The experimentalist 'turn' in science In the last two decades, many areas of the social sciences ... more The experimentalist 'turn' in science In the last two decades, many areas of the social sciences have embraced an 'experimentalist turn'. It is well known for instance that experiments are a key ingredient in the emergence of behavioral economics, but they are also increasingly popular in sociology, political science, planning, and in architecture (see McDermott 2002). It seems that the potential advantages of experiments are better appreciated today than they were in the past. But the turn towards experimentalism is not without its critics. In her passionate plea for more experimentation in political science for instance, McDermott (2002: 42) observes how many political scientists are hesitant: they are more interested in large-scale multiple regression work, lack training in experimentation, do not see how experiments could fit into a broader research strategy, and alternative movements in political science (such as constructivists and postmodernists) consider that experimental work is not able to capture complexities and nuances. Representing some of these criticisms, Howe (2004) suggests
This editorial highlights the diversity in studies of experimentation that aims for solutions to ... more This editorial highlights the diversity in studies of experimentation that aims for solutions to climate change and wider sustainability challenges. The diversity is reflected in the theoretical underpinnings, the agency behind experiments, the niches in which experimentation occurs, in the governance of the experiments and in experiments with governance, in the way experiments contribute to learning and sharing of knowledge across levels and scales. This implies that experimentation and experiments can contribute to transitions in very different ways and that experimentation also runs the risks of merely becoming a distraction that maintains status quo instead of contributing to transformative change. In moving forward research should explore the diversity even more, and critically evaluate and discuss the possible contributions to policy and polycentric governance.
Policies in areas or subsystems which are dominated by well-established policy communities tend t... more Policies in areas or subsystems which are dominated by well-established policy communities tend to stability. However, policies that have firm political support and a solid ideological underpinning are occasionally subject to marked and wholesale shifts which then stabilize around a new equilibrium position. This article examines one such discontinuity in policy: British coastal water policy between the 1950s and the 1990s. Once the concern of engineers and local authority interests, the question of how to deal with the sewage generated by coastal communities is now deeply contested between a wide variety of different actors including environmental groups and European authorities. What was once a relatively well-managed, professionalized policy community has become unstable as new ideas and domestic regulatory structures have forced the government to justify principles and practices that were implicit or simply rhetorical. This empirical example of what Weale has termed the 'new' politics of pollution, is tested against models of social learning developed by Paul Sabatier and Peter Hall, both of which lay great stress on the importance of changing ideas and beliefs as the main 'motor' of policy change. POLICY STABILITY AND RADICAL UPHEAVALS Why do relatively stable policies in areas or subsystems dominated by wellestablished policy communities undergo relatively rapid and convulsive periods of change? Periodically, policies that appear to have firm institutional support and a solid ideological underpinning are subject to marked and wholesale shifts. Classic theories of pluralism suggest that change occurs slowly, incrementally and cautiously. Policy makers are said to 'muddle through' problems by making slight adjustments to existing settlements. More recently, policy networks have emerged as the preferred tool for examining the workings of public administration in Britain. The policy network idea is based on the observation that policy making is sectorized: most non-controversial issues are dealt with in an incremental manner by a small number of actors grouped around particular government depart
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 09644019808414383, Nov 8, 2007
Forty years after the historic signing of the Rome Treaty that gave birth to the European Economi... more Forty years after the historic signing of the Rome Treaty that gave birth to the European Economic Community in 1957, the European Community (EC)-politically speaking, now the first'pillar'of the European Union (EU)-stands on the cusp of great changes, facing ...
Environmental policy integration (EPI) is a widely used political strategy to institutionalise th... more Environmental policy integration (EPI) is a widely used political strategy to institutionalise the concept of sustainable development in the everyday practice of modern governance. In recent years, there has been a strong drive to pursue EPI both within the European Union (EU) and at national level in some of its member states. The United Kingdom (UK), in particular, has been applauded by the OECD for its innovative implementation strategy, which dates back to the late 1980s. The central tool of the UK's EPI strategy is the application of an environmental policy appraisal (EPA) to different policy options to assess their respective environmental impacts. It is especially well suited to those sectors where the root causes of environmental degradation reside-i.e. energy, transport and agriculture. Yet, despite the UK's 'pioneering' EPI strategy, with EPA at its core, critics claim that in reality EPA is sparsely and weakly implemented. However, they offer little explanation for the apparent failure of EPA to take root. By using the UK as a critical case of environmental governance, this paper aims to empirically examine the real patterns of EPA, and to investigate the underlying causes behind its limited use by UK departments. It then uses the UK's experience to identify potential lessons that can be transferred to the EU and its member states.
