Accountability Chains in Renewable Energy Transitions: A Theory of Commitment Durability Under Contestation

Abstract

Renewable energy transitions are commonly evaluated through targets, capacity additions, and cost trajectories, yet many deployment trajectories are decisively shaped by whether institutions can make and sustain credible commitments in contested settings. As projects expand into crowded landscapes and as cumulative impacts become politically salient, stakeholders increasingly contest not only outcomes but also the reliability of the processes that translate promises into enforceable practice. This paper develops a social science theory of commitment durability in renewable deployment. The central claim is that durable deployment depends on accountability chains: the linked sequence through which a public justification is converted into a decision, operationalized as conditions, observed through monitoring, enforced through response, and revised through legitimate change procedures. When any link is weak, conflict tends to migrate across arenas, actors shift toward defensive or strategic behavior, and delay becomes a rational strategy rather than a mere inefficiency. The paper contributes a conceptual framework that distinguishes between evidentiary durability, institutional durability, and distributive durability, and shows how their misalignment generates predictable governance pathologies such as procedural inflation, selective transparency, and crisis-driven tightening. Rather than proposing a single participatory model, the argument treats accountability as an organizational accomplishment that must be engineered across the lifecycle of projects and across portfolios. The analysis also clarifies how delegation to intermediaries, the politics of urgency, and the rhetoric of adaptation and resilience can weaken accountability chains if they are not operationalized into traceable responsibilities and standing for review. The paper concludes with institutional design implications that prioritize reason-giving, bounded-disclosure assurance, and corridor-level learning to reduce escalation while preserving pluralism.