Delegate Presentations

ECPR Summer School – Environmental Politics and Policy

Keele University,  June 17-28th, 2013

Keele University, UK

 

Delegate Presentations

 

Pdfs of (most) papers are available on the website on a separate password protected page (see menu under programme).
Login information will be sent to Summer School participants in an email.

 

Jonida Abazaj, Jonida Abazaj(NTNU, Norway)

Title:  Integrating Water and Energy Concerns in the Norwegian Hydropower Sector

 

The EU Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) represents a common framework for water policy designed to improve and integrate the way water bodies are managed throughout Europe. By calling for “good status” of European fresh water bodies by 2015, this complex and innovative directive engages multiple actors, interests and sectors (e.g. energy) and calls for the integration of the different concerns, interests and policy goals, in order to overcome the sectoral and spatial barriers. The national implementation of the WFD has required for the member states and EFTA countries to address changes in the institutional, organizational and spatial set-up of water resource management. A sufficient amount of time has now passed for the assessment of the initial outcomes related to the WFD implementation. Drawing on documentary analysis and interviews with relevant authorities and stakeholders, in this paper we investigate the WFD-related effects on the governance of water issues in Norway, with a specific focus on the hydropower sector. Purposely, we consider Norway as a peculiar case for the evaluation of the policy processes and outcomes triggered by the adoption of the directive, due to its almost 100% electricity production from hydropower, a wide diversity of rivers and extended deadlines for the WFD implementation. This paper provides an insight into the vertical interaction of the different levels of governance (international/national/regional/local) and the horizontal degree of coordination between the relevant policy domain and sectors (water and energy) in the light of the WFD implementation. This signifies to provide insights into the institutional interplay, the contending positions advocated by the different stakeholders and the consequent organizational challenges. Despite divergent views regarding policy priorities, the revision of hydropower licenses conditions may represent an interesting instrument for the integration of environmental concerns in Heavily Modified Water Bodies affected by hydropower.

 

Ayla Alkan, Ayla Alkan(Izmir University, Turkey)

Title:  A National Economic Model Proposal to Mitigate Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Turkey by Climate Friendly Agricultural Practices

 

The objective of our project is to develop a model of Turkey’s economy with a detailed treatment of the agriculture sector. We form a general equilibrium model to research economy-wide and multisectoral consequences of policies and economic change. The model includes food, textile, oil products, iron-steel, automotive and chemical sectors and simulate the behavior of economic agents such as consumers, producers and government. We create several scenarios differentiating from each other by the agricultural methods used. Objective function of the model is always minimization of total GHG emission.

 

Tobias BelschnerTobias Belschner(Berlin Graduate School for Transnational Studies, Germany)

Title: The Provision of Transboundary Environmental Goods: Beneficiary vs. Nonbeneficiary Supply Problems in a Two-level Setting 

 

International environmental problems revolve around the provision of non--?excludable environmental goods. It is therefore often assumed that the typical situation structure in international environmental politics (IEP) resembles the prisoner’s dilemma, resulting from a “tragedy of the commons” between states. Questioning this assumption is difficult, since differentiated approaches to situation structure in international relations1 require empirical information about states’ preferences. In this paper I argue that the analysis of substate actors reveals both the prisoner’s dilemma’s inadequacy as “the model” of IEP and facilitates determining situation structure at the international level.

 

Joshua Beneite‌hua (Universitat de Valencia, Spain)

Title: Perspectives of Intergenerational Ecological Justice: From José Ortega y Gasset to Andrew Dobson

 

The interest shown by Ortega on the mutual configuration between landscape and our character as human beings, can have a significant potential in order to defend the idea of a life rooted in its natural environment. On the other hand, Ortega may be an early promoter of the importance that have the behavior of the current generation in future social configurations. Considering this, and the contemporary recommendations from Dobson about it, I want try to form a new scheme for intergenerational and ecological justice.  Continuing the Dobson's critical wake, this justice could be understood as a most comprehensive, radical and transformative 'Justice', that the mere idea of a 'justice' (which not claims to act on the causes, but to continue the same structures of exploitation and ecosystemic domination). No doubt that Andrew Dobson provides elements to construct a theory of justice "to the height of the circumstances" of the problem of our time. And this operates in the space between generations, establishing as irreducible conception of the good the sustainability of ecosystems.

