Institutional Choice of Energy Governance in Florida Counties: The Dynamics of Local Politics.

This paper is an exploratory research that builds on extant institutional theories and energy research to investigate the dynamics of local energy politics, and the institutional and socioeconomic factors that influence the institutional choice of sustainable energy-related rules. To answer the research question, this study develops hypotheses, which are backed up by local governance research, energy studies and environment research, to capture the important variables that might affect collective action that happened at the county government level. Applying a cross-sectional analysis with a probit model, the results of the empirical tests give preliminary answer to the research question. This paper's major contribution is that it makes exploratory studies on the factors influencing the adoption of rules concerning sustainable energy in Florida counties. Form of government, population size and racial diversity are found to be important variables for the adoption of energy governance. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]