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Paper submitted for publication in March 2014 and to be published in a revised version in February 2015 in Comparative European Politics. For the final version, see doi:10.1057/cep.2015.6

Introduction à la Section du même nom. ; Since the early 1990s, the governing of the EU has been characterized by a growing diversity in forms of policy making. More specifically, after a decade of innovations and new policy developments, the introduction of new types of "policy instruments" were aimed at both rationalising public policies and democratising forms of policy-making. Such tools (e.g., organization charts, framework agreements, European employment strategy, open method of coordination, the so called Bologna process, etc.), which are characterized by their non-hierarchical nature, seek direct involvement from a large variety of social groups and open - at least in principle - new political opportunities for EU institutions, in particular the European Commission. Nevertheless, some recent scholarly work shows how such political opportunities have not always increased the coordination capacity of the European institutions (again, in primis the European Commission), nor has the decision-making process been effectively more open with respect to civil society. In other terms, the overall impact of the new modes of governance on EU policy making still remains contested. Using new modes of governance as an organizing concept, the proposed section aims at addressing the impact of changing patterns of policy making, both in terms of rationalisation and democratization. This focus also enables to address a new important set of questions to be posed with respect to democratization processes within different political systems: to what extent have new modes of governance contributed to the enhancement of the steering capacity of EU institutions and to the democratization of forms of policy making at EU level? Have - and if so, how - 'new' modes of governance redefined the relationship among various levels of government within the EU? Have evolving forms of governance created specific forms of Europeanization? What are the effects of the combination of 'old' and 'new' modes of governance on the production and ...

Résumé Cet article a pour objet de rendre compte des enjeux théoriques et méthodologiques que posent les modalités d'opérationnalisation de l'hypothèse selon laquelle une partie des logiques de recomposition de l'action publique est structurée par les formes de mobilisation de ces protestataires. À partir d'une revue, non exhaustive, de la littérature, nous montrons les limites posées par l'attribution a priori de rôles entre acteurs publics et protestataires ; nous procédons à l'analyse critique des catégories d'analyse existantes pour rendre compte des effets propres au contexte politique et institutionnel sur les dynamiques de l'action collective ; et nous analysons le caractère disjoint des temporalités propres aux dynamiques de l'action collective et aux logiques de recomposition de l'action publique.

Introduction : The study of EU governing, how it operates and whom contributes to it, is essential to our understanding of the functioning of this political system. This is particularly true in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, which deeply challenged existing forms of decision- making and redistribution mechanisms (Streeck and Schäfer, 2013). Possibly, the EU has never been so effective in imposing decisions on member states and societies. And in this critical context, the long-term structuring impact of the policy tools and modes of governance that had been introduced in order to define a new approach to governance were made visible. By exploring this initial assumption both theoretically and empirically, this special issue sheds new light on current debates regarding the impact of the 2008 financial crisis on EU governing. Following the 2001 White book on governance, a series of new modes of governance and policy tools have been designed and implemented across EU policy domains in order to address simultaneously the problem-solving capacity of EU institutions and the need to strengthen the participation of civil society (Heritier and Rhodes, 2011). Managerial reforms within the EU Commission and policies justified the need for softer modes of governance such as regulatory networks, benchmarking and tools through which policy and state performance could be measured and compared. By providing more participative and negotiated ways of decision-making, these softer modes of governance increased the political and administrative governability of the EU (Radaelli and Coletti, 2013), yet which actors and organizations benefited most from this new governance approach as well as its contribution to increasing the system's political accountability and democratic legitimacy remains a contested issue (Bellamy et al., 2011). The supposed superiority of new modes of governance – in terms of both inclusiveness and effectiveness – has been hotly debated in the EU literature. Following the changes brought since the ...

International audience ; Why do people declare themselves to be highly concerned by ecology in the long run but vary over time in their commitment to the environmental cause? This article seeks to address this question by revisiting the environmental policy hypothesis. More precisely, it argues that such an assumption has not been demonstrated empirically partly because of data unavailability and to the choice of indicators. This article contributes to the wider debate on the disconnect between environmental concern and behaviour between 1971 and 2008 by using the choice and combination of policy instruments as an indicator of evolving relationship between the governing and the governed. This exploratory approach suggests that environmental behaviour may be increasingly channelled by environmental policies and less so by other forms of (individual or collective) mobilisation.

Résumé Dans quelle mesure l'analyse des formes d'instrumentation, c'est-à-dire du choix et de la combinaison d'instruments, expliquet-elle l'émergence et le développement d'une action publique autonome ? L'entrée par les instruments apporte-elle un éclairage fécond sur l'évolution des formes de pilotage de l'action publique privilégiées au sein de l'Union européenne ? À partir d'une analyse comparée et systématique des instruments des politiques européennes environnementales et urbaines entre 1972 et 2006, cet article s'interroge sur la relation entre les formes d'instrumentation de l'action publique européenne et la gouvernance de l'Union européenne. À travers l'analyse de deux cas contrastés, l'article montre dans quelle mesure, à travers quels mécanismes et avec quels effets, les instruments ont structuré les transformations de l'action publique européenne sur la moyenne durée.