Managing networks: Cohesion and fluidity in EU climate cooperation with European neighbours
| Published date | 01 September 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14651165231152836 |
| Author | Karina Shyrokykh,Lisa Dellmuth,Elisa Funk |
| Date | 01 September 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Managing networks:
Cohesion and fluidity in EU
climate cooperation with
European neighbours
Karina Shyrokykh
Department of Economic History and International Relations,
Stockholm University, Sweden
Lisa Dellmuth
Department of Economic History and International Relations,
Stockholm University, Sweden
Elisa Funk
Salzburg Centre of European Union Studies (SCEUS), University
of Salzburg, Austria
Abstract
The European Union (EU) is increasingly relying on regional policy networks to govern
climate change outside its borders, both in the areas of climate change adaptation
and mitigation. Although the functioning of such policy networks has consequences
for climate policy in participating countries, little is known about the role of such net-
works. This article focuses on the example of climate cooperation with the European
Neighbourhood Policy region, conceptualizingtheEUasanetworkmanager.Usinga
novel dataset on climate networks in the European Neighbourhood Policy region for
the period 2013–2017, we show that the EU uses climate networks for multiple
purposes. The results suggest that the EU uses climate networks not only to mitigate
the risks associated with climate change, but also to manage varying contexts in the
region.
Corresponding author:
Karina Shyrokykh, Department of Economic History and International Relations, Stockholm University,
Universitetsvägen 10 A, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden.
Email: Karina.shyrokykh@ekohist.su.se
Article
European Union Politics
2023, Vol. 24(3) 539–558
© The Author(s) 2023
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/14651165231152836
journals.sagepub.com/home/eup
Keywords
Climate change adaptation, climate change mitigation, European neighbourhood policy,
European Union, network management
Introduction
The European Union (EU) is often referred to as one of the leading actors in global
climate governance (e.g., Bäckstrand and Elgström, 2013). Examples underpinning
this reputation are the EU’s energy policy (Dupont, 2016), its Emission Trading
System (Liu et al., 2019), its regulation of aircraft emissions (Bernauer et al., 2013),
the Green Diplomacy Network (Bremberg et al., 2019) and the EU’s funding of multilat-
eral climate action (Dellmuth et al., 2020). Given this track record, it comes as no surprise
that the EU has also extensively engaged in climate governance in the European
Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) region.
1
This region is highly vulnerable to climate change. Especially the southern neighbour-
hood has experienced dramatically rising temperatures, more frequent droughts and
increasing water scarcity (Rizzo, 2016). Existing vulnerabilities to climate change in
the region could, in turn, adversely affect national security, human livelihoods and migra-
tion flows –all areas of strategic importance to the EU (European Commission, 2009).
The region’s strategic importance for the EU warrants an inquiry into the motivations
underpinning the EU’s climate governance in the ENP region, which is the focus of
this article.
Climate change poses a complex transboundary policy challenge, as it cannot be
handled unilaterally. In the absence of international cooperation among partner states,
climate policies become uncoordinated and inefficient. To coordinate efforts to combat
the threats posed by climate change for nature and societies, the EU uses various instru-
ments. Unlike the instruments that the EU can apply unilaterally, such as conditionality
attached to trade agreements or climate diplomacy, climate policy networks build on hori-
zontal ties between the EU and third countries (Shyrokykh, 2022).
In this article, we shed new light on the EU’s climate governance in regional policy
networks. Toward this end, we build on network governance theory which yields
important insights for this current study for two main reasons. First, network governance
theory is uniquely suitable for studying the international governance of complex issues
such as climate change, as this governance is often characterized by interdependent
and interconnected sets of actors. To capture the dynamics in these forms of governance,
network governance theory acknowledges the interdependence of actors in a network
(e.g., Agranoff and McGuire, 1999; McGuire, 2002; Slaughter and Hale, 2013).
Network governance is defined as decision-making in relation to cross-border challenges
and situations when joint problems require policy solutions from interdependent actors
(cf. Jones et al., 1997; McGuire, 2002). In this article, EU climate networks are well cap-
tured by the theoretical concept of policy networks, as the latter are issue-specific, focus
on joint problem-solving and have the aspiration to improve climate cooperation. Second,
we build on network governance theory as it provides insights into the functions served
540 European Union Politics 24(3)
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