Governing Sustainability in the EU

From Political Discourse to Policy Practices

Ekaterina Domorenok

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781315314983
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Governing Sustainability in the EU examines the recent novelties in the EU agenda for sustainable development, illustrating how the process of policy change has occurred at different levels, comprising general priorities, specific objectives and policy instruments.

The book focuses on the evolution of the principle of policy integration and analyses its implementation by specific policy instruments across three policy areas: energy efficiency (the Covenant of Mayors), innovation (the Eco-Innovation Programme) and regional development (ERDF regional programmes regarding sustainable urban development). It specifically examines two domestic contexts (Italy and the UK) with the aim of understanding how the goals and means envisaged by the EU have been translated into concrete policy practices on the ground, and which factors have influenced the creation of new policy and governance practices necessary for the achievement of sustainable development objectives.

This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of sustainable development, European Union Politics, and Environmental Politics.

1
Understanding policy change in the EU

What is missing in our knowledge of policy implementation?

1.1 Perspectives on policy change in the EU: policy discourse and practice

As is commonly known, a policy perspective in the research on the European Union has developed over two main phases. A “first generation studies” on European integration has focused on explaining the process of construction of a European sphere characterised by the debate between intergovernmental and neo-functional perspectives, while a “second generation” of studies has analysed the process of adjustment of national policies and systems of governance through the perspective of the process of Europeanisation (Schmidt and Radaelli, 2004). In the scholarly debate on the latter, different explanations have been provided regarding factors that best explain policy change in the process of adjustment to the EU – whether these are external pressures and problems, the “fit” between EU policies and national policy legacies or actors’ preferences and problem-solving capacities in a given political-institutional setting (Héritier, 2001; Cowles et al., 2001; Graziano and Vink, 2008).

An attempt to provide a comprehensive view on the aforementioned factors has been made by discursive institutionalism (Schmidt and Radaelli, 2004), which tried to bring components of interest-based rationality, historical and institutional path-dependence and social construction and identity into a single conceptual framework. This approach has stressed the need to integrate structure and agency for explaining policy change in the EU, emphasising how discourse matters in this sense, in terms of both institutional settings embedded in a vast rage of culturally framed and path-dependent rules, as well as policy ideas guided by interest-based rationality affecting policy-making in any given socio-political setting (Schmidt and Radaelli, 2004: 184). Thus, the discourse has been conceived as one of five main mediating factors of policy change, assuming that ideas represent the necessary conditions for collective action by serving to redefine interests and reconfigure interest-based political coalitions, constituting also the policy narratives and frames of reference that serve to reconstruct actors’ understandings of interests and redirect their actions within institutions (Schmidt and Radaelli, 2004: 195). While providing a convincing argument about how the ideational and interactive dimensions of discourse matter at the stage of policy formulation, as well as how they influence the diffusion of EU policy ideas across the national political arenas in terms of narratives, this approach lacks accounts of how and why the acceptance of the EU ideas and the usage of the related policy resources varies not only across but also within the countries, and whether and how the diffusion of EU ideas is related to the nature of instruments the EU adopts to channel its policy priorities into national policies. If it is true that policy ideas speak to soundness and appropriateness of policy programmes (Schmidt, 2000) and there is an intrinsic linkage between policy discourse and policy design, how can we explain a significant variability in implementation scenarios and divergent policy responses to EU inputs across member states? In fact, despite a wide consensus and consolidated policy narratives on a range of issues, including sustainable development, the implementation gap remains among the most puzzling aspects for the research agenda on European integration (Knill and Tosun, 2012; Treib, 2014; Heidbreder, 2017). Thus, the relation between the rhetoric dimension and substantive impact of discourse on policy programmes and policy practices appears to be far from unproblematic, and this gap in our knowledge of EU policy process is still to be filled in.

The research on policy implementation in the EU, which has mainly developed within the framework of Europeanisation studies, has adopted a top-down institutionalist perspective, suggesting that the degree of compatibility between EU demands and domestic institutions and policy traditions (goodness of fit) is one of the central factors determining implementation performance (Duina, 1997, 2007; Knill and Lenschow, 1998, 2000) and the degree of compliance (Börzel et al., 2010) in the EU. In this perspective, policy variables related to agency were most often conceived as “mediating factors” to be considered only if the institutional context was not able to explain the outcomes (Cowles et al., 2001; Featherstone and Radaelli, 2003).

