Duncan Liefferink

Environmental policy in Europe: The Europeanization of national environmental policy

1. The Europeanization of National Environment Policy 2. Europeanization & Patterns of National Environmental Policy Change 3. Austria 4. Ireland 5. Finland 6. France 7. Germany 8. Greece 9. The Netherlands 10. Norway 11. Spain 12. Sweden 13. UK 14. Europeanization and convergence: Comparative Conclusions

Leaders and laggards in environmental policy: a quantitative analysis of domestic policy outputs

This paper investigates the domestic characteristics of ‘leaders’ and ‘laggards’ in environmental policy in 21 European countries as well as the USA, Mexico and Japan from 1970. Data with regard to environmental policy strength are related to a set of potentially explanatory domestic factors. By way of the so-called gap approach, the distance or gap between current policy in a given country and the strictest policy available in the sample at the time is established. This is done for 40 environmental policy issues in all 24 countries and at four points in time (1970, 1980, 1990 and 2000). Mean country gaps for each point in time provide a picture of changing ‘leaders’ and ‘laggards’ in environmental policy, conforming only partly to conventional wisdom. Apparently, the international reputation of environmental ‘pioneers’ is not always matched by equally ambitious domestic policies. Statistical analysis identifies EU membership as the most important factor explaining a strong domestic policy output, whereas environmental problem pressure, institutional structure (neo-corporatism) and the level of economic development appear to be of secondary importance.

The marathon of the hare and the tortoise: implementing the EU Water Framework Directive

Reading the available evidence on the implementation of the European Water Framework Directive (WFD), one gets the impression that some countries anticipate implementation problems by starting off pragmatically and with relatively low ambitions, while others make a quick and ambitious start and tend to slow down in later phases of the process. Inspired by Lundqvists classical study of air pollution policy in the USA and Sweden, we assess the importance of some general characteristics of the respective political-institutional systems to explain differences in WFD implementation in four EU countries: Denmark, France, England/Wales and the Netherlands. We conclude, among other things, that visibility of the policy process, accountability of politicians and policy makers vis-à-vis their stakeholders and the EU, division of responsibilities for policy formulation vs. implementation and the involvement of the public explain the level of ambition in EU implementation to a considerable extent. Thus, the Lundqvist variables turn out to be useful for both classifying and explaining differences in EU implementation processes.

Member State Interest Articulation in the Commission Phase: Institutional Pre-Conditions for Influencing ‘Brussels’

There is a large literature on Member State influence in the European Union, typically focusing on a combination of preferences of the Member States and their strategies with an emphasis on Council negotiations. However, prior to Council negotiations Member States also seek to influence the Commissions development of legislative proposals. This paper argues that Member States need scientific expertise, experiential knowledge and target group support to make this strategy work and that the availability of these resources is partly shaped by domestic institutions, such as the territorial organization of the state, the recruitment principles of governmental departments, and the structure of governments relationship with business groups and societal interests. As a plausibility probe for our argument we have conducted a case study of the Dutch governments strategy regarding the REACH Regulation.

Environmental leaders and pioneers: agents of change?

ABSTRACT This article distinguishes between states acting as environmental leaders or pioneers. While leaders usually actively seek to attract followers, this is not normally the case for pioneers. Dependent on their internal and external ambitions, states may take on the position of a laggard, pioneer, pusher or symbolic leader. When doing so, states employ various combinations of types and styles of leadership or pioneership. Four types of leadership/pioneership – structural, entrepreneurial, cognitive and exemplary – and two styles of leadership/pioneership – transactional/humdrum and transformational/heroic – are used to assess leaders and pioneers. The novel analytical framework put forward is intended to generate greater conceptual clarity, which is urgently needed for more meaningful theory-guided cumulative empirical research on leaders and pioneers.

Diversity in sub-national EU implementation: the application of the EU Ambient Air Quality directive in 13 municipalities in the Netherlands

ABSTRACT This paper offers an analysis of the implementation performance of the EU Ambient Air Quality directive in the Netherlands. It provides a systematic evaluation of the implementation of a procedural provision – the obligation to design air quality policy. It draws on original data on air quality policy measures that have been collected in 13 medium-sized Dutch municipalities. The analysis of differences in the implementation performance was performed using a novel three-dimensional conceptual framework. The findings illustrate great differences in the implementation performance between the municipalities. The focused comparison allowed establishing very precisely where the implementation performance is poor or even lacking, and which municipalities take their EU implementation task more seriously than others. Most puzzling, environmental problem pressure turned out not to act as a sufficient trigger for municipalities to take far-reaching air quality measures. In contrast to previous research, a more nuanced picture is painted when it comes to the concepts of ‘compliance’, ‘non-compliance’ and ‘over-compliance’. A careful dissection of the implementation performance based on the aspects of the conceptual framework produces hands-on recommendations to municipalities seeking to improve their air quality policy.

Greening the EU: National positions in the run‐up to the Amsterdam treaty

‘Green’ positions in EU environmental policy, as represented particularly by Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark as well as the new member states Sweden, Finland and Austria, vary. An analytical distinction between pushers and forerunners in EU environmental policy forms the basis for an investigation into the ‘self‐perception’ of the ‘green’ member states and for a detailed assessment of the national positions of the six countries with regard to environmental issues in the preparatory phase of the Amsterdam Treaty. Although the six ‘forerunners’ are often grouped together, differences among them are considerable and had an impact also on their input to the Treaty revision.

Cause, catalyst or conjunction? The influence of the Habitats Directive on policy instrument choice in Member States

In the process of implementing EU policy, Member States sometimes introduce new policy instruments in cases where this is not obligatory. To better understand this phenomenon, this paper reviews three cases in which new instruments emerged and develops a methodology to trace back the influence of EU Directives on instrument choice. The method is illustrated by a narrative of the emergence of new management planning instruments during the implementation of the EU Habitats Directive in three EU Member States: Finland, Hungary and the Netherlands. Three key features of a policy instrument are defined, namely, its authoritative force, action content and governance design. These are used to measure the contribution of the Habitats Directive compared to other potential explanatory causes for the emergence of the new policy instrument. In all three reviewed countries a nested causal relationship between the Habitats Directive and the introduction of the new policy instrument is identified. Based on the relative contribution of the Habitats Directive to the emergence of the new instrument a distinction is made whether the Directive acted as a cause, catalyst or if conjunction occurred.

The Netherlands: International Innovator or Self-Interested Negotiator?

That there is a question of a paradigm shift in Dutch environmental policy, both at the level of discourse on policy and its implementation, has been pointed out several times in this book. This paradigm shift is also referred to in this chapter as ‘policy innovation’. The key words in this change include: a differentiation in the objectives, flexibility in the set of instruments, openness and interaction in implementing policy, and the integration of policy discourses (e.g. ‘the environment and space’, ‘the environment and the economy’, ‘sustainable development’).

Explaining stability and change. Comparing flood risk governance in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and Poland

The closing article of this special issue provides a comparative analysis of flood risk governance (FRG) in four European countries and tries to explain why FRG in the Netherlands and Poland is more stable than in Belgium and France. It examines the role of mechanisms of path dependency and path change. Inspired by the conceptual framework developed in the introductory article (Wiering et al. 2017), this article provides an overview of dynamics in FRG in the four countries and identifies major trends and tendencies. It discusses forces of stability and change and hypothesises on how ‘clusters’ of these forces tend to interact. It is found, among other things, that new ideas are often crucial for initiating change and that fixed costs and the sedimented distribution of responsibilities are stabilising factors. Bringing together various existing theories, the article contributes to literature on flood risk management and public policy change.