Emissions Trading and Policy Diffusion: Complex EU ETS Emulation in Kazakhstan

Global Environmental Politics, Vol 17, No 3, 2017, pp. 115-133.

This article examines the roles of international policy diffusion and domestic politics in shaping the design of an emissions trading system (ETS) in Kazakhstan. We find that whilealthough the overall framework for the Kazakh ETS and many of its design elements were are based on the EU ETS, domestic political factors were central mediating variables in the diffusion process. The system was initiated by at the highest levels within the government, but the fast-tracked nature of the implementation process did not provide sufficient notification to the donor community to mobilize much-needed technical support until the pilot phase was had been completed. Implementation of a fully operational system was postponed until 2018 due to industry mobilization against the system and unresolved legal and technical issues. The findings indicate that the longer-term outcome of a diffusion process can be policy divergence, not convergence, as domestic interest groups influence policy and as governments learn from their own implementation experiences.

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