The European Green Deal (EGD) represents a multilevel and multisector initiative in Europe’s ecological transformation, with the overarching goal of achieving carbon neutrality by mid-century. Encompassing a diverse range of policy domains, including agriculture, energy, transport, buildings, and industry, the EGD reflects an unprecedented integration of efforts.
This workshop aims to provide an in-depth analysis of the EGD framework, from both a governance and an implementation perspective, exploring (a) how it navigates diverse national and sectoral contexts and (b) how various constellations of multilevel actors in different Member States and sectors engage with and implement the Green Deal’s objectives.
This workshops aims to bring together scholars from governance and implementation research in an age of transformation. From a governance perspective, we examine whether the EGD marks a departure from previous regulatory styles in the EU and the Member States, e.g. in environmental policy, energy policy, agricultural policy etc. In particular, we focus on tendencies of ‘hardening’ and ‘softening’ governance (Maggetti 2015; Schoenefeld and Knodt 2021; Terpan 2015) as well as elements of experimentalist governance (Rangoni 2022; Rangoni and Zeitlin 2020; Zeitlin 2016) inherent in the EGD framework and how this addresses the multilevel and multisector challenges of an ecological transition.
From an implementation perspective, we examine how different types of (integrated) instrument mixes (Bazzan et al. 2023) on the European and national levels are implemented by a diverse range of state and non-state actors. In cross-country and cross-sector comparisons, we examine how varied national contexts, regulatory traditions and interest constellations (Héritier et al. 2001; Treib 2014) shape the realisation of the EGD, discussing the intricacies of a highly discretionary implementation and shedding light on potential compliance issues (Börzel 2021). Our goal is a systematic review of governance arrangements and/or instrument mixes and their corresponding implementation challenges.
This multifaceted examination of the EGD framework, integrating debates from governance and implementation research, will provide valuable insights into the complexities of Europe's ecological transition and inform future policy and research endeavours.
Bazzan, G., Daugbjerg, C. and Tosun, J. (2023) ‘Attaining Policy Integration Through the Integration of New Policy Instruments: The Case of the Farm to Fork Strategy’, Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy 45(2): 803–18, doi:10.1002/aepp.13235.
Börzel, T.A. (2021) Why Noncompliance: The Politics of Law in the European Union, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Héritier, A. et al. (eds) (2001) Differential Europe: The European Union Impact on National Policymaking, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Maggetti, M. (2015) ‘Hard and Soft Governance’, in K. Lynggaard, I. Manners and K. Löfgren (eds), Research Methods in European Union Studies, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 252–65.
Rangoni, B. (2022) ‘Experimentalist Governance’, in C.K. Ansell and J. Torfing (eds), Handbook on Theories of Governance, Cheltenham, UK, Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Rangoni, B. and Zeitlin, J. (2020) ‘Is Experimentalist Governance Self-Limiting or Self-Reinforcing? Strategic Uncertainty and Recursive Rulemaking in European Union Electricity Regulation’, Regulation & Governance 15(3): 822–39, doi:10.1111/rego.12309.
Schoenefeld, J.J. and Knodt, M. (2021) ‘Softening the surface but hardening the core? Governing renewable energy in the EU’, West European Politics 44(1): 49–71, doi:10.1080/01402382.2020.1761732.
Terpan, F. (2015) ‘Soft Law in the European Union: The Changing Nature of EU Law’, European Law Journal 21(1): 68–96.
Treib, O. (2014) ‘Implementing and Complying with EU Governance Outputs’, Living Reviews in European Governance 9(1), doi:10.12942/lreg-2014-1.
Zeitlin, J. (2016) ‘EU Experimentalist Governance in Times of Crisis’, West European Politics 39(5): 1073–94.
1: What (new) instruments does the EGD employ, compared to previous (sectoral) regulation?
2: How is the EGD translated into national, regional and local governance arrangements?
3: Do certain governance arrangements within the EGD present distinct implementation challenges?
4: Does EGD implementation vary among Member States, e.g. due to differing regulatory traditions?
5: Which state and non-state actors are pivotal in implementing Europe's ecological transition?
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