Domestic Problems, Foreign Solutions: The Political Foundations of Clean Technology Adoption∗

While technological change is a dominant social force, international political economists have not developed theories of the political foundations of technology adoption. We analyze a gametheoretic model of clean technology adoption and derive the following predictions. First, foreign countries should support clean technology adoption in countries with secure property rights and democratic political institutions. Second, such countries should be more willing to pay for new technologies. Finally, democratic political institutions but not property rights should reduce import tariffs on new technology. We test the model against data on the global adoption of clean technology between the years 1980 and 2008. The empirical analysis provide support for our hypotheses. The primary contributions of the article are (i) to return technology to the core of international political economy and (ii) to explain how political factors shape global patterns of clean technology adoption. ∗We thank Shelley Liu for research assistance.