Events

Event Description

“The Fracturing Coalition: How the Clean Energy Transition is Reshaping Environmental Advocacy and Community Decision-Making” with Dr. Juniper Katz

The urgency of climate change has created an unexpected challenge for environmental organizations: the very solutions they champion, large-scale renewable energy projects, often conflict with their traditional conservation values. This talk presents cutting-edge research on how this tension is fracturing long-standing coalitions and reshaping how communities make decisions about energy infrastructure.

Drawing on three related studies, Dr. Katz reveals surprising patterns in environmental policy conflicts. First, through in-depth interviews with environmental organizations across New England, she documents how groups deploy “strategic ambiguity” to manage internal contradictions between climate and conservation goals. Second, using novel computational methods to analyze 686 solar projects nationwide, she challenges conventional wisdom about the prevalence of renewable energy conflicts, finding that while most projects face little opposition, the intensity of conflict has increased in recent years. Third, examining nonprofit land trusts, she demonstrates how policy implementation creates lasting feedback effects that shape organizational political behavior.

These findings have implications for understanding decision-making in complex policy environments. When traditional allies find themselves on opposite sides of critical decisions, how do organizations and communities navigate these impossible choices? The research offers fresh insights into coalition dynamics, policy framing, and the behavioral strategies actors use when confronting value conflicts. The talk will be accessible to students while presenting methodological innovations of interest to faculty across disciplines.

Dr. Juniper Katz is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Climate Policy Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. Her research examines the intersection of environmental governance, nonprofit management, and policy implementation, with particular focus on how public-private partnerships create lasting environmental and social impact. Drawing on her decade of experience in land conservation, where she led initiatives protecting over 49,000 acres of critical habitat and agricultural lands, Dr. Katz brings a distinctive practitioner-informed perspective to questions of environmental policy and organizational effectiveness. Her current work investigates how policy design and implementation processes influence both environmental outcomes and civic engagement, with special attention to renewable energy siting and land use policy. At UMass Amherst, she teaches courses in governing the energy transition, program evaluation, policy analysis, and the politics of the policy process, integrating theoretical frameworks with practical applications.