This book assesses how governance has evolved in six nations - England, Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands - between 1970 and 2018. More specifically, it examines how the governance approaches and the sets of policy tools used to govern have altered with respect to four public policy sectors that represent core responsibilities of the modern OECD state: education, energy, environment and health. To structure this analytical approach, the book harnesses sociological institutionalism in the area of 'policy sequencing' to trace both the motivations and the consequences of policy-makers' altering governance approaches and the resulting policy tools. Combining a comparative and international focus, this book will appeal to scholars and students of public policy and governance.

This book explores the dominant framings and paradigms of environmental politics, the relationship between academic analysis and environmental politics, and reflects on the first thirty years of the journal, Environmental Politics. The book has two purposes. The first is to identify and discuss the key themes that have driven scholarship in the field of environmental politics over the last three decades, and to highlight how this has also led to oversights and silences, and the marginalisation of important forms of analysis and thought. As several chapters in the book explore, problem-solving frameworks have increasingly taken away space from more radical systemic challenge and critique, as the key themes of environmental politics have become ever more central to the field of politics as a whole - and as our understandings of social and environmental crisis become ever clearer and more urgent. The second purpose of the volume is to map out a series of new and developing agendas for environmental politics. The chapters in this volume focus foremost on questions of justice, materiality, and power. Discussing state violence, multispecies justice, epistemic injustice, the circular economy, NGOs, parties, green transition, and urban climate governance, they call above all for greater attention to intersectionality and interdisciplinarity, and for centering key insights about power relations and socio-economic inequalities into increasingly widespread, yet also often depoliticised, topics in the study of environmental politics. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Environmental Politics.

Many highly industrialized countries are rapidly adopting new environmental policy instruments (NEPIs) such as eco-taxes, tradable permits, voluntary agreements and eco-labels. This apparently profound shift has prompted widespread claims that NEPIs have eclipsed regulation as the preferred tool of environmental policy. This volume offers a fresh perspective on the evolving tool-box of environmental policy by providing a systematic analysis of the policy and politics surrounding the adoption and use of the main NEPIs in a variety of countries. By blending political theories with fresh empirical material, the contributors to this interdisciplinary volume assess the claim that NEPIs have supplanted regulation, heralding a new era of environmental governance in which the state plays a secondary role in sustainability policy-making.

This book assesses how governance has evolved in six nations – England, Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands – between 1970 and 2018. More specifically, it examines how the governance approaches and the sets of policy tools used to govern have altered with respect to four public policy sectors that represent core responsibilities of the modern OECD state: education, energy, environment and health. To structure this analytical approach, the book harnesses sociological institutionalism in the area of ‘policy sequencing’ to trace both the motivations and the consequences of policy-makers’ altering governance approaches and the resulting policy tools. Combining a comparative and international focus, this book will appeal to scholars and students of public policy and governance.

Many highly industrialized countries are rapidly adopting new environmental policy instruments (NEPIs) such as eco-taxes, tradable permits, voluntary agreements and eco-labels. This apparently profound shift has prompted widespread claims that NEPIs have eclipsed regulation as the preferred tool of environmental policy. This volume offers a fresh perspective on the evolving tool-box of environmental policy by providing a systematic analysis of the policy and politics surrounding the adoption and use of the main NEPIs in a variety of countries. By blending political theories with fresh empirical material, the contributors to this interdisciplinary volume assess the claim that NEPIs have supplanted regulation, heralding a new era of environmental governance in which the state plays a secondary role in sustainability policy-making.

The Future of European Union Environmental Politics and Policy investigates the trajectory of European Union (EU) environmental policy and reflects on how this hugely vital policy area of the EU has evolved over the decades. Gathering together a selection of the leading scholars working on European environmental policy, the volume assesses the extent to which change has occurred in important dimensions of EU environmental policy research. These dimensions include the EU's values and approaches; the provision of leadership; the possibilities of Brexit and the dismantling of policies; policy instruments and climate change; policy implementation and enforcement; and policy evaluation. The contributors situate their research in the context of current developments and conditions, including the global economic challenges and the rise of political challenges to both European governance and integration. Each chapter reviews the EU environmental policy over the long term and assesses the implications of current developments for the future health of European environmental policy, European integration and the environment itself. The Future of European Union Environmental Politics and Policy will be of great interest to scholars of environmental politics, environmental governance and EU policy. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of Environmental Politics.

'This book fills an important gap in the environmental governance literature, addressing governance at a lower level of abstraction than other texts and examining how it plays out in relation to specific modes and instruments of governing. It also contributes towards governance theory-building efforts through the development of an empirically relevant analytical framework. In so doing it provides a firm underpinning for assessing whether, to what extent and in what ways there has been a transition from government towards governance in environmental policy.' - Neil Gunningham, Australian National University'Theoretically sophisticated and empirically rich, this book provides an overview of the introduction, development, and use of new policy instruments and new modes of environmental governance in the European context, taking into account both national and European Union experiences. This is a welcome addition to the field!' - Miranda Schreurs, Environmental Policy Research Centre and Free University of Berlin, Germany European governance has witnessed dramatic changes in recent decades. By assessing the use of 'new' environmental policy instruments in European Union countries including the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and Austria, this timely book analyses whether traditional forms of top-down government have given way to less hierarchical governance instruments, which rely strongly on societal self-steering and/or market forces. The authors provide important new theoretical insights as well as fresh empirical detail on why, and in what form, these instruments are being adopted within and across different levels of governance, along with analysis of the often-overlooked interactions between the instrument types. Providing important new theoretical insights into the governance debate by combining institutionalist and policy learning/transfer approaches, this book will be invaluable for both undergraduate and postgraduate students. The analytical insights as well as a thorough empirical assessment of the use of environmental policy instruments in practice will prove essential for environmental policy specialists/practitioners. Contents: Preface Part I: Introduction 1. Environmental Policy: From Government to Governance? Part II: Context 2. Governing by Policy Instruments: Theories and Analytical Concepts 3. Changing Institutional Contexts for the Use of Policy Instruments Part III: Governing by New Instruments 4. Governing by Informational Means 5. Governing by Voluntary Means 6. Governing by Eco-taxes 7. Governing by Emissions Trading Part IV: Emerging Patterns of Governing 8. Changing Patterns of Environmental Policy Instrument Use 9. Out with the 'Old' and in with the 'New'? Governing with Policy Instruments Bibliography Index