Agri-Environmental Policy: Understanding the Role of Regional Administration (original) (raw)
Related papers
Agri-Environmental Policy in Germany: Understanding the Role of Regional Administration
2004
With regard to agri-environmental schemes under Regulation (EC) No. 1257/1999 in Europe a rather divers uptake as well as a lack of effectiveness and efficiency of these current schemes can be observed. In contrast to most of the related literature, we suggest that the ineffectiveness and inefficiency is inherent to the way those schemes are currently institutionalised in the framework
2004
Current research on the impact of agri-environmental schemes under the Rural Development Regulation (EC) 1257/99 (RDR) stresses the institutional, structural and cultural diversity, but also the wide range of natural conditions that shape the implementation processes. Furthermore, those agri-environmental policy instruments are closely linked to the development and institutionalisation of an European environmental policy in general and to a number of European directives, such as the 'Habitat' Directive, in particular. While taking the implementation of Article 16 of the RDR in the German federal state of Brandenburg as an illustrative case, we are aiming at developing a wider understanding of the implementation process and its regional impacts. In particular, we argue that it is necessary to understand the regional agrienvironmental discourse to which regional administrations refer to, the rationale of the administration itself and the mechanisms of decision making at the regional level. Regional administrations follow their own legitimate agendas and do not simply apply given measures, but modify and try to integrate them into wider regional strategies. In the case presented, we show that the regional administration's foremost concern to link political goals with given budgetary constraints resulted in a reshuffling of funds between schemes funded by different sources. We also show that European regulations are enforcing administrative procedures that do influence the design of agri-environmental schemes in a way that raises doubts about their environmental effectiveness. Finally, we argue, that the presumably sharp distinction between statutory environmental rules versus voluntary agri-environmental schemes is blurred in practice. Instead, they appear to be complementary in nature.
Experience with agri-environmental schemes in EU and non-EU members
This paper primarily illustrates the great diversity of Agri-Environmental Schemes (AESs) in the world. Given a common legislation, the European Union (EU) shows a wide variety of implementation patterns across Members. This results from a series of factors among which a key one is the distribution of public support between the two pillars of the Common Agricultural Policy. This discriminates former EU members and new entrants. In addition, past experience with environmental policy also accounts for differences between the two categories. Indeed, former entrants have applied a less ambitious policy than new Members. Otherwise, a successful implementation of AESs requires an effective participation of local actors, as well as simple and transparent administrative procedures. This is acknowledged by the new rural development regulation.
2005 International Congress, …, 2005
In this paper we apply a political objective function approach developed by Salhofer and Glebe (2004) to explain the high variability of agri-environmental program implementation at the EU regional level. The analysis covers 55 EU regions during the period 2001-2002, using basic data extracted from the Common Monitoring Indicators collected by the UE Commission for the programme's evaluation process. The main results indicate that the area covered by agrienvironmental programs increases in regions where budget constraints are less severe and where the social demand for environmental amenities is more relevant. Moreover, agri-environmental programs are negatively related to the participation opportunity cost and show a non linear relation with the farmer's political weight.
Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 2008
The authors analyze agri-environmental schemes (AES) from the perspective of new institutional economics (NIE). The field of NIE studies the effect of institutions on the decisions of economic actors. Policy is intended to shape institutions and thus influence behavior. NIE is therefore particularly suitable for the analysis of policy programs such as AES. Their aim is to explain some of the management problems that have arisen in AES and to contribute to finding solutions by using insights from NIE. To this end a specific Dutch AES is used as a case study, in which a number of administrative problems are analyzed. These problems prove to be similar to those that have been identified in other European AES, and are related to the ecological efficacy of this particular type of policy program, its economic efficiency, its administrative sustainability, and the level of sociopolitical support it enjoys. The explanation for the problems identified is based on NIE; this approach is also u...
Journal of Rural Studies, 2017
After nearly three decades of agri-environmental policy in the European Union, the negative environmental impacts of agricultural practices are still an ongoing problem. Though a substantial body of work underlines the economic, cultural, and social factors that could encourage farmers to adopt less damaging farming practices, many researchers as well as practitioners raise the question of the efficacy of leaving agri-environmental policy processes in the hands of farmers' organizations and national agricultural departments. The activation of non-agricultural actors in these processes is increasingly considered as a driving force toward greener agri-environmental schemes. Using the case of two French regions during the 2007e2013 period, this study examines the effects of the new, decentralized, and multi-stakeholder governance of agri-environmental scheme implementation. This analysis explores how the presence of regional and local political entities and environmentalist organizations affect (or not) both the content of agri-environmental schemes and the traditional corporatist style of agricultural policy making. This study shows two main results. First, it reveals that non-agricultural actors adopt various strategies to neutralize the reformist effect their presence should theoretically have generated within agri-environmental policy. Second, it indicates the dominance of a sectoral and corporatist policymaking style over the territorial modes of policy implementation. Together, these dynamics underline a path dependency phenomenon in agricultural policies, one characterized by the political-economic dominant position of agricultural administrations and farmers' groups.
Over the past 30 years, Agri-Environmental Policies (AEP) in the EU have developed with relative national autonomy and according to the subsidiarity principle. The environmental directives represent an increase in EU-level environmental ambitions and challenge the current implementation of EU AEP by creating an increasingly demanding set of regulations with which each member state must comply. National AEP implementation may, however, maintain original characteristics and fail to adopt or transform as EU policy implementation proceeds or when EU policies develop. This creates a potential gap between EU policies and national policy implementation resulting in the ensuing national policy dynamics and adaptations becoming issues of interest. This raises a central question regarding the extent to which national AEP implementation can help us predict whether AEP will be suitable to achieve environmental directive objectives nationally in the future. In this paper, we first investigate the dynamics in the implementation of national Agri-Environmental Schemes (AES) through changes in (i) AES policy objectives over time, (ii) administrative implementation structures, and (iii) administrative policy decision structures in the Netherlands, Denmark, Greece, Austria and Romania. Second, we examine the extent to which various factors have influenced the development of national policies over time. The study identifies development based on the theory of 'process of institutional change', i.e. we qualitatively estimate the costs of change based on proposed factors including economic conditions in relation to AES implementation, political institutional capacity, policy legacy, policy preferences, and current discourse. On this background, we identify differences in implementation strategies or outcomes in terms of inertia, absorption and transformation, which are characteristic of the national responses to changing AEP at the EU level. We discuss AES dynamics; whether policy content or structures should be in focus for future policy design and the implications of these findings for the future role of AEP in fulfilling environmental directives and argue why a one size fits all rule does not adequately cover current AES development.