 

Ferretti, Johanna  (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany)

Title: Evaluating Environmental Integration in Policy Impact Assessment Processes 

 

Policy impact assessments (IA) are procedures to assess ex-ante the intended and unintended impacts of policy proposals on economic, social, and environmental concerns to inform political decision-making. The consideration of environmental concerns in IAs is usually weak and varies, however. A significant gap exists between the requirements of IA guidelines and IA practice. Despite the described deficits IAs are considered as instruments for promoting environmental policy integration (EPI), the incorporation of environmental objectives into other policy sectors. The objective of my dissertation project is to explore which factors determine environmental integration in IA processes and how effective IAs actually are in promoting EPI.

Methodologically, I compare and trace four IA processes to explore how environmental integration takes place. The cases I analyse pertain to the IA processes on the transposition of the EU Biofuels Directive (2003/30/EC) and the Waste Framework Directive (2008/98/EC), each in Great Britain and Germany. In order to assess IAs’ effectiveness an evaluation concept was developed. The paper presents the concept. It is based on two rival theories: Sociological New Institutionalism sets out that organisational decision-making processes are determined by social structure; in contrast, Actor-Centred Institutionalism emphasizes actors’ preferences as explanatory factors. Which theory better explains the IA and environmental (policy) integration? The evaluation concept consists of assumptions about the determining factors of IA processes and their effects on environmental integration, derived from both theories. It further consists of indicators which make the assumptions measurable as well as ‘traces’. The traces operationalize the effects regarding the environmental dimension in IAs, if an assumption applied.

 

Gravey, Viviane  (University of East Anglia, England, UK)

Title: Environmental policy dismantling in the EU: simply inconceivable, or just empirically elusive?

 

In the current era of economic austerity, environmental policy is, once again, seen by many as an unaffordable luxury, no more so than in the EU. In the 1990s criticisms of EU policy centred on the loss of sovereignty (the Maastricht “hit lists”) and competitiveness (the Molitor report). The 2000s saw calls for “Better Regulation” and the reduction of “administrative burdens”. Do these attacks mean that EU environmental policy is “past its peak” (Downs, 1972), and has already been cut?

Despite much press coverage and NGO campaigning, the very idea of cuts is surprisingly under-represented in the environmental policy literature. Concerning the EU, this paper explains this puzzle by stressing how policy dismantling fits uncomfortably with the conventional narrative of a booming policy field (1970s-1980s), faced with implementation problems (1990s); now characterised by a mature, sedate pace of policy-making (2000s). It stresses how policy dismantling undermines two key EU myths: the “myth of a Green Europe” (Lenschow 2010) and that of an ever-closer union. It suggests that alongside policies, European integration has encompassed environmental politics (Hix, 2007).

This paper offers to address this gap with tools from a second body of literature, on policy dismantling in domestic settings. Recent research within that field concerns policy dismantling of environmental regulations (Bauer et al, 2012), and can be adapted to fit the EU polity – and to explain the patterns governing European policy dismantling.

 

Harmes, Rick  (University of Exeter, England, UK)

Title: Place, Governance and Sustainability: Localism and Green Energy in the UK

 

The paper analyses the processes by which public policies for the generation of renewable energy are being implemented in a peripheral sub-region of the UK. The main focus is on the interplay between the sub-regional (county) tier of governance on the one hand, and the micro tier (town, parish, community) on the other. However, the paper also sets the issue of local implementation within the broader national and international context of the UK's 2011 Energy White Paper and current Energy Bill.  The result is a multi-level, multi-actor analysis which explores how developments within local communities are both influenced by, and in their turn themselves influence the wider development of public policy within a given jurisdiction. For example, in Cornwall there is some evidence that common ownership of local energy production and supply helps to create more confident and empowered communities, and that this in turn may have positive knock-on effects for public policy generally. The paper suggests some design principles that would enable this multi-level process of mutual top-down/bottom-up influencing to operate on a more consistent basis in future.

