欧盟环境政策实施初探

经过30多年的努力,欧盟环境政策从产生到发展,不断拓展了环境保护的领域和视野。其广泛细致的环境立法、持续有效的环境行动计划和多元灵活的政策实施手段,是政策体系完善和政策实施效果的有力保证。本文简要介绍了欧盟环境政策的概念和发展历程,并试图从多方面分析欧盟环境政策得以成功实施的原因,着重介绍和分析了欧盟环境政策的多元化实施机制,以期为我国环境法的实施提供借鉴经验。     

Climate Change Policy Implementation: A Cross-Sectional Analysis

Why would countries invest resources to protect the global atmosphere, a global common‐pool resource? After all, this is an open‐access resource with no restrictions on appropriating its benefits. Furthermore, why would they do so under the aegis of a weak global regime (the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC) that has virtually no provisions for sanctioning noncompliance and when the largest contributor to the problem is not participating in the regime? This article examines why a number of countries have implemented the UNFCCC. I hypothesize that countries implement UNFCCC because they corner domestic environmental benefits, namely reduction in local pollution. In my empirical analysis of 127 countries, employing an ordinal logistic regression model, I find that local air pollution is associated with higher levels of implementation of the UNFCCC. Thus, I conclude that the incentives to implement a relatively weak global regime can be found in the domestic political economy.     

The Australian Public Service and Policy Advising: Meeting the Challenges of 21st Century Governance

This concluding article summarises the case study findings comprising the Special Issue on ‘Advising Australian Federal Governments: Assessing the Evolving Capacity and Role of the Australian Public Service’, identifies and discusses cross‐cutting issues, and considers strategic implications for future practice and research. It reviews key findings from six case studies – Treasury, Prime Minister and Cabinet, Intergovernmental Relations, Housing, the BER Stimulus program, and Defence – and assesses the policy advising capacity of the Australian Public Service, with a focus on the policy‐political interface between governments and officials. Putting recent experience in historical context, it considers the performance of the Commonwealth's policy advisory system, the impact of prime ministers and centralisation, the link between advising and analytic capacities, the system's resilience and readiness, whether recent dissatisfaction over APS advising reflect lack of capacity or a culture clash, and the responsibility for ensuring high‐quality policy advice. It recommends developing a more systematic approach to assessing policy advising capability, building on recent APS reforms.     

EU Cohesion Policy Implementation and Administrative Capacities: Insights from Italian Regions

In this article we explain Italy’s partial persisting difficulties in EU cohesion policy implementation by focusing on one specific variable: regional administrative capacity. In line with research findings based on the national level (Tosun, 2014 Tosun, J. (2014), Absorption of regional funds. A comparative analysis, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol.52, No.2, pp.371–387. doi: 10.1111/jcms.12088[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), our working hypothesis is that administrative capacity is the most important explanatory factor of EU cohesion policy implementation also at the regional level. In the article, by adopting a ‘most similar research cases’ design approach, we test the hypothesis with reference to two Italian regions: Campania and Puglia. In addition, we seek to adequately define the concept of ‘administrative capacity’ and operationalize it properly. In the concluding section, we consider the competitive advantage of our definition and operationalization of the notion of administrative capacity also with reference to other policy sectors beyond cohesion policy.     

Policy Narratives across Two Languages: A Comparative Study using the Narrative Policy Framework

The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) focuses on the role of narratives, drawing from a rich scholarship in narrative, language, and culture. Despite the understanding that narratives are constructions of language and that narrative construction differs across languages, NPF studies have not focused on policy narratives in languages other than English. Language characteristics of narratives are important to assess the stability of policy narratives when there are multiple dominant languages in a political system. This study investigates the use of narrative elements in policy narratives in agricultural biotechnology policy in India across Hindi and English media coverage to examine the NPF assumption that narratives have generalizable narrative elements irrespective of variation in linguistic context and, specifically, tests the transportability of narrative elements. Findings validate the transportability of narrative elements in Hindi narratives, indicate variation in the use of narrative elements over time, and have implications for applying NPF across languages.     

The Politics of Climate Policy: Strategic Options for National Governments

This article summarises the results so far of an international investigation aimed at identifying political strategies that make it easier for national governments to take more effective action against climate change while avoiding significant political damage. The numerous strategic options identified included strategies involving unilateral action by governments, strategies of persuasion, damage limitation strategies, strategies that can be used in political exchange with other political actors, and strategies designed to improve the bargaining position of governments by altering the terms of political exchange. The article concludes with a shortlist of especially promising strategies.     

Information and Environmental Policy: A Tale of Two Agencies

In recent years, scholars and practitioners have focused increasing attention on the role of information in achieving environmental policy goals. This article develops a framework for understanding how information is used in making environmental policy, and compares the kinds of information development and communication efforts undertaken by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the European Environment Agency (EEA). The analysis suggests that institutional factors such as organizational structure and the mix of policy instruments used by the agency affect the kinds of information efforts undertaken. It also suggests possible areas of focus for environmental information efforts within the EPA and the EEA. These suggestions and the framework provided may also be of use to other environmental agencies.     

