Energy and Environmental Governance under Ecological Modernization: a Comparative Analysis of Nordic Countries
| Published date | 01 December 1999 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9299.00184 |
| Date | 01 December 1999 |
ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL
GOVERNANCE UNDER ECOLOGICAL
MODERNIZATION: A COMPARATIVE
ANALYSIS OF NORDIC COUNTRIES
ATLE MIDTTUN AND SVEIN KAMFJORD
In this study of energy and environmental governance in four Nordic countries, we
aim to shed further light on the question of organization of political governance
under transition to ecological modernization.
Our findings are that, in spite of a number of similarities, the Nordic countries
seem to be pursuing programmes of ecological modernization under rather different
regimes of political governance. However, we do not find the diversity of national
energy-environmental governance regimes by reference to national policy-making
styles. Instead, our analysis indicates that a more plausible explanation of the var-
iety may lie in differences in their industrial and resource-based structure. Given
diverse industrial structures, similar policy measures may have very different
effects on national economies, and hence, motivate distinct governance measures.
The paper concludes that a lock into a standardized ‘first-best’ mode of environ-
mental governance may prove detrimental to environmental modernization in prac-
tice, since it might expose economies to unacceptable consequences and then to a
fallback to traditional industrial strategies.
I FROM INDUSTRIAL TO ECOLOGICAL MODERNIZATION
It is now widely recognized that the environment is becoming a crucial
factor in industrial development, and several authors are pointing out that
advanced western economies are making transitions from industrial to eco-
logical modernization (Mol 1996; Weale 1992; Ja
¨nicke and Weidner 1995).
Ecological modernization, in this literature, aims at harnessing the power
of human ingenuity for the purposes of harmonizing economic advance-
ment with environmental improvement (Cohen 1997). Its major thesis is
that ‘economic growth and the resolution of ecological problems can, in
principle, be reconciled’ (Hajer 1996). Instead of seeing environmental pro-
tection as a burden on the economy, ecological modernists, therefore, see
it as a potential source of future growth. Hence, having the capacity to
produce low-polluting goods or technology is seen as giving considerable
advantage to an economy.
Following the long-standing dominance of economic rationality under
industrial modernization, ecological modernization implies that ecological
Atle Midttun and Svein Kamfjord are at the Norwegian School of Management, Sandvika, Norway.
Public Administration Vol. 77, No. 4, 1999 (873–895)
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874 ATLE MIDTTUN AND SVEIN KAMFJORD
rationality should catch up and gain an equal status as a driving perspective
on societal and industrial development.
One of the issues in focus under the ecological modernization debate is
the function and organization of the state. Even if often critical to traditional
bureaucratic intervention, and advocating development away from dirigiste
towards contextual steering, Ja
¨nicke (1993) and others in this tradition point
out the need to reinforce the state’s capacity and role in environmental
governance. Ja
¨nicke (1993) has, for instance, emphasized that ecological
modernization must imply strengthening the state capacity for ecological
reform. State capacity and political modernization includes such tasks as
better policy co-ordination mechanisms, institutions for ‘anticipatory plan-
ning’ (Andrews 1993) and long-term strategic orientation (Ja
¨nicke and
Weidner 1995). Political modernization is therefore seen as an indispensable
precondition for ecological modernization.
However, the step from functional specification of the need for state
capacity to the actual institutional shaping of a state apparatus ideally
suited to ecological modernization, is disputed. As argued by Weale et al.
(1996), there are ambiguous theoretical expectations as to whether efficient
ecological modernization is best served by a build-up of a given uniform
political governance structure in all countries, or whether variations in
national policy-making styles imply that ecological modernization is best
served by policy and administrative diversity. In favour of a similar struc-
ture hypothesis, Weale et al. (1996) list the rational actor model, which leads
us to expect that governments seeking solutions to similar problems will
find a common ‘optimum regime’ (Tinbergen 1959). Furthermore Weale et
al. (1996) point out that expectations of common governance regimes across
national boundaries may also be drawn from literature within the so called
policy sector approaches. To this tradition they list Ja
¨nicke (1990) who has
argued that institutionalization of environmental policy among other things
implies the establishment of an independent ministry of environment and
the creation of an environmental agency.
Expectations of a unique, uniform approach to environmental govern-
ance of the energy sector may also, according to Weale et al. (1996), be
derived from Majone (1991 and 1993). Majone argues that policy learning
should lead countries to adopt similar organizational reforms to deal with
a similar range of problems, as the problem-structure basically demands
the same types of technical competencies and solutions.
The above literature, however, is opposed by theories in the tradition
of national policy styles (Richardson 1982; Freeman 1985), which predict
persistent national differences in governance. Applied to the field of eco-
logical modernization, the national style literature predicts institutional
diversity and not coherent organizational patterns across national bound-
aries. A large literature on path dependency and national variation in polit-
ical economy points in the same direction (David 1993; Schonfield 1971;
Whitley 1994).
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999
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