 

Kerr, Ewan  (Glasgow Caledonian University, Scotland, UK)

Title: Trade Unions, Environmental Politics and Policy Making in the UK: A Literature Review

 

Despite the decline in membership of Trade Unions (TUs) in developed countries, it would be misguided to ignore their contemporary relevance and equally premature to dismiss the opportunities that the green movement may accrue as a result of closer cooperation with labour groups. TUs maintain an unrivalled connection with workers and have established means of accessing policy networks and decision makers. In recent years a sizable literature has been published on what is now being commonly termed ‘labour environmentalism’, attempts to locate TUs within green political theory generally, and focuses on the relationship between TUs and environmental groups more specifically. Various discourses have arisen that are of particular relevance to the latter, more specific question. These include the ‘jobs versus the environment framework’; the associated drive for ‘just transition’; the concept of social movement unionism; and the framing of TU environmental legislation through a health and safety/risk framework. This paper examines these discourses, and integrates them within existing literature on coalition formation and mobilisation and derives various hypotheses from them.

 

Lawrence, Jennifer Leigh  (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University , USA)

Title: Technological Rationality and The Normal Accident: A Critical Analysis of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster

 

 “Gross negligence and willful misconduct”— those are the words levied against British Petroleum by the United States Department of Justice with regard to the worst environmental disaster in US history. In April of 2010, the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, immediately killing 11 men and injuring 17 others, subsequently spilling nearly 5 million barrels of oil, and having untold social, economic, and environmental costs. But, the Deepwater Horizon disaster, as it has come to be known, was not an accident. In the tangled web of lax government regulations, an oil-hungry citizenry, and unbridled capitalism, the Deepwater Horizon explosion was a ticking time bomb, an inevitable occurrence characteristic of complex technology such as oil drilling. This paper explores whether the Normal Accident Theory can be used to assess Deepwater Horizon. It will also seek to understand whether the disastrous impacts were compounded by environmental negligence and corporate greed. Through the theoretical lenses of Herbert Marcuse and Charles Perrow, this research will address questions of agency and responsibility in environmental disaster. Furthermore, it will highlight the complex relationship between technology and economy as tools of domination over nature and society.

 

Lejeune, Zoé  ( Université de Liège, Belgium)

Title: Exploring Environmental Inequalities in Belgium: a New Theoretical and Empirical Way to Deal with Environmental Conflicts in Urban Areas?

 

Environmental Inequalities (EI) – the unequal distribution of environmental goods and bads among space and population – are a field of research at the crossroads of political science, environmental studies, and urban studies. Unlike US Environmental Justice movement, EI are not seen by actors or studied as a specific frame for action and collective mobilisation in Belgium in environmental matters.  Environmental conflicts are however numerous in urban areas in Belgium where industrial activities and housing cohabit. In this paper, I analyse the unequal consequences of urban policy in Belgium in terms of environmental quality and access to amenities, more precisely, of uneven access to “quality of life” in a context of “anti-urban policy”.

 I invite us to think about democracy in the cities (citizen participation, equal access to environmental quality of life) and about litigation and legal opportunities for individuals and groups in environmental conflicts. This paper examines alternative modes of public regulation in a “social and environmental justice in the city” perspective that could better integrate social and environmental issues.

