.
Notes
The authors would like to thank Matt Amengual, participants in our panel at the SASE 2017 Annual
Conference, and four anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions. The authors
also acknowledge financial support from the Center for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies (COES)
(CONICYT/FONDAP/15130009).
1. In Chile, “nonconventional” renewable energies include solar, wind, biomass, wave, geothermal,
and small hydroelectric generation (less than 20 MW). In what follows, unless otherwise stated,
when we speak of renewable energies we refer to these “nonconventional” sources.
2. Includes photovoltaic and concentrated solar power. Authors’ calculations based on IRENA (2017).
3. For a discussion of path dependency in energy transitions, see Unruh (2000).
4. Figures in this paragraph are from Díaz, Galetovic, and Soto (2000, p. 157).
5. Although policies and institutions differ in substantive ways, policy and institutional changes are
often studied together. In fact, policies crystallized in laws and publicly binding and enforceable reg-
ulations tend to generate institutionalized patterns of behavior over time. See Mahoney and Thelen
(2010), Hysing and Olsson (2017).
6. Although we see the need to compare the ability of contingent coalitions to advance policy change
against the inability to block changes advanced by actors opposing them, we have decided to con-
centrate on describing the characteristics of contingent coalitions following our theoretical discus-
sion, leaving the rest for future work.
7. For a discussion of inductive theorization, see Bendassolli (2013).
8. Coding information and data available on request.
9. Although these two laws formally correspond to two separate legislative processes, they were pre-
sented separately only as a strategy to obtain legislative support. In this sense, they respond to the
same problematic and should be understood as forming part of the same policy process.
10. This was important for environmentalists as it implied determining whether the highly contro-
versial large hydropower plants were considered renewable sources. In the end, the definition of
“nonconventional” renewables only included those hydropower plants generating less than 20 MW,
therefore leaving large hydropower out of the definition.
11. To put this in perspective, the same target for a country with years of supporting renewable energies
like Germany is 80 percent.
12. Total installed capacity in Chile was about 15,300 MW (CCTP, 2011, p. 107).
13. Off-the-record communication with environmental activist.
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Policy Studies Journal, Vol. 48, No.

Contingent Coalitions in Environmental Policymaking:

Chile is currently undergoing a renewable energy boom. Energy displaced

Putting Political Agency in Context

Toward Contingent Coalitions in Environmental Policymaking

Coalitions in Environmental Policymaking

Environmental policymaking has characteristics that make coalition formation

complexity of environmental problems implies that solutions need to be addressed

Coalitions in Political Economy and Policy Sciences

From Insider Advantage to Outsider Instrumentalism

We recognize this as a major advancement in the understanding of policy and

Theorizing Contingent Coalitions and their Effect on Policy Change

We define a contingent coalition as a group of actors that gets together to foster

Contingent Coalitions Are “Unlikely Coalitions.” Given the dynamic character of

Broadening Political Support and Expanding Combinative Possibilities. The diversity of

Contingent Coalitions in Chilean Renewable Energy Policy

Table 1. List of Actors Interviewed

Interview Number Description Type of Actor

1 Former board president, Chilean Association of 2

Environmental Politics and Energy Policy in Chile

The “Ley Corta 1” and “Ley Corta 2” Bills

There is a group of parliamentarians that stay in touch, and I feel there is a

We agreed to promote ERNC [nonconventional renewables] and the dis-

Most importantly, regionalists emphasized decentralization and regional

By appealing to renewable energies’ “local development” capacities, EOs broad-

Energia 2050: The Most Ambitious Energy Policy in Decades

In 2015, the government of Michelle Bachelet launched the “Agenda Energía

decades. This process—marked by the unprecedented participation of private com-

ACERA supported this [Patagonia Without Dams] because we always

(Comisión Ciudadana Técnico Parlamentaria, CCTP). The two commissions, CADE

Although some EOs were critical of the business-oriented advocacy of renew-

In contrast to this, ACERA, the association of renewable generators, and other

Aldo Madariaga is “Cátedra Conacyt” Professor at the Programa Interdisciplinario

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