International patterns of environmental policy change and convergence

Abstract

The article gives an empirical overview of the international spread of 22 environmental policy innovations. The policy innovations examined in the article include administrative institutions (e.g. environmental ministries, scientific advisory bodies), laws (e.g. soil protection laws, packaging waste laws), instruments of environmental policy integration (e.g. national environmental policy plans, environmental impact assessment), energy taxes and eco-labels. On this empirical basis, recurring patterns in the global spread of environmental policy innovations are identified and linked to specific causal mechanisms through which this change occurs. In particular, the paper demonstrates how and to what extent non-obligatory diffusion, legal harmonization and coercive imposition matter as mechanisms of global environmental policy convergence.

Greening Leviathan: the rise of the environmental state?

“…First, the convergence of policy portfolios, regulatory instruments, and institutions that can be observed across industrialised countries (Holzinger et al 2008): countries are becoming increasingly similar in how and when they respond to environmental problems, a process mediated by international organisations such as the OECD and the EU (Busch andJörgens 2005, Knill et al 2010). Second, the expansion of the environmental state model beyond the small group of Western democracies where it originated: as Steinberg (2001) and Sommerer and Lim (2016) show, BRIC countries and other emerging economies are rapidly expanding their environmental policy portfolios and administrative capacities.…”

From environmental plans to sustainable development strategies

“…Although the Brundtland Report quickly became a fertile ground for a dynamic SD discourse (Steurer, 2002), it triggered sectoral environmental plans rather than cross-sectoral SD strategies (Jänicke et al, 1997;Jänicke, 2000;Busch and Jörgens, 2005).…”

The EU and the promotion of renewable energy: an analytical framework

“…Policy innovations which are highly visible and which represent widely recognized values are particularly suited for symbolic imitation (Braun and Gilardi, 2006). In the area of environmental policy, this mechanism has played a central role, for instance, in the worldwide diffusion of ministries of the environment, but also in the spread of sustainable development strategies and the introduction of constitutional clauses on environmental protection (Busch and Jörgens, 2005; on the diffusion of sustainable development strategies, see also Jörgens, 2004). Norm-based imitation also comprises processes of socialization where certain internationally shared norms of appropriate behaviour serve as role models for domestic policymaking (Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998).…”