How Power and Ideas Shape Policy Reforms: The Role Of Narratives In the CAP Reforms

Within the European context, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) represents one of the most complex and contested policymaking process due to its long history and extensive cross-sectoral ramifications. New emerging interests are challenging its traditional role of support for farmers, with increasing demands for a more holistic and sustainability-cantered approach. However, the existing institutional framework, which disproportionately favours farmers' interests, hinders radical change, impeding the transition to a sustainable agricultural system. In this context, European interest groups use competing policy paradigms to strategically frame policy problems and solutions to shift the debate in the European institutions towards a more conservative or reformative direction. Considering the central position of interest groups in representing the demands from civil society, as well as in providing information to decision makers, this paper investigates their role in shaping policy reforms. The increased role of new policy actors, such as the DG ENV and the European Parliament, is changing the dynamics of the relationship between interest groups and European institutions. This contribution combines Narrative Policy Framework and discursive institutionalism to examine how interest groups use discourses and narratives to push for their preferred policy solutions. Emerging interest groups construct narrative strategies to expand the scope of decision-making, advocating for the adoption of new measures like eco-schemes. Yet, traditional farmers’ and industrial groups contrast this expansion with their own narrative strategies, which need to take into consideration the new ideas that have entered the policy arena. The study applies a Discourse Network Analysis to the position papers and statements issued by interest groups during the latest CAP reform (2017-2021). The scope of the study is to understand how actors’ narratives interact and influence each other, shaping the scope of policy reforms. Understanding these mechanisms has fundamental implications for the transparency and accountability of the democratic process.