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Environmental policymaking in the European Union : a collective effort or merely the sum of national initiatives?
Breckwoldt, Lena Mercedes (2025) Environmental policymaking in the European Union : a collective effort or merely the sum of national initiatives?
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| Abstract: | In the context of rising pressure in competitiveness and concerns regarding the climate crisis, this study investigates European Union (EU) environmental policymaking with the research question: Environmental policymaking in the European Union – a collective effort or merely the sum of national initiatives? With the EU as the case, a single case study is applied trying to investigate the role of diversity of the member states in the EU and its potential to emulate foreign initiatives in the regard of environmental policy in order to stay competitive. In order to represent the diversity of the member states, a within case comparison with the countries Denmark, German and Poland is conducted. To investigate dynamics in EU environmental policymaking, the theoretical frameworks of liberal intergovernmentalism and neo-functionalism are applied, representing two different approaches to European integration. Through the qualitative analysis of several official EU documents related to the Green Deal Industrial Plan and member state documents responding to these EU efforts, data is collected. The data analysis consisted of systematic coding, applying a predeveloped coding scheme along theoretical concepts of neo-functionalism and liberal intergovernmentalism. Observations from the findings revealed integration dynamics especially in regional contexts and country clusters, which confirmed liberal intergovernmentalist as well as neo-functionalist assumptions, suggesting a hybrid appearance of the theories. Benchmarking the level of ambition of EU environmental policy against the inflation reduction act, as one of the EUs main competitors in this field, the EU was found normatively ambitious, while underperforming in incentive based measures. This study aims to contribute to the examination of the institutional set up of the European Union to discover its potential and role of the diversity of the member states in implementation and effectiveness of EU initiatives in the context of rising pressure on the EUs competitiveness. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Bachelor) |
| Faculty: | BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences |
| Subject: | 89 political science |
| Programme: | Management Society and Technology BSc (56654) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/107769 |
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