Market definition as value reconciliation: the case of renewable energy promotion under the WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures

The interrelationship between renewable energy support policies and World Trade Organization (WTO) law is an important recent manifestation of the challenge to reconcile environmental and economic values in contemporary societies. This article strives to contribute to the discussion by using the intersection between policies to support renewable energy, in particular sustainable biofuels in the EU, and the WTO’s Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures as a case study. The article discusses how efforts to promote renewable energy seem to have become contingent upon the core legal notion of ‘relevant markets’. The article further claims that this contingency is problematic: renewable energy markets are highly complex in practice, and combined with the WTO’s convoluted interpretations of ‘relevant markets’, the legal outcomes struggle to find the proper balance between appropriate support for sustainability and the prevention of protectionist market fragmentation.     

Beliefs in Government

This article conveys the general findings of the multi-national, multi-volume Beliefs in Government research project, perhaps the most exhaustive analysis of mass beliefs and attitudes conducted in the west. In spite of considerable socio–economic change in recent decades, the study provides evidence of political stability, continuity and adaptability in west European countries. This suggests that political scientists should pay more attention than hitherto to pressures for inertia and continuity in western democracies.     

Preis der Fritz Thyssen Stiftung für sozialwissenschaftliche Aufsätze des Zeitschriftenjahrgangs 1998

Mitteilungen und Berichte

Preis der Fritz Thyssen Stiftung für sozialwissenschaftliche Aufs?tze des Zeitschriftenjahrgangs 1998