Peter H. Feindt

Greening Leviathan: the rise of the environmental state?

‘Bringing the state back in’ to research on comparative, inter-, and trans-national environmental politics and policy will contribute to better understanding of the limits and prospects of contemporary approaches to environmental politics and the overall evolution of contemporary states once environmental issues become central. The rationale for the state as an analytical perspective in environmental policy and politics is explained, and an empirically oriented concept of the environmental state is introduced, along with a tentative sketch of its evolution in historical perspective. A research agenda on the environmental state is mapped out, centring around variation and convergence in environmental states across space and time; the political/economic dynamics of contemporary environmental states; and inter-linkages among environmental problems, the constitution of political communities, and the functioning of the public power. In conclusion, the ways in which the contributions to this volume address that research agenda are introduced.

The BSE Crisis in German Newspapers: Reframing Responsibility

The 2000/2001 German BSE crisis unfolded as a public drama where awkward crisis management and political attacks on industrial agriculture sparked intense, prolonged media coverage. Mediatisation and politicisation of BSE went hand in hand. In the process, responsibilities for problems and solutions were socially constructed. A high level of press coverage and a policy turnabout (Agrarwende) became mutually reinforcing, according to our analysis of more than 5,000 articles from five national German quality newspapers. Politicians had a prominent standing but did not dominate the BSE discourse; speakers from civil society, the private sector and the media had a relatively good ‘standing’. Before the policy change, consumers appeared as the main victims in the media, while afterwards it was agriculture. Throughout the crisis, politicians were mostly blamed as problem causers and to a far lesser degree business and agriculture. Politicians were also overwhelmingly framed as problem solvers, far more than science, agriculture, business and consumers. As the new policy unfolded, more issue frames were articulated, suggesting that the debate shifted from BSE to the general direction of agriculture policy and the distribution of subsidies, but also to the relation between nature and technology and to a lesser degree the relation between food and consumers. Localisation and globalisation of food and international issues played minor roles. In the context of wider research on mass media and public opinion, the case study shows how media coverage tends to politicise food hazards. Food scares offer high news values and attract wide audiences. While industrial agriculture received much blame, major responsibility was attributed to the political system.

Post-exceptionalism in public policy: transforming food and agricultural policy

ABSTRACT Framing the special issue on the transformation of Food and Agricultural Policy, this article introduces the concept of post-exceptionalism in public policies. The analysis of change in agri-food policy serves as a generative example to conceptualize current transformations in sectoral policy arrangements in democratic welfare states. Often these arrangements have been characterized by an exceptionalist ideational framework that legitimizes a sector’s special treatment through compartmentalized, exclusive and producer-centered policies and politics. In times of internationalization of policy-making, increasing interlinkage of policy areas and trends towards self-regulation, liberalization and performance-based policies, policy exceptionalism is under pressure to either transform or give way to (neo-)liberal policy arrangements. Post-exceptionalism denotes a partial transformation of exceptionalist ideas, institutions, interest constellations and policy instruments. It reflects the more complex, open, contested and fluid nature of contemporary policy fields that nevertheless still maintain their policy heritage. Discussing stability, the authors distinguish between complementary and tense post-exceptionalism.

The Recession, Environmental Policy and Ecological Modernization – What's New about the Green New Deal?

This paper discusses the impact of the Great Recession on environmental policy. We argue that the recession has a specific environmental policy dimension by challenging underlying assumptions of the dominant model of environmental policy – ecological modernization (EM). Due to its Schumpeterian connotations, the concept of EM is more vocal on the connection between the economic crisis and environmental policy than most alternative approaches. When a ‘Green New Deal’ became a core element of fiscal stimuli packages, it was widely based on an EM discourse. However, actual ‘green’ stimulus policies have proved more problematic, as is shown for energy-related and car-related measures in the USA, the United Kingdom and Germany. On reflection, while boosting environmental efficiency investments, the ‘Green New Deal’ has so far failed to address underlying vulnerabilities of the EM model.

