Maya Jegen

A Typology of Tools for Building Sustainability Strategies

This chapter introduces and describes a typology of policy instruments that has a dual purpose. It serves (1) as a conceptual tool for integrating the findings of the different studies that were part of our inter-and transdisciplinary research and (2) as a useful frame of reference for political actors when choosing appropriate sets of instruments for policy strategies. The instruments we have included in the typology focus on the ecological dimension of sustainability; they are applied primarily to promote environmentally responsible action. However we believe that the five basic types of instruments — command and control instruments economic instruments service and infrastructure instruments collaborative agreements and communication and diffusion instruments — are of a general character that would allow for the inclusion of specific groups of instruments for promoting economic and social sustainability. Future work will tackle the issue of complementing the typology so that it covers the full range of instruments available for promoting all three dimensions of sustainable development. The chapter consists of five sections.

Constructive Ambiguity: Comparing the EU’s Energy and Defence Policies

This article explores the paradox of constructive ambiguity. Based on a focused, longitudinal comparison of the European Union’s energy and defence policies, it analyses the role played by strategies of ambiguity in European integration. Ambiguity is found to be an attractive strategy for political entrepreneurs when member state preferences are heterogeneous and the EU’s legal basis is weak. It is likely to be effective, however, only if it is embedded in an institutional opportunity structure – that is, a formal-legal context – that entrepreneurs can fold into their strategic repertoire of ideas. While ambiguity can be strategic in circumstances where clarity would create strong opposition, it is not sufficient to entrench a European policy if it does not rest on an institutional basis. This suggests that European political entrepreneurs should be wary of relying on coalition building by ambiguity only.

Decision-making in the Swiss Energy Policy Elite

This paper analyzes choices concerning the increase of energy efficiency made by the Swiss energy policy elite; it is based on interviews with 240 of its members. It starts from the assumption that choices depend on characteristics of the actors involved (their membership in policy coalitions, their core beliefs etc.), the characteristics of the instruments (in particular their familiarity and the extent to which they impose constraints upon the coalitions involved) and of the policy context (policy equilibrium vs. rapid change). Depending on these characteristics, actors are expected to make choices which are to a greater or lesser degree value-rational or instrumentally rational. The results of the present analysis indicate that, rather than being exclusive alternatives, the two types of rationality often complement each other in choices among policy instruments. We hope that they provide a promising opening in the often rather sterile debate between advocates of the rational choice approach and practitioners of more classical approaches of policy analysis.

The Acceptance of Instruments among Energy Policy Key Players

This article deals with energy policy a policy domain of high relevance for sustainable development. Its important issues — CO2 nuclear waste energy efficiency renewable energy — require diverse policy solutions and instruments at different societal levels as illustrated by several case studies in this volume. This contribution focuses on the cantonal and national level — thus complementing the focus on the municipalities — and on key players involved in political processes. The central question is how these political actors evaluate energy policy instruments. The instruments belong to three of the main instrument types presented in this volume namely collaborative agreements economic instruments and command and control instruments. For each type several concrete instruments have been selected including the tax on the energetic quality of buildings that is elaborated in the contribution by GARBELY and MCFARLANE. To put the key actors’ evaluations into perspective this study focuses on the political structure and analyses the power relation in the domain of energy policy. It attempts to give some indications of the barriers and opportunities that instruments for promoting energy efficiency may encounter in the political process. The analysis is based on empirical data from a survey of 240 key actors in the Swiss energy policy domain.