What, when, how? The framing of energy transition by Italian parties

Abstract

The climate crisis is a stress factor for democracies and a relevant issue within inter-party conflict. Besides environmental aspects, it involves the economic and national security dimensions of energy policy, as well as a wide range of social and political consequences of policy choices. This article analyses the framing of the energy transition by political parties, i.e., how they define the problem, propose and legitimise solutions, and identify and qualify the actors involved. Parties are central to the institutional system and the formation of the policy agenda, competing in the construction and transmission of frames while shaping conflict and policy solutions. The research questions of this article regard the articulation of frames along the left-right axis and the impact of the crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine. This work draws on the literature on energy policies and the framing of climate change and energy transition in order to first outline three main multidimensional frames: sustainability, eco-modernist and eco-nationalist. The empirical research consists in a qualitative analysis of Italian political party manifestos in the 2018 and 2022 (national) and 2019 (European) elections. Results confirm that parties frame the energy transition on the basis of their underlying ideology. External shocks, such as the Ukrainian crisis, lead to a rearticulation of frames, but the left-right alignment still holds as politicisation is reinforced.

Keywords

• Energy transition
• political parties
• framing
• party manifestos