Replication Data for: Opportunists and Organizers: How Urban Regimes and Social Capital build Solar Cities in Japan

Why do some cities adopt more renewable energy than others? While past studies have attributed successful energy transitions to technical resources, socioeconomic factors, or governance factors, this study highlights that climate resilience initiatives like renewable energy adoption are energized by the level of social capital and style of urban regime in a city. This mixed methods study tests this hypothesis through the case of Japanese solar farms using a nested analysis of a large-N network analysis of 805 cities, qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) on a medium-N sample of 90 cities, and 2 case studies based in fieldwork in a small-N sample of 17 cities. I find that cities with stronger bridging ties, especially those with opportunist or progressive urban regimes, mobilize better to adopt solar, drawing common sets of policy tools to encourage public engagement with renewable energy. Cities should carefully inventory which kinds of social resources their city possesses, and target types of renewable energy that best match those resources.