The Multiple Domains of Harmonisation: Politics,Policy, Process and Program

This article builds a taxonomy of the different functions performed by the term ‘harmonisation’ in contemporary policy debates. Four broad functions or domains of use are identified – political, policy, process and program – within each of which there are multiple different uses. Based on this classification, the article then develops a multi‐dimensional conceptual framework through which the term can be better understood and examined, its political uses identified and isolated, and harmonisation initiatives constructed, framed and analysed. The framework should prove useful for Ministers and government departments called upon to determine if, how and to what extent to harmonise regulations in a particular area; regulators called upon to administer and enforce harmonised regulatory regimes; and regulatees, practitioners and academics concerned to understand the impact of a harmonisation task.     

Perspectives on the Capacity of the Australian Public Service and Effective Policy Development and Implementation

It is a long held tradition of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA) to invite speakers to address the Fellow's Colloquium as part of the annual symposium, with an aim to spark discussion and debate on a controversial and contemporary topic. In 2010 the debate was focused on the question of whether there had been a degradation of the professional capacity of the Australian Public Service (APS) with regard to effective policy development and implementation. The contributions of each of the four panel members are reproduced here, in part, and they reflect the diverse perspectives which informed a robust and compelling debate. Janine O'Flynn, the editor of these contributions, argues that any claim of degradation is based on rumour rather than hard evidence, and she sets out how we might think about policy capacity from a public sector management perspective. Sue Vardon, the former CEO of Centrelink and the architect of a transformation change program which redefined the delivery of public services in Australia, reflects on the strengths of the APS, but points out the current stresses that it now finds itself under. Anna Yeatman, an expert in political theory and its application to citizenship and public policy, argues that in the last twenty years we have witnessed degradation in the work of government and that this has impacted on policy capacity. Lyn Carson, an expert in deliberative democracy, points to the unrealised capacity that could come from increasing citizen involvement. Policy capacity is degraded, she argues, because we have systems that are neither deliberative nor representative. Individually these contributions spark their own controversies; together they ask us to consider the question in different ways.     

公共对话式政策执行及其支持性维度分析

顺应当前的行政民主化浪潮,政策执行中引入对话协商,即公共对话式政策执行,代表了政策执行领域的一种对话性转向,具有重要的理论与现实意义。公共对话式政策执行的支持性维度包括:动机性维度——利益偏好,保障性维度——行动与信任合作,政治性维度——话语民主,情境性与能动性维度——社会建构。这些支持性维度与公共对话式政策执行之间存在着双向的促进作用,共同推动实现政策执行过程的合法性与有效性。公共对话式政策执行这一议题是一个初始性研究,存在诸多有待进一步思考与分析的问题,但公共对话本身所蕴含的巨大潜力,表明其将有着良好的发展前景。     

Global Renewable Electricity Policy: A Comparative Policy Analysis of Countries by Income Status

Although the drivers of renewable electricity (RE) are well-established among Western high-income countries, little is known about the factors that encourage RE development elsewhere. This paper analyzes an unprecedented, original dataset of 149 countries from 1990 to 2010 to compare the policy instruments and other factors that influence RE adoption across low-, middle-, and high-income countries. We find the factors driving RE development vary both across income group and between hydroelectric and non-hydro generation. Most notably for environmental concerns, non-hydroelectric RE generation is driven by feed-in-tariffs and renewable portfolio standards in high-income countries, feed-in tariffs alone in middle-income countries, and by subsidies in low-income countries. Non-policy drivers of RE also vary by country income level.     

Public Subsidies for Private Schooling: A Comparative Analysis of Argentina and Chile

Argentina and Chile have long-standing policies that award public subsidies to private schools. This article compares the academic outcomes of seventh- and eighth-graders in public and private schools in each country. Three types of private schools are analyzed: Catholic schools that are subsidized by the government, nonreligious schools that are subsidized, and private schools that receive no subsidies. Ultimately, the analyses suggest a mixed portrait of private school effectiveness, in which Catholic schools have the most consistent links to achievement. Nonreligious subsidized schools in Chile, often operated by for-profit corporations, produce outcomes no different from public schools.     

The Policy Effects of Internationalization: A Subsystem Adjustment Analysis of Policy Change

This article contributes to a better understanding of contemporary policy analysis and management by setting out the parameters for analyzing policy change induced by internationalization. It first maps the dynamics of policy change in domestic settings and then explores how internationalization has affected the dynamics identified. The central proposition of the article is that internationalization promotes the restructuring of policy subsystems in such as way as to form hospitable circumstances for swifter and deeper policy changes than would otherwise be the case. However, the analysis suggests that this is a two-stage process in that once its initial impact is felt, internationalization serves to entrench and stabilize reconstructed policy systems, thus constraining the scope for further change.     

