European Discourses on Environmental Policy

This book offers the reader a representative selection of recent work on environmental policy in Europe, with special attention to the scope and policy instruments used, the level of application from global to local and the relation between the European Union and its constituent parts. Three unifying topics return in every possible context: discourse, diversity and the heavily politicized character of environmental policy processes in Europe. - - It is argued that environmental policy is not 'post-political': after a political decision has been taken, the political battle simply goes on. In explaining policies and the behaviour of policy actors, institutional and structural factors are often insufficient. Discourses play an independent role here. The conceptions and interpretations of the aims and context of a policy develop over time and differ widely at any given moment in time. The result is policy diversity: the co-existence within Europe of several types of policy aimed at solving the same problem. Whether this is a beneficial development is one of the questions this book tries to answer.