Environmental policy in the European Union. Actors, institutions and processes

Book abstract:

The European Union dominates the way in which environmental policy is thought about, developed and implemented throughout Western Europe. The policies of the Member States and the EU are now so deeply intertwined as to be politically and legally inseparable.

The purpose of this book is to act as a guide to the history and institutions of EU environmental policy, to explain how policy is made and implemented, and to introduce some of the main debates within the study of EU public policy and politics.

The book is divided into five parts: The historical and institutional context; the main actors and their objectives; dominant theories and dynamics of policy-making in the EU; in-depth case studies of how environmental policy is actually made; and an assessment of the challenges raised by the transition to sustainability.

The contributors are a mixture of academics, practitioners and commentators. The editor, Andrew Jordan, is a lecturer in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia and a Programme Manager in the Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment (CSERGE) in Norwich.

The book will be of interest to students, researchers and practitioners of the environment and of policy-making at a European level.