POLICY‐LEARNING AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY INTEGRATION IN THE COMMON AGRICULTURAL POLICY, 1973–2003
| Author | PETER H. FEINDT |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.2010.01833.x |
| Published date | 01 June 2010 |
| Date | 01 June 2010 |
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9299.2010.01833.x
POLICY-LEARNING AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
INTEGRATION IN THE COMMON AGRICULTURAL
POLICY, 1973–2003
PETER H. FEINDT
This article uses the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith 1999;
Weible and Sabatier 2007) and a refined version of the social learning approach of Peter Hall (1993)
to assess and explain policy change in the Common (Agricultural) Policy (CAP) with a special
view on Environmental Policy Integration (EPI). Three stages of EPI are discerned that move from
central to vertical and later horizontal EPI, complementing an impact model of agriculture and the
environment with a public goods model. Reform debates appear as prolonged and iterative battles
over the institutionalization of new ideas which are finally incorporated into the existing policy
framework. The policy network increasingly reflects cross-policy interdependencies and includes
superior authorities, rendering the notion of a policy subsystem problematic. Contrary to the social
learning model, the major (although not the most radical) change proponent dominates the policy
community while superior authorities tend to intervene on behalf of the status quo. The argument
is developed on the base of interviews with policy-makers in Brussels.
INTRODUCTION
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union (EU) has been the object
of seminal work on policy change and stability. This article addresses two puzzles that
arise from this well established body of scholarship. Firstly, the CAP is renowned for
radical policy change and paradigm shift or at the same time for path dependence and
policy entrenchment. The last two decades have indeed witnessed remarkable change in
instruments and discourse from state-assisted, developmental and productivist to a ‘mul-
tifunctional’ agriculture paradigm (Coleman et al. 1997; Coleman 1998; Daugbjerg 2003;
Garzon 2006). But the reformed CAP has barely changed in terms of its budget size and
distribution (Moyer and Josling 1990, 2002; Kay 2003; Ackrill 2005). It has also continued
to adhere to an exceptionalist ideology which assumes that agriculture is different from
other economic sectors (Skogstad 1998; Fouilleux 2004). This apparent contradiction calls
for revisiting the diagnosis of paradigm shift in the CAP. Secondly, budget problems
and trade conflicts are widely regarded as the main drivers of change (Swinbank and
Tanner 1996; Swinbank 1999; Guyomard et al. 2000; Davis 2004; Fouilleux 2004; Daugbjerg
and Swinbank 2007). But it is the integration of environmental concerns into the CAP
which constitutes the programmatic core of the shift toward the new ‘multifunctionality’
paradigm (Skogstad 1998; Josling 2002). Since the multifunctionality concept offers little
obvious help for resolving budget problems and was rather critically received in the inter-
national arena (OECD 2001; Potter and Burney 2002), we have to ask why policy-makers
embarked on environmental policy integration (EPI) as part of their solution.
To address the first puzzle, the article deploys two models of policy learning: the
Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith 1999; Weible and
Sabatier 2007) accentuates the role of the Commission as a policy broker when participants
in the CAP policy subsystem face a ‘hurting stalemate’ (Nedergaard 2008). But the ACF
distinguishes (rather coarsely) between minor adjustments of ‘secondary beliefs’ and
Peter H. Feindt is in the School of City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University.
Public Administration Vol. 88, No. 2, 2010 (296–314)
©2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden,
MA 02148, USA.
THE COMMON AGRICULTURAL POLICY, 1973–2003 297
major changes of the ‘policy core’. The article therefore introduces to the discussion on
the CAP a refinement of Peter Hall’s (1993) model of policy learning suggested by Oliver
and Pemberton (2004). They consider the partial adoption of new ideas into a policy
framework to be a probable option. This allows a more accurate classification of the
type of policy change in the CAP. Furthermore, change must be explained with recourse
to the policy process. Hall (1993) explains major policy shifts through fragmentation
of authority, a broadening of the policy network, and political contestation. Oliver and
Pemberton (2004) suggest a closer focus on the battle over the institutionalization of new
ideas. This perspective will be applied in this article to better understand why the CAP
has adopted new instruments and ideas without completely abandoning its old ideational
framework. It will be complemented by an attentiveness to the institutionalization of
ideas informed by discursive institutionalism (Lynggaard 2007).
With regard to the second puzzle, the article draws on the concept of Environmental
Policy Integration (EPI) to introduce to the debate on CAP change a better understanding
of why environmental concerns have so successfully made their way into this seemingly
well isolated policy. Distinguishing (a) between central and decentral EPI (Jacob and
Volkery 2005, 2007); and (b) between the vertical and horizontal dimension of the latter
(Lafferty and Hovden 2003) allows to discern three stages of EPI in the CAP. They are
linked to subsequent stages of ever bigger policy change in the CAP in general and coin-
cide with a shift from an ‘impact model’ to a ‘public goods model’ of EPI in agriculture
policy (Lowe and Baldock 2000).
The paper proceeds as follows: first, there is a discussion which covers the ACF and the
societal learning approach and derives a model of ‘normal politics’ and change in the CAP.
The section that follows clarifies the concept of EPI and introduces two models of EPI in
the CAP. I then analyse policy change in the CAP, distinguishing three stages of EPI in the
CAP between 1973 and 2003 and assessing the degree of policy change over time. The next
section validates this assessment with findings from interviews with policy-makers in
Brussels and provides a more detailed account of the process that led to the 2003 reform. A
conclusion resumes the argument and provides an outlook on more recent developments.
MODELS OF POLICY LEARNING AND THE CAP
Models of policy learning
Policy learning has advanced ‘to the concept mosto ftenused by social scientists concerned
with explaining policy adjustments in the face of crisis-inducing problems and the failure
of past policy solutions’ (Schmidt and Radaelli 2004, p. 189). Theories of policy learning
have challenged older models that conceived policy change as a direct response to external
events, societal pressure or simply to power relations. Instead, ‘learning theories have
sought to address the complex relation between power and knowledge in the policy
process and to consider changes in ideas as a central factor in understanding policy
change’ (Grin and Loeber 2007, p. 201; see also Feindt 2010).
Various models of policy learning differ on who learns what and to what effect (Bennett
and Howlett 1992, p. 289). Scholars concerned with policy change in the CAP have mainly
deployed Hall’s (1993) historical institutionalist concept of social learning (Coleman
et al. 1997; Coleman 1998), Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith’s (1993, 1999) Advocacy Coalition
Framework (Nedergaard 2008) or a discursive institutional perspective (Lynggaard 2007).
This section discusses these approaches with regard to the CAP.
Public Administration Vol. 88, No. 2, 2010 (296–314)
©2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
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