Sustainable Mobility—Challenges for a Complex Transition

Sustainable Mobility—Challenges for a Complex Transition Gerald Berger, Peter H. Feindt, Erling Holden & Frieder Rubik a Institute for Managing Sustainability, Vienna University of Economic and Business, Vienna, Austria b Section Communication, Philosophy and Technology, Wageningen University, Hollandseweg 1, Wageningen, The Netherlands c Faculty of Engineering and Sciences, Sogn and Fjordane University College, Sogndal, Norway d Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IOW), Heidelberg, Germany Published online: 25 Sep 2014.

The Great Recession – A Transformative Moment for Planning

The global financial and economic crisis that started in 2007 has challenged fundamental assumptions about the role of markets, public policy and planning in the provision of wealth and public goods. This special issue sets out to explore the meaning of the crisis for planning, looking into various areas that represent a broad concept of planning as public policy: urban development and governance; housing and urban design; international development and poverty reduction; transport and mobility; and environmental policy and planning. The special issue links reflections on the changing economic and financial environment, on shifting attitudes towards markets, governance and planning, and on practical and policy implications, with conceptual and theoretical considerations. Without claiming to fully exhaust the content of the contributions, this introduction resumes the arguments and findings with regard to three key questions: the nature of the pre-crisis regime as exposed during the crisis; planning and public policy responses to the crisis; and likely scenarios for the future of public policy and planning. The background of these questions is the observation that the Great Recession marks a crisis that will potentially transform key institutions and the wider ideational framework of planning. The sequence of events that unfolded since mid-2007 was breathtaking. The crisis that was to become the Great Recession first emerged in the US subprime mortgage market, quickly spread throughout financial markets globally and then caused vast damage in the real economy, which saw the worst slump since 1929. While a globally coordinated Keynesian response of unseen proportions helped to stop immediate panic in financial markets, it did little to prevent a major rise in structural unemployment, left public budgets with huge deficits and brought several countries to the verge of a sovereign debt crisis. Indications of a structural transformation abound: two years after the collapse of the US investment bank Lehmann Brothers, despite record-low interest rates, many asset values remain depressed, capital supply limited and credit tight. Many economic forecasters expect a long period of sluggish growth at best. Many regions saw key factories and businesses close down, probably forever. Moving towards post-stimulus politics, governments have cut back public services and announced a decade of austerity. The overall scenario is subdued and there seems no easy return to pre-crisis conditions that in hindsight appear like a happy era – for planning and beyond. But were they?

Better Regulatory Impact Assessment: Making Behavioural Insights Work for the Commission’s New Better Regulation Strategy

The Commission’s New Better Regulation Strategy of 2015 (NBRS) seeks to address shortcomings of Old Better Regulation by promoting an approach resembling what elsewhere has been called responsive behavioural regulation. By discussing the weaknesses of Old Better Regulation, we argue that limited validity of its preferred methodology, CBA, poses core issues. Differentiating between internal (legal and scientific) and external (social) validity, we find that legal evaluation and behavioural insights need to be included in a structured manner into RIA to provide a robust methodology which matches state of the art standards in science and societal dialogue. First, NBR has to acknowledge that it operates in a legal environment of EU law, where some decisions are already predetermined. Generic EU law hence already contains certain requirements at normative level, which need to be taken into account when developing NBR strategies. Second, the methods applied for IA have to ensure a degree of internal and external validity that is acceptable for regulatory purposes. In order to meet the value commitments embedded in EU law on the assessment of impacts of EU legislation and to provide internal and external validity in a structured manner we propose to use the “homo oeconomicus institutionalis” model as a guidance for methodological design of RIA.

The politics of biopatents in food and agriculture, 1950–2010: Value conflict, competing paradigms and contested institutionalisation in multi-level governance

Abstract Deploying perspectives from historical institutionalism and discursive institutionalism, this paper analyses the establishment of biopatents as a case of policy change driven by two mechanisms: institutional layering and ideational struggle between competing policy paradigms. The extension of patent law to agriculture creates a new institutional layer to agriculture policy and reinforces an incremental paradigm shift from agricultural exceptionalism to market liberalism. In response, the agricultural policy community successfully entrenches sector specific exceptions within patent law, turning patent institutions into new policy venues for the ideational struggle between the competing agricultural policy paradigms. Over the decades, legislative and jurisdictional processes unfold with contradictory dynamics. The case raises important questions about legitimacy, conflicting values, multiple orders and policy change in multi-arena governance.