After a general presentation of the doctoral research, this paper explores (1) how grassroots movements or individuals can mobilise the law to denounce environmental conflicts and inequalities providing insights into an environmental inequalities perspective. It then studies (2) how current urban and environmental policy in Belgium can contribute to explaining these inequalities. Empirical evidence relies, on the one hand, on legal texts, public policy analysis and litigation cases and, on the other hand, on exploratory interviews with stakeholders in Belgium – main political parties, environmental non-profit organizations, legal practitioners, unions and scientific public institutions.

 

Lightbody, Ruth  (University of the West of Scotland; UK)

Title: Institutionalising Deliberative Democracy to Promote Environmental Policy-Making: The Role of Public Hearings

 

Liberal democracy has been accused of failing to deliver an environmentally sustainable future. Consequently, many have heralded deliberative democracy as the most promising and realistic form of democracy to promote green issues. Deliberative democrats argue that collective decisions should emerge from a process whereby participants discuss public problems and solutions under conditions conducive to reasoned reflection and refined public judgement. This is particularly relevant when making decisions regarding the environment as deliberation could prevent problem-solving in one area causing greater problems elsewhere. However, there is no reassurance that deliberative institutions will necessarily give precedence to green issues. Furthermore, used in isolation, deliberative processes can be inefficient and ineffective when it comes to policy and decision making. Therefore the argument here is that a ‘hybrid’ form of institution, like public hearings, can bring representatives, experts, and lay citizens together into deliberation and can subsequently overcome these failings and contribute to an effective and practical way of discussing green issues. It is argued in this paper that public hearings can facilitate an exchange of ideas and information which surrounds environmental issues; narrows the field of discussion and offers reflexive and considered feedback or recommendations.

 

Linde, Stefan (Luleå University; Sweden)

Title: It Isn’t Easy Being ‘Green’: Motivational Complexity in Large Scale Social Dilemmas

 

Mitigating and adapting to coming changes in the climate is one of the most important issues of our time and one of the greatest challenges for governments and policy makers. To be able to effectively implement successful environmental policies, without turning into a green leviathan, governments are dependent on the consent and the cooperation of their citizenry. To a large extent reduced emissions are also based in every-day behaviours of ordinary citizens, such as recycling, reduced energy consumption etc. Therefore, understanding how people reason about environmental behaviours and how they respond to environmental policies is an important step to establishing a sustainable society.

So why do people behave the way they do? Why are some willing to take on costs (e.g. by recycling) while others are not? Some researchers argue that governments need to create powerful incentives to make individuals act in an environmentally beneficial way. Others argue that economic (and other) incentives only lead to short term changes and that more long-lasting changes are dependent on a change in the values and attitudes of individual citizens. Research have though indicated that a personal moral obligation to act in defence of the environment many times neither is enough nor the only possible motivation for individual pro-environmental action. This gap between environmental attitudes and behaviour can be attributed to an array of different factors, such as e.g. individual abilities and habits. One factor that is especially interesting is the influence of social norms on behaviour and the possibility of motivational conflicts between personal, situational, and global norms. Following, the aim of this paper is to develop a theoretical framework for analysing the interaction between individual environmental attitudes and personal, situational, and global social norms.

 

Massey, Eric   (VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

Title: The Adoption and Diffusion of Adaptation Polices Across Europe

 

Despite the current era of policy dismantling, climate change polices in general and climate change adaptation policies in particular are being adopted by European governments at a rapid pace. Since 2005, the number recorded adaptation measures in the EU has jumped from roughly 400 to well over 1000 and in the same period nearly every member state has taken up the mantle of adaptation, developing policies and procedures for its implementation. In light of this dynamic activity an interesting question that arises is what are the driving forces behind the rapid diffusion of adaptation policies across Europe?  Despite the plethora of work surrounding policy innovation and diffusion, to date, no empirical study has been conducted for climate change adaptation. This article offers to fill this gap. In it we attempt to empirically understand the drivers, dynamics, barriers and outcomes of adaptation policy in Europe. The work herein is based upon data from a survey of 27 European countries. Using an internal vs. external determinants approach, this paper hypothesizes that adaptation has primarily been driven by external factors such as progress in other countries and the push for adaptation in the international community as opposed to a collective self awareness of the need for adaptation. What we find however, is that the majority of countries were motivated by their perceived need to adapt coupled with a push from the international community. Additionally, this paper takes the common understanding that policy invention, the creation of something new, can lead to cross border policy innovation and turns the concept around. Specifically, it argues that with the case of adaptation, its innovation and diffusion across Europe has led to the invention of a new, never before seen policy field in leading innovative countries.

