The objective of this study is to investigate the extent to which supporters and opponents at the European Union (EU) level strive to mobilize the public with regard the issue of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). To this end, it addresses two research questions: First, to which concepts do GMO opponents and supporters refer when seeking to mobilize the public? Second, do GMO opponents and supporters differ in the coherence of the concepts they use to attain public mobilization? The empirical findings show that the pro‐GMO coalition is composed of biotechnology companies as well as representatives of Argentina, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the World Trade Organization. The anti‐GMO coalition consists of environmental nongovernmental organizations and representatives from most of the EU member states. Altogether, the anti‐GMO coalition has been more coherent in the concepts they invoke in the last few years.

To understand how actors make collective policy decisions, scholars use policy and discourse network approaches to analyze interdependencies among actors. While policy networks often build on survey data, discourse networks typically use media data to capture the beliefs or policy preferences shared by actors. One of the reasons for the variety of data sources is that discourse data can be more accessible to researchers than survey data (or vice versa). In order to make an informed decision on valid data sources, researchers need to understand how differences in data sources may affect results. As this remains largely unexplored, we analyze the differences and similarities between policy and discourse networks. We systematically compare policy networks with discourse networks in respect of the types of actors participating in them, the policy proposals actors advocate and their coalition structures. For the policy field of micropollutants in surface waters in Germany, we observe only small differences between the results obtained using the policy and discourse network approaches. We find that the discourse network approach particularly emphasizes certain actor types, i.e., expanders who seek to change the policy status quo. The policy network approach particularly reflects electoral interests, since preferences for policies targeting voters are less visible. Finally, different observation periods reveal some smaller differences in the coalition structures within the discourse network. Beyond these small differences, both approaches come to largely congruent results with regards to actor types, policy preferences and coalition structures. In our case, the use of discourse and policy network approaches lead to similar conclusions regarding the study of policy processes.

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One of the European Union (EU) institutions’ responses to the alleged “democratic deficit” in the EU is the introduction of the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI). The ECI provides an agenda‐setting tool accessible to different advocacy groups. This study investigates the narrative strategies of ECI organizers to mobilize citizens across the EU. Which storytelling characteristics are present in the policy narratives used by ECIs? To address this question theoretically, we rely on the Narrative Policy Framework. Empirically, we examine 59 ECIs registered between 2012 and 2020. The analysis concentrates on three dimensions of policy narratives: the mentioning of (i) story characters and (ii) cost‐benefit frames as forms of narrative strategy to increase public attention, and (iii) evidence as a means of persuasion. Our findings show that ECIs predominantly make use of the devil shift in their policy narratives and use cost‐benefit frames and evidence to expand the scope of conflict.

In several European countries and at the level of the European Union, we can observe political and societal attempts to promote the use of tap water. Most prominently, the European Commission proposed revisions for the Drinking Water Directive, which includes strategies for promoting the consumption of tap water. The strategies comprise the following: improving access to tap water, upgrading quality standards for tap water, and enhancing transparency concerning the benefits of tap water. National initiatives in European countries pursue similar strategies that concentrate on enhancing access to tap water and communicating its economic, environmental, and social benefits. By drawing on existent literature in different disciplines, we assess how promising these strategies are for inducing individuals to drink tap water rather than bottled water. Our overview reveals that our knowledge regarding the quality dimension is very good: numerous studies on European countries have shown that dissatisfaction with the sensory properties and health-related concerns prevent individuals from drinking (more) tap water and opting for bottled water instead. The body of research with a specific focus on Europe is significantly smaller concerning the other two dimensions: access to tap water and the benefits of tap water. Nonetheless, there is indicative and preliminary evidence that improved access to tap water and a better communication of the benefits of tap water could positively affect consumption patterns.

National policy ambition plays a central role in climate change governance under the Paris Agreement and is now a focus of rapidly emerging literature. In this contribution, we argue that policy ambition can be captured by the level of national policy activity, which in accordance with the existing literature should be referred to as “policy density.” In this study, we measure climate policy density by drawing on three publicly available databases. All three measurements show an upward trend in the adoption of climate policy. However, our empirical comparison also reveals differences between the measurements with regard to the degree of policy expansion and sectoral coverage, which are due to differences in the type of policies in the databases. For the first time, we compare the patterns of policy density within each database (2000–2019) and reveal that while they are different, they are nonetheless potentially complementary. Since the choice of the database and the resulting measurement of policy density ultimately depend on the questions posed by researchers, we conclude by discussing whether some questions are better answered by some measurements than others.

Adopting public policies to deliver the ambitious long-term goals of the Paris Agreement will require significant societal commitment. That commitment will eventually emerge from the interaction between policies, publics and politicians. This article has two main aims. First, it reviews the existing literatures on these three to identify salient research gaps. It finds that existing work has focused on one aspect rather than the dynamic interactions between them all. Second, it sets out a more integrated research agenda that explores the three-way interaction between publics, policies and politicians. It reveals that greater integration is required to understand better the conditions under which different political systems address societal commitment dilemmas. In the absence of greater research integration, there is a risk that policymakers cling to two prominent but partial policy prescriptions: that ‘democracy’ itself is the problem and should be suspended; and that more deliberative forms of democracy are required without explaining how they will co-exist with existing forms.

Scholars have increasingly argued for an integration of policies on agriculture and water due to their strong interlinkage. The entry of agricultural pollutants into water represents one of the main pressures on Europe’s ground and surface waters. This not only poses a risk to the environment and human health but also jeopardizes meeting the targets set by the EU Water Framework Directive. Research on the political agenda setting has shown that issue salience is key for triggering policy change. Nevertheless, Germany has repeatedly failed to adopt adequate policy measures despite the salience of the issue among the German public and increasing pressure by the EU. In this study, I shed light on the positioning of political parties in Germany on agricultural pollutants to explain the absence of policy change. More specifically, I ask whether there is an ideological division between political parties that hampers the adoption of effective, integrated policy measures. A qualitative content analysis of election manifestos published between 1998 and 2018 finds that political parties’ policy positions are predominantly influenced by their placement on an environmental and an economic ideological dimension. As a result, political parties in Germany advocate conflictive policy approaches, which is detrimental to the adoption of effective policy measures.