The Essential Elements of a Risk Governance Framework for Current and Future Nanotechnologies

Societies worldwide are investing considerable resources into the safe development and use of nanomaterials. Although each of these protective efforts is crucial for governing the risks of nanomaterials, they are insufficient in isolation. What is missing is a more integrative governance approach that goes beyond legislation. Development of this approach must be evidence based and involve key stakeholders to ensure acceptance by end users. The challenge is to develop a framework that coordinates the variety of actors involved in nanotechnology and civil society to facilitate consideration of the complex issues that occur in this rapidly evolving research and development area. Here, we propose three sets of essential elements required to generate an effective risk governance framework for nanomaterials. (1) Advanced tools to facilitate risk-based decision making, including an assessment of the needs of users regarding risk assessment, mitigation, and transfer. (2) An integrated model of predicted human behavior and decision making concerning nanomaterial risks. (3) Legal and other (nano-specific and general) regulatory requirements to ensure compliance and to stimulate proactive approaches to safety. The implementation of such an approach should facilitate and motivate good practice for the various stakeholders to allow the safe and sustainable future development of nanotechnology.

Editorial 19.2

We welcome you to issue 19 (2) of the Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning. This edition contains eight articles that represent the broad range of pressing environmental problems that have attracted the attention of planners and policy-makers: from biodiversity loss and water scarcity to wilderness and wildlife management as well as energy-related issues such as smart grids and hydraulic fracturing. In line with the mission of this journal, the papers contribute to a critical understanding of environmental policy and planning by analysing, inter alia, the institutional framing of environmental issues in terms of priorities, scales and participants; science–policy interactions and the design and use of policy indicators; communication about ‘new’ nature and the construction of planning story lines. Together the papers in this issue demonstrate that environmental policy and planning – or its failure – significantly affect communities, livelihoods and industries and that the political construction of environmental issues, from public and scientific communication to the institutional framework and the monitoring of policy effects, is anything but neutral. Michael Howlett and Janet Cuenca discuss the development and use of indicators in environmental policy appraisal, taking water security policy as a case. Providing a critical overview of the origins and use of water security indicators, the authors conclude that indicator use is explained by data availability and ease of use and interpretation rather than by technical precision or capability to guide policy design in detail. Focusing on climate policy, Andrea Hermann, Karl Hogl andMichael Pregernig compare the science–policy interactions in three traditionally neo-corporatist countries: Austria, the Netherlands and Switzerland. Based on document analysis, expert interviews and a review of existing literature, they find that in all three countries, scientist were entangled in neo-corporatist patterns of interaction with some country specific variation. However, all countries also showed trends towards a pluralization of knowledge actors, novel forms of cooperation between scientists and less organized interests and enhanced transparency and visibility. After the recent special issue (19(1)) on hydraulic fracturing as an interpretive policy problem, Christopher Weible, Tanya Heikkila and David Carter focus on policy design in this contested policy area. Their Institutional Analysis of Colorado’s Hydraulic Fracturing Disclosure Policy exposes the legal allocation of choice options and restrictions to a range of actors addressed in the law. An accompanying opinion survey finds that dis/satisfaction with the law is highly correlated with the position towards this contested technology. The fact that few respondents agree that the new policy builds public trust of the hydraulic fracturing process underscores the need for more deliberative forms of policy-making. Thomas Berker and William Throndsen analyse the discourses and story lines in 13 smart grid road maps from North America, Europe and Asia, using a mixture of quantitative content analysis and qualitative story line analysis. Against the expectation that technology road maps serve as anticipatory coordination devices, the analysed documents followed three more narrow while distinct approaches: priority for market coordination as in the UK, a focus on procedural coordination of technological standards as in the US, or emphasis on technology-driven development and sound standards as in China. The findings suggest that road maps construct development pathways that reflect the needs of their authors in different political environments. Matthew Hoffman and Bjørn Egil Flø analyse how human interests and ecological processes at various spatial and temporal scales can be reconciled in wildlife. Based on expert interviews and document analysis, they find that the Norwegian system of moose management combines local ownership and management with landscapelevel planning. The paper suggests that a nesting of management institutions, where decentral government facilitates cooperation while the central state secures regulatory functions, is successful if supported by informal institutions such as trust relationships and social control.