Sir-A substantial acreage of US fields is now given over to transgenic plants that produce an ins... more Sir-A substantial acreage of US fields is now given over to transgenic plants that produce an insecticidal protein (a derivative of the Bacillus thuringiensis insect-control protein CryIA, also known as Bt toxin). In an effort to restrict the spread of resistance to Bt toxin, the use of refuges-areas of non-transgenic plants planted close to the transgenic varietyhas been adopted. In News and Views 1 , M. J. Crawley wrote: "The strategy might be expected to work because resistance is usually a genetically recessive trait". However, F. Huang et al 2 have recently shown that, for the European corn borer, resistance is an incompletely dominant trait. Although the significance of these results has been challenged 3 , they may mean that refuges will not work for this insect, a major agricultural pest in the United States. This is something that should have been established before the widespread planting of transgenic corn. It's hardly surprising that there is distrust of agribiotech companies 4 , when they do not put significant effort into answering the basic questions that enable such risks to be evaluated.
ABSTRACT Climate change adaptation governance is in flux. Adaptation policies are being adopted b... more ABSTRACT Climate change adaptation governance is in flux. Adaptation policies are being adopted by governments at a rapid pace, particularly in Europe. In the period 2005–2010, the total number of recorded adaptation policy measures in the EU grew by some 635%. Despite the plethora of work on adaptation governance, few if any empirical studies have been conducted that explore the driving forces behind the rapid adoption and diffusion of adaptation policies. Working within the theoretical framework of national policy innovation (see Jordan and Huitema, in this issue), we draw on a uniquely systematic database of national climate polices to develop a set of hypotheses on the drivers and barriers surrounding the adoption and diffusion of climate change adaptation policies across 29 European countries. Using an internal/external model we postulate that adaptation is largely being driven by internal factors. Additionally, we look to the possible effects of this policy adoption and diffusion to see if adaptation is emerging into a new and distinct policy field. What we find is that indeed it could be in a handful of countries.
Review of European Community and International Environmental Law, 1994
is a staff lawyer and a Co-Director of the Climate Change and Energy Programme at the Foundation ... more is a staff lawyer and a Co-Director of the Climate Change and Energy Programme at the Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development (FIELD).
Abstract Policy convergence is an established theme in comparative political analysis. Policy con... more Abstract Policy convergence is an established theme in comparative political analysis. Policy convergence research certainly has the potential to add a fresh perspective to a surprisingly large number of active debates within European Union (EU) studies, such as ...
The experimentalist 'turn' in science In the last two decades, many areas of the social sciences ... more The experimentalist 'turn' in science In the last two decades, many areas of the social sciences have embraced an 'experimentalist turn'. It is well known for instance that experiments are a key ingredient in the emergence of behavioral economics, but they are also increasingly popular in sociology, political science, planning, and in architecture (see McDermott 2002). It seems that the potential advantages of experiments are better appreciated today than they were in the past. But the turn towards experimentalism is not without its critics. In her passionate plea for more experimentation in political science for instance, McDermott (2002: 42) observes how many political scientists are hesitant: they are more interested in large-scale multiple regression work, lack training in experimentation, do not see how experiments could fit into a broader research strategy, and alternative movements in political science (such as constructivists and postmodernists) consider that experimental work is not able to capture complexities and nuances. Representing some of these criticisms, Howe (2004) suggests
This editorial highlights the diversity in studies of experimentation that aims for solutions to ... more This editorial highlights the diversity in studies of experimentation that aims for solutions to climate change and wider sustainability challenges. The diversity is reflected in the theoretical underpinnings, the agency behind experiments, the niches in which experimentation occurs, in the governance of the experiments and in experiments with governance, in the way experiments contribute to learning and sharing of knowledge across levels and scales. This implies that experimentation and experiments can contribute to transitions in very different ways and that experimentation also runs the risks of merely becoming a distraction that maintains status quo instead of contributing to transformative change. In moving forward research should explore the diversity even more, and critically evaluate and discuss the possible contributions to policy and polycentric governance.
