National and Temporal Patterns of Policymaking. Energy Transformations in the Netherlands and Germany Compared

Germany and the Netherlands are both involved in far reaching energy transformation policies. While their policy goals and long-term perspectives coincide, institutional differences as well as differences in their procedural approach could hardly be more pronounced. Major variations concern state structures, traditions of interest intermediation, and the involvement of policy experts. The Dutch “Energietransitie” is known for its distinct approaches to policy coordination, expert involvement and strategic planning, a high level of consensus, sharing of tasks, and not least achievements in evaluation measures. In September 2013 an Energy agreement (Energieakkoord) had been negotiated with a variety of stakeholders, amongst them firms and employers’ associations, energy suppliers, trade unions and environmental and conservationist organizations. In addition, two expert bodies, the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN) and the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (Planbureau voor de Leefomgeving, PBL) were involved. The Energieakkoord was negotiated under the direction of the Social Economic Council (Sociaal Economische Raad, SER) to whom the Dutch government had delegated this task. In addition, the SER took over the monitoring of implementation tasks. The German “Energiewende”, in contrast, struggles with an extremely complex political and administrative structure. Responsibilities are split between the federal, state and local levels of government. This is particularly true as, like in the Netherlands, manifold policy fields are concerned such as environmental and climate policies, macro-economic policies, industrial policy, research and technology policies, overall spatial planning and regional structural policies, construction and housing, and not least agricultural policies. In addition to vertical and horizontal coordination requirements the German party system has evolved from two and a half parties with three possible coalition governments into a complex system of seven relevant parties with now eight different coalition governments on the federal and state levels. The once significant corporatist intermediation of interests has vanished at the same time. The German energy sector once characterized by collusive private interest governments is now decentralized and politically fragmented. High levels of politicization and conflict, ongoing coordination problems, and an erosion of consensus bear increasing risks of policy failure. The German “Energiewende” differs in many aspects from previous policy shifts like the “Model Germany” approach in the 1970ies, the neo-liberal turn in the 1980ies, answers to the “unification-crisis” in the 1990ies and the Agenda 2010 welfare reform policies at the beginning of the 2000s. The Dutch “Energietransitie”, in contrast, follows an established policy pattern marked by delegation, administrative interest-intermediation, and mutual self-commitment. In addition, an almost all-embracing policy consensus has been sought through the inclusion of lower administrations and new forms of citizen participation as well as new monitoring and evaluation systems. Thus, the consultation and consensus mechanisms referred to as “Polder model” have definitely changed, but roughly speaking, its baselines have not moved. In its theoretical parts the paper discusses and seeks to explain cross-national and temporal variations of policy making in terms of shifting governance arrangements, theories of policy learning, the policy-styles concept, and the path dependency approach.