Combating Climate Change in the UK: Challenges and Obstacles1

There is a curious disjunction between the Labour Government's international actions and its domestic policy. Although Tony Blair did much to promote the climate change agenda on the international stage, domestically, with carbon emissions rising again, the Government will fail to meet its target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 20% below 1990 levels by 2010. This article examines the weaknesses in the Labour Government's domestic record and assesses the significance of the recent transformation of climate change politics. Several obstacles to the design and delivery of more effective policies are identified, which can be categorised as either problems of ‘environmental politics’ or ‘environmental governance’. It is argued that the recent politicisation of climate change has overcome some of these obstacles ‐ albeit temporarily ‐ but whether the pressure for further policy measures can be sustained, with a long‐term impact on environmental governance, remains uncertain.     

Blairite Modernisation and Countryside Policy

When New Labour came to power in 1997, the party's manifesto had little to say about rural policy, beyond a proposal to allow a free vote to ban hunting with dogs and a commitment to establish a right to roam—essentially 'old Labour' and symbolic issues. However, in its early years the Blair government became drawn more heavily into rural policy reform and increasingly came to see rural issues as a territory on which its grand project of national renewal and modernisation could be played out. This article reviews the rise and fall of rural policy under New Labour, and charts how the aftermath of the 2001 foot and mouth disease crisis eventually saw rural issues marginalised within government. It shows how the Blair governments' strange and unexpected excursion into reforming rural and agricultural policy provides a case study of the rise and fall of modernisation more generally.     

Argumentation and Interpretation in Law

Abstract
The author proceeds from a brief elucidation of the concept "argumentation" through a more extended account of substantive reasons in pure practical argumentation and of institutional argumentation applying "authority reasons" as grounds for legal decisions to an initial account of the nature and place of legal interpretative reasoning. Then he explores the three main categories of interpretative arguments, linguistic arguments, systemic arguments and teleological/deontological arguments; and he examines the problem of conflicts of interpretation and their resolution. His conclusion is that legal argumentation is only partly autonomous since it has to be embedded within widerelements of practical argumentation.     

EXPLAINING RADICAL POLICY CHANGE: THE CASE OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENERGY POLICY UNDER THE BRITISH LABOUR GOVERNMENT 2006–10

An innovative framework combining the ‘multiple streams’ (MS) and ‘punctuated equilibrium’ (PE) models of agenda‐setting is used to explain the transformation of UK climate change and energy policy under the Labour Government between 2006 and 2010. The coupling of the problem, politics and policy streams by policy entrepreneurs (MS), and changes in policy image and institutional venues (PE), were critical in opening a policy window, disrupting the existing policy monopoly and enabling radical policy initiatives. The case study suggests two revisions to the models: (1) policy windows can remain open far longer than either model typically predicts; and (2) party politics, especially where party competition generates a ‘competitive consensus’, can be important for both initiating and prolonging policy change in parliamentary systems. An important factor typically overlooked by both models is the significant policy entrepreneurship role that government ministers can play, particularly when an issue becomes part of their ‘narrative identity’.     

GOVERNING INFORMATION: A THREE DIMENSIONAL ANALYSIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT

This article examines the institutional, political and regulatory dimensions of environmental assessment (EA) processes. While EA is most often conceptualized as a regulatory instrument, this article contends that viewing EA in this narrow fashion obscures the broader implications and significance of EA as a distinct form of governance. When conceived as a mode of governance, EA varies considerably in terms of the key governance characteristics emphasized in this symposium. The empirical evidence rests upon three cases studies looking at very different multi‐level governance contexts: the Tamar Valley Pulp Mill in Australia, the Whites Point Quarry in Canada, and the Byströe Canal Project in the Ukraine. The case study analysis identifies large variations in the institutional, political and regulatory form that EAs take, indicating that approaches identifying EA as a form of ‘New Governance’ are overly simplistic. The analysis also points to the multi‐directional influence of different governance dimensions. The insights derived from the use of the three dimensional framework validate its value as an analytical tool.