The Common Agricultural Policy: The Political Obstacle to Reform

Gardner, Brian

doi:10.1111/j.1467-923x.1987.tb02832.x

Cited by 7 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…More gravely, COPAs administrative hierarchy seemed unable, or unwilling, to acknowledge its diminished lobby influence. From DGVFs perspective, by the early 1990s the quasicorporatist relationship which some observers (Fearne, 1991;Gardner, 1987;Smith, 1990) ascribed to DGVI and COPA had long since gone. There were two reasons for this change.…”

Section: -92: the Marginalisation Of Copa By Dgvimentioning

confidence: 99%

From Policy Insider to Policy Outcast? Comité des Organisations Professionnelles Agricoles, EU Policymaking, and the EU's ‘Agri-Environment’ Regulation

Clark

Jones

1999

Environ Plann C Gov Policy

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Recent studies of the role of lobby groups in European Union (EU) policymaking have drawn attention to the concept of 'multilevel governance* as u powerful explanatory tool in analysing how these organisations exert political influence on EU institutions. One of the longest standing of these groups is the Comite des Organisations Profcssionnclles Agricolcs (COPA). Until the mid-1980s, COPA was regarded as being remarkably successful in influencing the content and direction of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). More recently, however, commentators have noted a marked decline in COPA's influence, citing as evidence the organisation's abortive attempts to blunt the radical edge of the 1992 reform package of the Common Agricultural Policy. In this paper the authors use Grande's conception of multilevel governance to provide a thorough examination of why COPA carried little influence with the European Commission's Agriculture Directorate, Directorate-General VI (DGVI) during the 1992 reforms. An illustrative case study is presented of a minor though notable element of these reforms, the so-called 'agri-environment' regulation, EU 2078/92. In explaining COPA's slight effect on the final text of the regulation, Grande's notion of multilevel governance emphasises the eclectic positions adopted by COPA's constituent farming unions towards the regulation, and the complexities of a negotiating process transacted simultaneously with different EU institutions, each requiring the tailoring of specific lobbying strategics by COPA's secretariat. The authors conclude that the negative outcome of COPA's lobbying resulted not only from disarray among this organisation's national policy constituencies, but also from skillful countcrlobbying mounted by DGVI to prevent COPA from derailing the delicate CAP reform process.

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Section: -92: the Marginalisation Of Copa By Dgvimentioning

confidence: 99%

From Policy Insider to Policy Outcast? Comité des Organisations Professionnelles Agricoles, EU Policymaking, and the EU's ‘Agri-Environment’ Regulation

Clark

Jones

1999

Environ Plann C Gov Policy

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“…2 SeeGardner (1987) for an account of pre-MacSharry reforms that does give a prominent role to COPA. 3 The search for a particular model of radical policy change is beyond the scope of this paper.…”

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confidence: 99%

Path dependency and the CAP

Kay¹

2003

Journal of European Public Policy

130

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Current frameworks for understanding the development of the CAP all suffer from having a static rather than a dynamic perspective. This paper considers whether the concept of path dependency can provide a corrective. However, the large majority of the empirical applications of the concept have been to institutional development at a macro, constitutional level rather than to specific public policies. This paper by defining the CAP as an institution and using the concept of path dependency is an attempt to test the boundary of the existing literature. The advantages and difficulties of the concept with regard to understanding the CAP are critically assessed. The main difficulty is extending explanations of path dependency to accommodate major CAP reforms. However, in certain cases, the mechanisms of feedback loops and cumulative consequences which derive from a path dependency approach can be useful for explaining significant shifts in policy direction. Overall, the conclusion is that the concept can enrich our understanding of the development of the CAP.

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Centre–periphery conflict and institutional development: the significance of North–South relations for the CAP

Roederer-Rynning

2005

J Int Relat Dev

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The Common Agricultural Policy: The Political Obstacle to Reform

Cited by 7 publications

References 1 publication

From Policy Insider to Policy Outcast? Comité des Organisations Professionnelles Agricoles, EU Policymaking, and the EU's ‘Agri-Environment’ Regulation

From Policy Insider to Policy Outcast? Comité des Organisations Professionnelles Agricoles, EU Policymaking, and the EU's ‘Agri-Environment’ Regulation

Path dependency and the CAP

Centre–periphery conflict and institutional development: the significance of North–South relations for the CAP

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