ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts of the concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book demonstrates that more democratic quality has a mainly positive influence on the climate performance of established democracies. The research results of the mixed methods design are robust and merge detailed mechanisms, verifying statistical trends. A generalizable framework which explains the results is the concept of democratic efficacy, which assumes that the ability to produce the desired and intended general performance increases concomitantly with levels of democratic quality. So, different levels of democracy are indeed an explanatory factor for differences in the climate performance of established democracies and the democratization of democracies thus makes a solution to the challenges of climate change that little bit more likely. Democracy has to be understood as an ongoing process with alternative futures and should be researched as such.