Policies in areas or subsystems which are dominated by well-established policy communities tend t... more Policies in areas or subsystems which are dominated by well-established policy communities tend to stability. However, policies that have firm political support and a solid ideological underpinning are occasionally subject to marked and wholesale shifts which then stabilize around a new equilibrium position. This article examines one such discontinuity in policy: British coastal water policy between the 1950s and the 1990s. Once the concern of engineers and local authority interests, the question of how to deal with the sewage generated by coastal communities is now deeply contested between a wide variety of different actors including environmental groups and European authorities. What was once a relatively well-managed, professionalized policy community has become unstable as new ideas and domestic regulatory structures have forced the government to justify principles and practices that were implicit or simply rhetorical. This empirical example of what Weale has termed the 'new' politics of pollution, is tested against models of social learning developed by Paul Sabatier and Peter Hall, both of which lay great stress on the importance of changing ideas and beliefs as the main 'motor' of policy change. POLICY STABILITY AND RADICAL UPHEAVALS Why do relatively stable policies in areas or subsystems dominated by wellestablished policy communities undergo relatively rapid and convulsive periods of change? Periodically, policies that appear to have firm institutional support and a solid ideological underpinning are subject to marked and wholesale shifts. Classic theories of pluralism suggest that change occurs slowly, incrementally and cautiously. Policy makers are said to 'muddle through' problems by making slight adjustments to existing settlements. More recently, policy networks have emerged as the preferred tool for examining the workings of public administration in Britain. The policy network idea is based on the observation that policy making is sectorized: most non-controversial issues are dealt with in an incremental manner by a small number of actors grouped around particular government depart
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 09644019808414383, Nov 8, 2007
Forty years after the historic signing of the Rome Treaty that gave birth to the European Economi... more Forty years after the historic signing of the Rome Treaty that gave birth to the European Economic Community in 1957, the European Community (EC)-politically speaking, now the first'pillar'of the European Union (EU)-stands on the cusp of great changes, facing ...
Environmental policy integration (EPI) is a widely used political strategy to institutionalise th... more Environmental policy integration (EPI) is a widely used political strategy to institutionalise the concept of sustainable development in the everyday practice of modern governance. In recent years, there has been a strong drive to pursue EPI both within the European Union (EU) and at national level in some of its member states. The United Kingdom (UK), in particular, has been applauded by the OECD for its innovative implementation strategy, which dates back to the late 1980s. The central tool of the UK's EPI strategy is the application of an environmental policy appraisal (EPA) to different policy options to assess their respective environmental impacts. It is especially well suited to those sectors where the root causes of environmental degradation reside-i.e. energy, transport and agriculture. Yet, despite the UK's 'pioneering' EPI strategy, with EPA at its core, critics claim that in reality EPA is sparsely and weakly implemented. However, they offer little explanation for the apparent failure of EPA to take root. By using the UK as a critical case of environmental governance, this paper aims to empirically examine the real patterns of EPA, and to investigate the underlying causes behind its limited use by UK departments. It then uses the UK's experience to identify potential lessons that can be transferred to the EU and its member states.
Sir-A substantial acreage of US fields is now given over to transgenic plants that produce an ins... more Sir-A substantial acreage of US fields is now given over to transgenic plants that produce an insecticidal protein (a derivative of the Bacillus thuringiensis insect-control protein CryIA, also known as Bt toxin). In an effort to restrict the spread of resistance to Bt toxin, the use of refuges-areas of non-transgenic plants planted close to the transgenic varietyhas been adopted. In News and Views 1 , M. J. Crawley wrote: "The strategy might be expected to work because resistance is usually a genetically recessive trait". However, F. Huang et al 2 have recently shown that, for the European corn borer, resistance is an incompletely dominant trait. Although the significance of these results has been challenged 3 , they may mean that refuges will not work for this insect, a major agricultural pest in the United States. This is something that should have been established before the widespread planting of transgenic corn. It's hardly surprising that there is distrust of agribiotech companies 4 , when they do not put significant effort into answering the basic questions that enable such risks to be evaluated.
ABSTRACT Climate change adaptation governance is in flux. Adaptation policies are being adopted b... more ABSTRACT Climate change adaptation governance is in flux. Adaptation policies are being adopted by governments at a rapid pace, particularly in Europe. In the period 2005–2010, the total number of recorded adaptation policy measures in the EU grew by some 635%. Despite the plethora of work on adaptation governance, few if any empirical studies have been conducted that explore the driving forces behind the rapid adoption and diffusion of adaptation policies. Working within the theoretical framework of national policy innovation (see Jordan and Huitema, in this issue), we draw on a uniquely systematic database of national climate polices to develop a set of hypotheses on the drivers and barriers surrounding the adoption and diffusion of climate change adaptation policies across 29 European countries. Using an internal/external model we postulate that adaptation is largely being driven by internal factors. Additionally, we look to the possible effects of this policy adoption and diffusion to see if adaptation is emerging into a new and distinct policy field. What we find is that indeed it could be in a handful of countries.
Review of European Community and International Environmental Law, 1994
is a staff lawyer and a Co-Director of the Climate Change and Energy Programme at the Foundation ... more is a staff lawyer and a Co-Director of the Climate Change and Energy Programme at the Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development (FIELD).
Abstract Policy convergence is an established theme in comparative political analysis. Policy con... more Abstract Policy convergence is an established theme in comparative political analysis. Policy convergence research certainly has the potential to add a fresh perspective to a surprisingly large number of active debates within European Union (EU) studies, such as ...
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