Reducing Nitrate Pollution in Lower-Saxony: an Advocacy Coalition Framework Perspective on Belief Systems and Policy Change

Access to clean water is essential for human beings as well as a variety of industries, and natural ecosystems depend on this resource too. Consequently, the protection of water quality is a key element of European environmental policy. The European Union’s Nitrates Directive is one of the core policies; it aims to reduce water pollution caused by nitrate from agricultural sources. Already passed in 1991, the Nitrates Directive continues to suffer from implementation problems in several European countries, however. In Germany unresolved conflicts between environmental and agricultural interests lead to the persistence of exceeding levels of nitrate concentration in groundwater especially in the federal state of Lower-Saxony. Early attempts by local and national actors to draw attention to this erroneous trend in the early 2000s and to adapt the national regulation missed the mark. In 2013, the European Commission started an infringement proceeding against Germany, which constituted an important push factor for changes at the national level. In the end, the national fertilizer ordinance was amended in 2017, however with only minor changes at the instrument level. This was confirmed by an ECJ ruling in 2018 stating that this policy change was insufficient for reaching compliance with the EU Nitrates Directive. The paper explores the case of minor policy change in nitrate reduction policy in Lower-Saxony, Germany, from an Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) perspective. According to the ACF, external events increase the likelihood of major policy change and constitute a necessary, though not sufficient condition for policy change. Apart from learning, external shocks are the most frequently found trigger of policy change in ACF studies (Pierce et al. 2017). Against this background, the paper explores the process of policy change of nitrate reduction policy in Lower-Saxony and aims to reveal the mechanisms that brought about minor policy change while impeding more significant changes to occur. Nitrate reduction policy in Lower-Saxony thereby constitutes a suitable case to address the challenge of explaining minor policy change after an external shock (Jenkins-Smith et al. 2018). For that purpose, I conduct a qualitative in-depth case study on the regulation of groundwater nitrate pollution from agriculture in Lower-Saxony, Germany, from 2006 until 2019. The paper relies on two different sources of data: First, it analyses policy documents, namely public hearings and comments on draft legislation. Second, it builds on qualitative interviews with policy actors. On this basis the paper identifies the coalitions involved in the policy problem of nitrate pollution based on the actor’s belief systems and compares them at two points in time. In addition to belief systems, the role of coalition resources is examined and included in the analysis. In doing so, this paper contributes not only to our understanding of the political debate on nitrate pollution, but also sheds light on the conditions under which substantial external pressure fails to result in significant policy change.