Dr Jared J. Finnegan

Lecturer in Public Policy
Room: 4.02, 31 Tavistock Square
Email: j.finnegan@ucl.ac.uk  
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Biography

I am a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Public Policy. Before joining UCL, I held postdoctoral positions at UC Berkeley and Princeton University. I have also been a Visiting Fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at LSE. I earned a PhD in Political Science in 2019 from LSE. I also hold an MRes in Political Science and an MSc in Philosophy and Public Policy from LSE, and a BA in Latin American and Latino Studies and Sociology from UC Santa Cruz.

I am the Director of the MSc in Public Policy (Term 1 of 24/25) and the new MSc in Climate Change Policy and Politics.

Research

I study climate change and energy politics across the high-income democracies. My work investigates the conditions under which governments are able to adopt stringent decarbonization policies, the drivers of business' policy preferences, and how voters respond to climate-related reforms. I am interested in a variety of climate policy instruments including carbon pricing, regulations and standards, and green industrial policy. More broadly, I am interested in the politics of long-term policymaking and governance. My approach is based in comparative political economy and comparative public policy, with an emphasis on the role of institutions. My work has appeared in Comparative Political Studies, Science, Socio-Economic Review and Climate Policy.
 

Publications

Journal articles

• Finnegan, J. J., Lipscy, P. Y., Meckling, J. and Metz, F. (2025) 'The Institutional Sources of Economic Transformation: Explaining Variation in Energy Transitions', The Journal of Politics.
  
• Shears, E., Meckling, J. and Finnegan, J. J. (2025) 'How central banks address climate and transition risks', Nature Energy.
• ​​​​​​​Finnegan, J. J. (2022) ‘Changing Prices in a Changing Climate: Electoral Competition and Fossil Fuel Taxation’, Comparative Political Studies.
• Meckling, J., Lipscy, P. Y., Finnegan, J. J. and Metz, F. (2022) ‘Why Nations Lead or Lag in Energy Transitions’, Science, 378(6615), pp. 31–33.
• Finnegan, J. J. (2022) ‘Institutions, Climate Change, and the Foundations of Long-term Policymaking’, Comparative Political Studies, 55(7).
• Averchenkova, A., Fankhauser, S. and Finnegan, J. J. (2021) ‘The Influence of Climate Change Advisory Bodies on Political Debates: Evidence from the UK Committee on Climate Change’, Climate Policy, 21(9), pp. 1218–1233.
• Wood, G., Finnegan, J. J., Allen, M. L., Allen, M. M. C., Cumming, D., Johan, S., Nicklich, M., Endo, T., Lim, S. and Tanaka, S. (2020) ‘The Comparative Institutional Analysis of Energy Transitions’, Socio-Economic Review, 18(1), pp. 257–294.
• Averchenkova, A., Fankhauser, S. and Finnegan, J. J. (2020) ‘The Impact of Strategic Climate Legislation: Evidence from Expert Interviews of the UK Climate Change Act’, Climate Policy, 21(2), pp. 252–263.

Teaching

I teach Climate Change: Politics and Policy (POLS0054), Global Environmental Politics (POLS0023) and Theories and Actors of the Policy Process (PUBL0040).