Although a limited explanatory capacity of the aforementioned approach has been recognised (Falkner et al., 2005; Knill and Lenschow, 1998, 2001; Mastenbroek, 2005; Treib, 2014), a relatively low number of studies have attempted to assess the impact of actor-relevant factors on policy implementation, such as political preferences of governments or political parties (Treib, 2003), or more general mobilisation of domestic actors that might pressurise public authorities to implement the “misfitting” policy (Börzel, 2000). These studies have suggested that voluntary and involuntary non-alignment depends on costs and benefits of adaptation and on the costs of defiance (Héritier et al., 2001), as well as on political will or administrative capacity (Treib, 2014).

Over the last decade, the issue of practical implementation of EU legislation has been more closely addressed, opening a more nuanced bottom-up perspective on how EU policies are translated into practice. Some studies have brought to light the fact that member states can not only transpose, but also enforce (Liefferink et al., 2011; Falkner, 2016) and “customise” common policy guidance (Thomann, 2015), going even beyond the minimum requirements prescribed by the EU.

Overall, the EU impact has been mainly analysed in the areas of application of “hard” forms of regulation (i.e. regulations and directives) focusing mainly on the role of national governments, while considerable blank spots still exist in our knowledge base about policy change within those domains in which the EU influence is exercised through voluntary coordination and funding schemes that aim to influence the policy behaviour of a wider range of target actors by providing them with a system of flexible guidance and incentives, and leaving them ample margins of manoeuvre within which they can develop their policy response to EU initiatives.

Therefore, as nowadays the EU capacity to solve problems more effectively than individual member states appears to be at stake as never before (Graziano and Halpern, 2016), a deeper understanding of the policy process in the EU is clearly needed, supported by a wider reflection on its policy outputs and results. With this in mind, assessing how different policy addressees (regional and local governments, enterprises, organised civil society and individual citizens) engage with, interpret, appropriate or ignore the opportunities created by the process of integration appears to be fundamental for spelling out the critical junctions of the EU problem-solving capacity and finding clues on how the EU may increase its fragile legitimacy on the side of output (Scharpf, 2003).

Against such backdrop, this book aims to shed light on the EU governing capacity in the field of sustainable development by examining a number of recent policy programmes that have been promoted by the EU with the objective of channelling the energies of disparate actors towards acting for common sustainability goals through a variety of instruments. Such a vital policy sphere represents indeed an inspiring case for assessing whether and to what extent the EU can claim the existence of meta-governance (Jessop, 2016), with it being viewed as a policy space where common guiding objectives and principles are established and implemented relying on diffused ownership, willingness to coordinate and learn by different policy actors. In fact, the EU exceptionally combines the formal transfer of decision-making authority to a supranational centre, which has progressively limited the margins of what national governments can do and the instruments they can employ, with a range of soft guidance policy mechanisms (Kassim and Le Gales, 2010). At the same time, however, some studies on policy implementation in the EU has shown that despite the EU effort to promote common policy goals and convergence, the restrictions on national governments’ abilities to employ various policy tools on their own have been less significant than often assumed (Halpern, 2010).

Over the last two decades, aware of the aforementioned weaknesses and the limits of compliance mechanisms (European Commission, 2001), the EU Commission has increasingly promoted EU soft law and the so-called “new policy instruments” in an attempt to increase policy effectiveness and reduce the “democratic deficit” (Smismans, 2006) through decentralised and participatory policy-making. Policy networks have been at the basis of the implementation scheme of these new instruments (Jordan and Schout, 2006), representing a new way to “circumvent the traditional limitations (budgetary, formal competence) that characterise the EU by new methods of rulemaking and norm-shaping, and developing imaginative ways to overcome vetoes” (Heritier, 1999). Although the relevance of new decision-making modes for strengthening the democratic legitimacy of EU policy-making have been extensively discussed by the literature, their impact on policy performance has been underexplored.

A policy design perspective has been primarily adopted in the study of EU policy instruments in the environmental field by addressing the question of whether national governments are influenced by the EU in the selection of policy instruments (Damonte, 2014; Halpern, 2010) or by comparing the degree to which the New Environmental Policy Instruments (NEPIs) have diffused in the EU and individual member states’ environmental policies (Wurzel et al., 2013). As a result, the EU capacity to make member states’ governments to comply with common rules and objectives established at the EU level has been considered the main indicator of policy effectiveness, though many gaps still exist in our knowledge of how EU policy ideas are translated into policy programmes and how the actions promoted by these programmes are perceived and reacted upon by policy addressees that are different from central governments.

