The Political Economy of Socio-Ecological Transitions: Explaining Varieties of Policy Responses to Farmers' Protests in Six EU Countries

Often neglected in comparative political economy, the agricultural sector is ever more at the forefront of the green transition, with major implications on both citizens’ livelihoods and ecological impacts. In recent years, agriculture has been squeezed between rising costs and pressing environmental commitments from the EU and national policy-makers alike. In 2022-23, disruptions in global value chains and inflation have triggered a major wave of farmers' protests across Europe. We isolate this ‘exogenous shock’ to track farmers’ protests across advanced economies and government responses to the crisis in agriculture. In a first step, we theorize and systematically code policy changes following farmers' protests in two cross-cutting categories: ‘compensation’ to traditional agriculture (i.e. economic subsidies, tax discounts, etc.) and ‘investments’ in sustainable farming (i.e. bans on fertilizers, emission regulation, efforts for long-term adaptation). We combine these categories to map policy variation (green backlash/stagnation/green transition) in six EU countries: Italy, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, France and Ireland. In a second step, we adopt a coalitional approach to single out the main drivers behind this policy variation, looking at which organized interests prevail in each country and how institutional settings mediate political pressures.