Burns, C

Eckersley, P

Tobin, P

Nottingham Trent Institutional Repository (IRep)

POLICY DISMANTLING IN A MULTILEVEL CONTEXT: THE CASE OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION IN THE EUCharlotte Burns, Peter Eckersley & Paul TobinTHE EU WAS AN ENVIRONMENTAL LEADER IN EARLY-TO-MID-2000S• The EU built a ‘green myth’ (Lenschow & Sprungk, 2010) to create a global identity• Pioneering policies, e.g. Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)• But the EU has faced a ‘conglomerate of crises’ over recent years (Falkner, 2016)TO WHAT EXTENT HAS THE TRAJECTORY OF EUROPEAN ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY CHANGED IN THE PAST DECADE?EU ENVIRONMENTAL PROPOSALS (BURNS, ECKERSLEY & TOBIN) 1/2• Analysed all 68 environmental proposals adopted 2004-2014• Coded them 1-5 (1=less ambition, 2=neutral… 5=high ambition)EU ENVIRONMENTAL PROPOSALS (BURNS, ECKERSLEY & TOBIN) 2/2• Explanatory factors (46 interviews): crisis impacts; a preference for deregulation; diversity in member states; a ‘mature body of legislation’• What has been the ‘direction’ of change? Expansion, dismantling, or stasis?• How has dismantling occurred?• At what ‘orders’ has policy change occurred?EDITED VOLUME- USING ‘INDEX OF POLICY ACTIVITY’ (IPA)1/2• Environmental policy has been resilient, but increasingly defined by stasis, e.g. EU air quality policy (Gravey & Moore - ch. 2)• Some expansion too- Denmark & Romania early on• Most dismantling was ‘low visibility’• HOWEVER, the UK (Ch.4), Denmark (Ch.6), Romania (Ch.7) and Spain (Ch.8) showed ‘active dismantling’• Plus, Romania (Ch.7) and Spain (Ch.8) used ‘emergency decrees’ to pass legislation with less scrutinyEDITED VOLUME- USING ‘INDEX OF POLICY ACTIVITY’ (IPA) 2/2THE EU IN A PROCESS OF DISINTEGRATION?• There are too many factors to identify one causal root• To what extent is the ambitiousness of European environmental policy resilient in this context?• Is this disintegration producing, or perhaps the same as, new polycentric governance techniques?• What does decision-making being pushed ‘downwards’ by the Commission mean for actors and the environment?• Multi-level governance as a theoretical framework• Multi-scalar analysis• How widely are ‘emergency decrees’ being used?• Has climate change pushed ‘the environment’ to the margins? Are ‘plastics’ starting to push out climate change?CASES FOR EXPLORATIONNational and local actors within:• The UK (climate leader 2008; legacy of austerity/Brexit?)• Germany (env and climate leader reputation; diminishing recently?)• Sweden (env and climate leader reputation)• Italy (traditional env and climate laggard; hit by Eurozone crisis)• Portugal (env laggard and climate leader; hit by Eurozone crisis)• Ireland (traditional env and climate laggard; hit by Eurozone crisis but now growing again)THANK YOU FOR LISTENING!• Charlotte.burns@sheffield.ac.uk - @CharlieBEU• Peter.eckersley@ntu.ac.uk - @PEckersley• paul.tobin@manchester.ac.uk - @_paul_tobin_BURNS, ECKERSLEY & TOBIN (2019)BURNS, ECKERSLEY & TOBIN (2019)

Policy dismantling in a multilevel context: the case of environmental protection in the EU

http://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/36383/1/13813_Eckersley.pdf

Policy dismantling in a multilevel context: the case of environmental protection in the EU

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