Instead, a wider perspective on policy design embracing all three policy levels (policy agenda, programmes and instruments) may provide additional advantages for understanding EU individual policies and its more complex agendas. While embracing a great wide variety of instrument-centred approaches and methodologies (Wurzel et al., 2013), the literature on policy design (Howlett, 2011) provides an insightful framework for bridging discourses and ideas underlying EU policy programmes and their impacts viewed in the perspective of policy response by target actors that deploy the related policy resources. First of all, this perspective invites a more comprehensive view of how particular policy philosophies translate into goals and outlooks, while at the same time providing for concrete manifestations of policy actions (Hall, 1993). Second, it implies looking at a complex activity conducted by a number of actors with the purpose of improving policy outcomes through the application of policy-relevant and policy-specific knowledge to the policy-making process (Cahill and Overman, 1990), and specifically in the crafting of possible alternative courses of action intended to address social, political, economic and other kinds of policy problems (Bobrow, 2006). Finally, a policy design perspective looks at how resources are mobilised in the use of instruments and assesses the effectiveness of policy implementation in terms of institutional, administrative, territorial, distributive and other consequences that are greatly relevant for improving our understanding of EU policies. Hence, this analytical angle connects policy ideas with the necessary policy actions by drawing attention to linkages existing between different levels of public policy and considering how different governing modes and strategies are reflected in the use of particular policy instruments.

Drawing on this analytical perspective, this study analyses the EU strategy for sustainable development aiming to understand whether and how EU policy programmes underpinned by the principle of sustainable development mainstreaming and composed of a mix of instruments (regulations, guidance, financial incentive, soft coordination, etc.) have been deployed by target actors and what kind of impact they have produced on the ground in terms of the enhancement of target actors’ ownership of EU objectives, their commitment to common targets and the propensity to adopt to the related governance principles. Thus, in contrast to previous studies on policy implementation in the EU, which have mainly focused on the macro policy level, this study will explore the meso and micro dimensions of policy change, exploring whether and how a set of policy arrangements established by the EU has enabled a range of policy actors to address the challenge of sustainable development in a coordinated manner.

1.2 EU strategy for sustainable development: shifting policy discourse and evolving governance architectures

As already mentioned, the EU policy agenda for sustainable development offers several important insights for understanding EU governing capacity and policy change. As is known, since its origin it has been characterised by a double-fold nature, being composed of two policy agendas initiated at the very beginning of the 21st century aiming to respond to the challenge of global economic competition on the one hand, and climate change on the other. After the launch of the Lisbon Strategy for growth and jobs (European Council, 2000), which mainly focused on social and economic dimensions, the EU Sustainable Development Strategy (SDS) was adopted at the Gothenburg European Council with the purpose of providing an EU-wide policy framework “to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (European Council, 2001). The strategy called for a coordinated approach to policy-making, meaning that the economic, social and environmental consequences of all policies are taken into account when those policies are being drawn up and adopted. To improve synergies and reduce trade-offs, a more integrated approach to policy-making was proposed, based, among others, on better regulation and impact assessments, enhancing in particular the precautionary and the polluter pays principles (European Commission, 2001, 2005), which have been progressively integrated in various sectors.

Initially, the implementation of both strategies mainly relied on an iterative and coordinated process of evaluation and revision of national strategies, while their governance architectures aimed at establishing a strategic framework within which to develop common objectives, identify means for achieving them, monitor the progress and learn from results. The founding principles of this mechanism emphasised a crucial role of networks in procedural and institutional aspects, highlighting the need for horizontal (cross-sectoral) and vertical (territorial) integration, participatory practices and high political commitment of all concerned. Monitoring and reviewing were considered crucial for the process of evidence-based learning about success and failures of the strategy. However, a more structured version of the so-called Open Method of Coordination (OMC) was adopted within the framework of the Lisbon Agenda, envisaging a new governance architecture in the EU (Borrás and Jacobsson, 2004; Radaelli and Borrás, 2011), which was based on the following four founding pillars: (i) fixing guidelines and timetables, (ii) establishing indicators as a means of benchmarking best practice, (iii) translating the European guidelines into national policies, and (iv) periodic monitoring and peer reviewing to support mutual learning (European Council, 2000: However, no definite EU governance scheme was created for the implementation of the Gothenburg o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of interviews
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Understanding policy change in the EU: what is missing in our knowledge of policy implementation?
• 2 EU agenda for sustainable development: evolving policy instruments and governance architectures
• 3 National sustainable development strategies: a comparative overview
• 4 Actions for sustainable urban development in cohesion policies
• 5 Local action for sustainable energy: the EU Covenant of Mayors
• 6 Technological innovation for environment: the Eco-Innovation Programme
• 7 Conclusions
• Index