The modalities of European Union governance: New institutionalist explanations of agri-environmental policy

Book abstract:

This book, written from the perspective of a political geographer, aims to demonstrate EU political processes by examining agri-environment policy within the context of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy. The book uses policy network analysis and new institutionalism theories from political science to explore the mechanisms and procedures of EU governance. The chapters in the book are based upon research carried out between 1995-1999 as part of the EU funded project Regional Guidelines to Support Land Use by EU Agri-Environment Programmes and a further research project carried out between 1999-2000.

The book is divided into 10 chapters. An introduction is followed by a chapter focusing on the 'environmentalisation' of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) that demonstrates the discursive nature of this process. Chapters 3 and 4 examine how the Directorate General for Agriculture of the European Commission and the European Parliament had their own agenda in respect of the 'environmentalisation' of the CAP. Chapter 5 examines the inter-institutional modalities at the supranational scale, paying attention to the lobby group Comité des Organisations Professionnelles Agricoles (COPA). Chapter 6 looks at the political interface between national and supranational scales of governance followed by a chapter which looks at the constraints imposed on the EU's Council of Ministers by rules and codes of procedure. Finally chapters 8 and 9 use examples of the implementation of the agri-environmental Regulation in France and Spain to show actions within the EU political activity spaces have been translated in territorial policy outcomes, which is then followed by a set of conclusions.

Alun Jones is Lecturer in Geography and Julian Clark is Senior Research Fellow at University College London.