Policy Change,Policy Feedback,and Interest Mobilization: The Politics of Nuclear Waste Management

Many of the leading theories of the policy process are aimed at providing insights into the factors that make policy change more (or less) likely. In general, policy change is seen as a result of shifting dynamics within policy subsystems. However, building on theories of policy feedback and interest mobilization, this article examines whether policy change, apart from being an effect of subsystem dynamics, can be a cause of shifting dynamics as latent actors are motivated to participate in the subsystem as a result of policy change. Two hypotheses regarding post‐policy change mobilization are developed and tested using data on participation in congressional hearings concerning the management of nuclear waste. The findings suggest that policy change can activate latent policy actors, specifically those actors that view themselves as “losing” as a result of the policy change. These results point to the need for scholars to examine the potential impacts of post‐policy change dynamics on policy development.     

Success and Failure in Environment Policy: The Role of Policy Officials

This paper reports on interviews conducted between 2010 and 2013 with senior officials involved in Australian federal environmental policies over the past 30 years. It examines whether they have a prior sense of whether an environment policy is likely to succeed and their experience of the key factors driving environment policy success. Most interviewees claimed a strong prior sense of policy outcomes, but their expression of the key factors indicating success (consultation, clear objectives, a clear mandate, and a strong evidence base) varies from the usual emphases found in the public policy literature. The research illuminates the ways in which the policy officials at times exert a greater role than that suggested by the Westminster conventions or the policy theory literature. Not emphasised in the literature, yet pivotal for success in the vexed space of environmental policy, was the self‐directed yet at times skilful policy ‘agency’ exhibited by officials.     

Strategic Thinking,Shared Meaning‐Making and the Interpretive Turn in Policy ‐ A Case Study

Governments' demands for results in a complex and rapidly changing policy environment call for more strategic and nuanced ways of approaching policy. Drawing on the work of the British interpretive ‘turn’, evidenced in the network governance literature and the differentiated polity critique of Westminster narratives, and of Liedkta on strategy as design, this paper suggests that shared strategic narratives, more consciously applied to policy development and implementation, could deliver better results; that consensus from shared meaning‐making may have depth, and that it could emphasise the transformative over the conservative forces of individuals' traditions and beliefs. Data for the paper came from a micro‐study on the implementation of SmartGate automated border processing system in New Zealand.     

Short‐Term Emergency or Recurring Climatic Extreme: A Rural Town Perspective on Drought Policy and Programs

Drought is most often encountered as a long‐running and recurring climatic extreme; one that can have devastating environmental, social and economic impacts. While drought is a routine feature of the Australian climate, the politics of drought are often highly reactive, and drought support programs are notoriously ad hoc and ineffective. In the context of emergent global recognition of climate change, drought has received renewed political attention that presents significant opportunities for change. In this paper, we review the context of drought policy in Australia. Yet we seek to provide a unique contribution to current debates by considering the perspectives of those people at the forefront of drought; in particular, those people living and working in small rural towns in drought‐affected areas. The aim of the paper is to use a case study to present an account of drought policies and programs from those who are the targets of such interventions.     

Institutional Change Through Policy Learning: The Case of the European Commission and Research Policy

Research initiatives to enhance knowledge‐based societies demand regionally coordinated policy approaches. By analyzing the case of the European Commission, Directorate‐General Research and Innovation, this study focuses on examining the cognitive mechanisms that form the foundation for institutional transformations and result in leadership positions in regional governance. Drawing on policy learning theories, the study emphasizes specific mechanisms of institutional change that are often less noticeable but can gradually lead to mobilizing diverse groups of stakeholders. Through historical and empirical data, this study shows the importance of policy learning through communication processes, Open Method of Coordination initiatives, and issue framing in creating a stronger foundation for policy coordination in European research policy since the 2000s.     

Comparing Implementation of Internet Diffusion in the United States and France: Policies,Beliefs, and Institutions

Comparing Internet diffusion policies in the United States and France from an implementation perspective brings to light institutional and historical differences, even though both countries used the same top‐down approach. We find that France not only followed the technological lead of the United States in information technology but also emulated some of its more business‐oriented approaches in the implementation of the Internet, despite its own longstanding tradition of government intervention in industrial and commercial matters. This policy shift appears to be spurred by the global economy. Traditionally state‐controlled national economies are now increasingly leveraging private interests for successful industrial policy. When applying Sabatier and Jenkins‐Smith's advocacy coalition framework to the American and French diffusion of the Internet, we find policy communities actually expanding to private and public actors, including industry captains, legislators, and civil servants. These subsystems work together through classic lawmaking and lobbying under technological and economic constraints.     

Politics,Science, and Termination: A Case Study of Water Fluoridation Policy in Calgary in 2011

Policy termination is identified as a rare occurrence and thus difficult to study. However, one policy area, community water fluoridation, has seen an apparent increase in termination in recent years. We examine the specific case of termination in Calgary, Alberta in 2011 with a specific goal to apply Kingdon's Multiple Streams Approach to the policy termination framework. Our findings suggest that of key importance for the termination of water fluoridation was the impending need for an upgrade to the fluoridation infrastructure, the effectiveness of the local anti‐fluoridation activists, the speed of decision making, and a prominent framing of the issue in ethical terms. The opening of a policy window made possible by the 2010 Calgary municipal election, one that introduced a number of new members to council, as well as the presence of a policy entrepreneur who took advantage of the window's opening, were of specific importance to the success of policy termination.