The 'Green Transition' has actually made the West way more dependent on dictatorships, not more energy independent.
March 25, 2026
Original Paper
Strategic Exposure in the Green Transition: Authoritarian Supply Chains and Institutional Risk in the European Union and the United States
SSRN · 6463735
The Takeaway
While green industrial strategies are often sold as a way to secure energy sovereignty, this study shows that the EU's import dependence on authoritarian supply chains for green tech spiked to 6% of GDP by 2022. It highlights a strategic trap where decarbonization goals are subsidized by authoritarian states that externalize social and environmental costs.
From the abstract
Globalization has fragmented production across borders while advanced economies have simultaneously adopted ambitious green industrial strategies. This combination has created a strategic problem that has received limited attention in strategy literature. Sustainability transitions increasingly depend on supply chains embedded in authoritarian institutional systems. This paper examines how such dependencies generate institutional risk for firms and policymakers pursuing low-carbon transformation