Title of Dissertation: national renewable energy policy

Trading up: Consumer and environmental regulation in a global 
economy
. Harvard University Press, 2009. 
34
Potoski, Matthew. "Clean air federalism: Do states race to the bottom?." 
Public 
Administration Review
61, no. 3 (2001): 335-343.; Konisky, David M. "Regulatory 
competition and environmental enforcement: Is there a race to the bottom?." 
American 
Journal of Political Science
51, no. 4 (2007): 853-872.; Prakash, Aseem, and Matthew 
Potoski. "Racing to the bottom? Trade, environmental governance, and ISO 14001." 
American Journal of Political Science 
50, no. 2 (2006): 350-364. 
35
Prakash, Aseem, and Matthew Potoski. "Racing to the bottom? Trade, environmental 
governance, and ISO 14001." 
American Journal of Political Science
50, no. 2 (2006): 
350-364.

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38 
Esty pointed out that domestic environmental regulations could act as nontariff 
barriers by using an example of the tuna-dolphin case.
36
The U.S. banned tuna imports 
from Mexico since the fishing methods in Mexico did not meet the standards to protect 
dolphins. In 1991, General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) declared that the 
U.S. violated GATT rules for imposing the ban. He suggested that new issues like 
climate change would increase the conflicts between domestic regulations and trade rules. 
Renewable energy protectionism seems similar with the tuna-dolphin case, but it 
is different in that domestic trade and industrial policies conflict with the trade of 
environmental goods. In other words, the conflict in the past was environmental 
regulation versus trade policy, but the current conflict is trade/industrial policy versus the 
trade of environmental goods. The current phenomenon is less transparent and more 
complicated compared to the past conflicts between domestic regulations and trade. 
The rise of “murky” protectionism and green protectionism 
Although the global financial crisis in 2007 has generated much concern on the 
rise of protectionism, no significant increase of protectionist measures was observed in 
recent years.
37
Countries attempted to use trade policies to address the crisis but it was 
not very substantial compared to the degree before the crisis. The opposite direction of 
actions was also observed. Many countries reduced the degree of protection selectively 
36
Esty, Daniel C. "Bridging the trade-environment divide." 
The Journal of Economic 
Perspectives
15, no. 3 (2001): 113-130.
37
Kee, Hiau Looi, Cristina Neagu, and Alessandro Nicita. "Is protectionism on the rise? 
Assessing national trade policies during the crisis of 2008." 
Review of Economics and 
Statistics
95, no. 1 (2013): 342-346. 

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39 
for some products. Governments’ use of trade policies has become heterogeneous since 
they use both restricting and liberalizing trade policies in recent years.
38
Some argued that governments used more “murky” form of protectionist 
measures to fight against the crisis, while they did not use more traditional trade policies. 
Murky form of protectionism refers to “abuses of legitimate discretion which are used to 
discriminate against foreign goods, companies, workers and investors.”
39
This is murky 
since it is not clearly against the WTO rules. Environmental and health regulations, 
stimulus package, or license requirements can be used as this murky protectionist 
measures by providing favor to domestic products.
A few empirical studies show the evidence of murky protectionism. According to 
the analysis of the Global Trade Alert, less than half of the protectionist measures were 
the traditional instruments such as tariffs and anti-dumping measures after the global 
financial crisis.
40
A majority of the other protectionist measures were less transparent 
instruments. Aggawal and Evenett found that the countries with more policies 
discriminating foreign interests tended to use more policies covered by weak or no WTO 
rule by investigating all state intervention in seven major economies for three years after 
38
Bollen, Yelter, Ferdi De Ville, and Jan Orbie. "EU trade policy: persistent 
liberalisation, contentious protectionism."