The paper investigates whether new ideas about policy, institutional processes and policy instruments are transforming traditional OECD state arrangements, or do national institutions continue to shape path dependent dynamics of how actors behave and how instruments operate. The paper uses policy sequencing theory to isolate the core decisions that shape the environmental governance paths taken by 3 OECD countries (Australia, Canada, and the Netherlands). The paper asks whether the governance-related developments in each of the OECD case countries follow any particular pattern of convergence. The paper explores the utility of a threefold governance framework that explores institutional context, political context and ideational variables to explain policy choices. The paper uses a mixture of interviews, government documentation and secondary sources to highlight the nature of environmental policy-making across multiple levels of analysis for the 1990-2012 period.