 

Poelzer, Gregory  (Luleå University; Sweden)

Title: Extracting Legitimacy

 

Today, many governments claim the environmental, social, and economic impacts of mining remain top-of-mind and, as a result, made changes to the policy process that allows for greater transparency and broader input. To a large extent, these claims come as a result of the increasing pressure communities in close proximity to mines place on government to ensure the local benefits outweigh the assumed risks from mining development. At the same time, mining companies changed their approach to community engagement in response to these growing demands. They can no longer merely acquire an operating license and pay rents, local stakeholders expect more. For this reason, and from a political science perspective, policy analysis of mining development remains crucial, including the identification of related structures, institutions, actors and processes. As issues of economic security, energy security, and water security gain importance, the value of studying inclusivity and participation in mining development increases. How this should take place and who holds responsibility for ensuring it does remain pertinent questions and for political scientists these questions offer the opportunity to discover whether the actors, the institutions, and the process of mining development changed to reflect this new reality. Are the local environment, culture, and economy given attention in political decision making?

This paper first looks at the concept of inclusion in public policy development. This includes an overview of the theoretical perspective on inclusion and an effort to define effective and ineffective inclusion, particularly as it pertains to mining policy. Second, it outlines the current policy process for mining development in Sweden and draws comparisons with past policies and procedures. Third, a review of changes in the minerals act and other relevant government regulations, such as the environmental impact assessment, should offer insight into whether newer legislation opens avenues for greater inclusion.

 

?ahin, Ümit (Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey)

Title: Environmental Politics in Turkey

Paper not yet submitted

 

Simcock, Neil  (Keele University; England, UK)

Title:  Exploring How Stakeholders in Two Community Wind Projects Use a “Those Affected” Principle to Evaluate the Fairness of each Project’s Spatial Boundary

 

This article explores how the geographic boundaries of who could participate in the decision processes of two community-owned wind energy projects (WEPs) was evaluated in terms of their fairness by project leaders and local residents. In particular, it analyses the varying ways that the justice principle of “those affected by a decision have a right to be involved in making that decision” was utilised to make claims about the fairness of each boundary. In both case studies, even though this justice principle was often shared by local stakeholders, defining exactly what a “fair” boundary encompassed was problematic and strong disagreements emerged. Three factors that contributed to this disagreement are highlighted, and the significance of the findings for the implementation of community WEPs is reflected upon.

 

Udrea, Lavinia Ioana  (Keele University, England, UK)

Title: The Influence of Moral Motivation in Environmental Studies

 

Predictive social sciences have taken upon themselves the task of uncovering the meanings of human action, but have discovered that human beings are unpredictable. The main purpose of this discussion is to argue that in order to motivate human beings to develop their sense of responsibility towards nature and reduce their ecological footprint, we need to focus on morality. Because moral rules or principles are plural, different from individual to individual, we will make appeal in this study to common sense, which will enable us to formulate specific moral guidance that would be effective for as many individuals as possible. In order to achieve this objective, we must discuss a common sense morality that people worldwide would take into consideration. In order to be able to educate people to become moral and sustainable citizens, we argue that we need to adopt an externalist position in moral theory. Externalism states that human behaviour is influenced by external factors we come across in our existence which can facilitate the realisation of our moral judgments. We state that people will act morally if they find their motivation in a set of moral judgments that are based on common sense and factors external to the moral judgements. In the cultivation of moral behaviour, we will take advantage of the practical character of moral judgments, because they imply a strong belief that cannot be ignored, and also of the possibility of using factors external to moral judgements to generate sufficient motivation for action. The paper will thus develop recent proposals towards a motivational turn in environmental studies.

