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The Implementation Deficit of the Environmental Policy of the European Union: An Analysis of the Policy Instruments Deployed by the European Commission

Viitanen, Sara LU (2019) STVM23 20191
Department of Political Science
Abstract
Despite a relatively highly institutionalized and developed policy field, the EU environmental legislation suffers from a persistent implementation deficit. Although the challenges concern the supranational actors of the EU as well, the academic focus has been on the Member State level and in attempts explaining the challenges the national authorities face while implementing the EU environmental legislation. Since a rather comprehensive understanding of the problems on the Member State level exists, the focus of this thesis is on the less researched aspect of the implementation phase of policy processes: the role of the supranational level. The analysis concentrates on categorizing programs and instruments deployed by the Commission while... (More)
Despite a relatively highly institutionalized and developed policy field, the EU environmental legislation suffers from a persistent implementation deficit. Although the challenges concern the supranational actors of the EU as well, the academic focus has been on the Member State level and in attempts explaining the challenges the national authorities face while implementing the EU environmental legislation. Since a rather comprehensive understanding of the problems on the Member State level exists, the focus of this thesis is on the less researched aspect of the implementation phase of policy processes: the role of the supranational level. The analysis concentrates on categorizing programs and instruments deployed by the Commission while attempting to improve the implementation of the environmental policy. The categories include concepts from the enforcement, management and Implementation-Management Capacity approaches. The findings suggest that although the Commission is using a variety of strategies, the infringement procedure remains as the key instrument in ensuring proper implementation. The alternative instruments mainly represent problem solving strategies and are used to support the infringement procedure. Furthermore, this thesis includes general reflections about the Commission’s role and possible vulnerability in the complex EU policy process. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Viitanen, Sara LU
supervisor
organization
course
STVM23 20191
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
keywords
European Commission, EU policy process, environmental policy, implementation deficit, resource-dependence theory
language
English
id
8975907
date added to LUP
2019-09-06 09:19:06
date last changed
2019-09-06 09:19:10
@misc{8975907,
  abstract     = {{Despite a relatively highly institutionalized and developed policy field, the EU environmental legislation suffers from a persistent implementation deficit. Although the challenges concern the supranational actors of the EU as well, the academic focus has been on the Member State level and in attempts explaining the challenges the national authorities face while implementing the EU environmental legislation. Since a rather comprehensive understanding of the problems on the Member State level exists, the focus of this thesis is on the less researched aspect of the implementation phase of policy processes: the role of the supranational level. The analysis concentrates on categorizing programs and instruments deployed by the Commission while attempting to improve the implementation of the environmental policy. The categories include concepts from the enforcement, management and Implementation-Management Capacity approaches. The findings suggest that although the Commission is using a variety of strategies, the infringement procedure remains as the key instrument in ensuring proper implementation. The alternative instruments mainly represent problem solving strategies and are used to support the infringement procedure. Furthermore, this thesis includes general reflections about the Commission’s role and possible vulnerability in the complex EU policy process.}},
  author       = {{Viitanen, Sara}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{The Implementation Deficit of the Environmental Policy of the European Union: An Analysis of the Policy Instruments Deployed by the European Commission}},
  year         = {{2019}},
}