 

Wiebe, Sarah Marie  (University of Ottawa, Canada)

Title: Ecological Citizenship’s Double-Edge

 

Over sixty polymer and petrochemical facilities encircle the Aamjiwnaang First Nation, located downstream from Canada’s Chemical Valley, in Sarnia, Ontario. Over the last decade, this community documented a skewed sex ratio (Mackenzie et al., 2005; Scott 2008, 2009) in addition to an array of other reproductive, cardiovascular, cancer and mental health concerns (Ecojustice, 2007). This paper asks: how and why are citizens of this First Nations community struggling for environmental and reproductive justice? How do they respond? Furthermore, what do their responses reveal about the meaning of citizenship? I employ a biopolitical interpretation of citizen practices in conversation with green theory debates about citizenship and environmental justice by discussing Foucault’s concepts of 'governmentality' and 'biopower', and green theory debates about 'green governmentally' and 'ecopolitics' (Darier, 1996; Luke, 1997; Rutherford, 2007). I contend that the practices of community engagement, i.e. bucket brigades, bio-monitoring and body-mapping, reveal 'ecological citizenship's double-edge': on one hand, citizens are bound up in disciplinary biopolitical practices at arms length from the state; on the other, citizens in this community articulate a radical form of place-based belonging. The empirical case draws upon qualitative and ethnographic methods. Bridging interpretive analysis (Schwartz-Shea & Yanow, Yanow, 2000, 2008) with 'decolonizing methodology' (Smith, 1999), my study couples a post-positivist orientation with political ethnography (Schatz, 2009; Pachirat, 2011). I contend that corporeal struggles for justice are simultaneously struggles for knowledge and power. By assessing these struggles through people (practices of citizen engagement) knowledge (struggles for scientific expertise) and power (confronting Canada’s policy ensemble), I first document citizen action. Subsequently, I build a theory of ecological citizenship that accounts for ‘place’ to challenge biopolitical subjectivity assumed by green governmentality. My aim is to decentre the individual as a responsible arbiter for ecological management and to discuss an alternative mode of situated, place-based being.

 

Yakusheva, Natalya  (Södertörn University, Sweden)

Title: Natura 2000: Interpretation of the EU Policy Framework for Nature Conservation in the Carpathian Countries

 

Establishment of protected areas (PAs) is one of the main pillars of Nature Conservation Policy (NCP) all over the world that aims to address the problem of global biodiversity loss. The EU is not an exception from this trend.  Regulatory framework for NCP based on The Bird Directive (79/409/EEC) and The Habitat Directive (92/43/EEC), which also serves as a basis for the establishment of PAs network Natura 2000 that covers approximately 20% of the EU terrestrial surface. The aim of the network is “to assure the long-term survival of Europe's most valuable and threatened species and habitats to ensure that future management is sustainable, both ecologically and economically”. In turn it requires the establishment and development of participatory model with broader stakeholder engagement.

The key question this paper seeks to answer is: what are the potential strengths and pitfalls of the proposed EU model for NCP in balancing economic and biodiversity conservation interests? The paper focuses particularly on the situation in Central Eastern European countries. From the view of the policy network theory, key points of the EU model of NCP are identified and critically analyzed. The main sources for the analysis include official documents, project reports, expert notes and scholarly literature.

The paper concludes that: EU provides significant financial resources in order to tackle the problem of biodiversity loss, which includes economic incentives for local communities. However, the implementation is highly situational and depends on conflict resolution potential of concrete sites, including the ability to involve and balance interested stakeholders in policy network. Based on the conclusions, the paper will also discuss ways to proceed with empirical field studies on policy implementation within the Carpathian mountain region.