Search results

AbstractWhile contestation between competing policy paradigms is usually considered to hamper the policy-making process, this article develops an argument explaining how paradigmatic contestation can also help policymakers obtain their preferred policies. Based on a typology of three paradigm situations – paradigm dominance, paradigmatic contestation and paradigm mixes – this article introduces three different types of strategies (paradigm stretching, banking on inconsistencies and commensurability framing) and explains why more strategies become available when a policy field moves from a situation of paradigmatic dominance to one of contestation and paradigm mixes. An analysis of the introduction and development of direct income payments in the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy, subsequently illustrates how a shift in paradigm situation affected the European Commission's discursive strategies and shaped the development of direct payments through consecutive reforms. Reflecting on sectoral and institutional variations, the article also discusses the applicability of these findings to other institutional settings and policy fields.

France's protectionist position regarding agricultural trade is often claimed to result from French farm lobby influence. This article challenges such established claims, based on an analysis of French decision-making on the agricultural chapter of the GATT Uruguay Round. Farm lobby pressure cannot fully explain French policies, as governments often went against farmers' preferences and the level of pressure varied substantially, while there was continuity in French protectionist governmental preferences on agricultural trade. Instead, this article will show that ideational variables played a major role in explaining the continuity in French protectionist positions. While farm lobby pressure and economic pay-offs varied over the course of the GATT negotiations, French ideas concerning its identity as la Grande Nation with a presence in world agricultural markets, leading a strong Europe as a counterweight to the United States, were a stable factor that guided French position-taking against the liberalization of agricultural markets. Adapted from the source document.

In the literature examining European Union external trade policy, the relative influence of the Commission, the member states and interest groups are an issue of ongoing debate. This article will argue that member states can still play an important role and that a focus on member state preferences is therefore crucial in understanding European external trade policy in general. An interest-based explanation of state preferences is proposed in which both material (political and economic) and ideational variables are included, whereas material explanations alone dominate the current research in the trade policy field. An in-depth case study of German preference formation and position taking with regard to the agricultural chapter of the GATT Uruguay Round (1986-1993) shows the interplay between material and ideational interest. As well as German preference formation being guided by Germany's trade interests and political interests (particularly when these interests were united and governmental sensitivity was high), considerations concerning the Franco-German friendship, affecting Germany's ideational interest, also proved to be a constant in the preference-formation process.

AbstractGovernment agencies responsible for policy implementation have expertise on policy practicability, efficiency and effectiveness, and knowledge which is provided to policymakers as feedback. However, we know very little about the feedback dynamics in which implementing agencies provide different types of feedback with the intention that it is used by policymakers, and the strategic decisions underlying these dynamics. This article connects the literature on policy feedback and knowledge use to develop a typology of implementation feedback which can account for these strategic actions. While existing distinctions between positive and negative feedback lead to confusion when applied to implementation feedback, our typology moves beyond this confusion, by classifying implementation feedback on the basis of two dimensions: preferences of implementing agencies and whether feedback is in response an agenda for change, or existing policy instruments. To illustrate the typology, we look at implementation feedback surrounding the post-2013 reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. We find that implementing agencies engage predominantly in problem-solving and mitigating types of implementation feedback, which are the types of feedback most likely to be used instrumentally by policymakers. Moreover, role perception of implementing agencies limits feedback focused on agenda removal, which is more politically sensitive and contested. These insights are important for our understanding of policy feedback on the level of policy instruments and settings. Moreover, future research can use this typology to structure feedback by other actors.

In its public discourse, the European Commission presented the EU's most recent Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) as a paradigm change. Many observers of the CAP reform process, however, describe the recent agreement as a lost opportunity for change. This article describes and analyses the Commission's discursive strategies in response to the legitimacy challenges regarding the CAP's direct payments. We draw on the work of Mark Suchman (1995) to analyse these responses. The analysis reveals a progression of legitimation strategies that can be linked to the broader institutional environment, the setting of the ongoing policy process and the (critical) reaction of civil society organisations to these strategies. Besides shedding light on the progression of legitimation strategies, this article contributes to the literature on the Commission's legitimation strategies more generally by linking the Commission's public discourse to its public consultation regime.

AbstractThis article investigates the policy discourses at European level and in France, Germany and the UK during the debate on the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) post‐2013 reform. The neoliberal discourse that has provided the intellectual justification for reform during the last decade is now increasingly combined with a 'public goods' discourse related to the multifunctionalist discourse of the 1990s. Innovating on earlier discursive analyses of the CAP debate, this article distinguishes between discourses used during the uploading (negotiations) and the downloading (implementation) phases. In doing so it uncovers the effects of domestic‐international interactions on the application of different competing discourses. The member states' domestic legitimating discourses applied to 'sell' the eventual CAP agreement tend to align with existing domestic policy paradigms rather than with dominant discourses at the EU level, indicating that discourses are prone to strategic usage.

En este artículo se explora los efectos del anti-americanismo en la política comercial de Brasil durante la negociación del Área de Libre Comercio de las Américas y en la política comercial francesa durante la Ronda Uruguay del GATT. Aunque mucho se ha escrito sobre la conceptualización del anti-americanismo, sus causas y su presencia en distintos estados nacionales, la investigación acerca de sus efectos sobre la política y las políticas públicas es escasa. Este artículo contribuye al debate al comparar dos estudios de caso y al reflexionar sobre los efectos del anti-americanismo en el proceso de toma de decisiones y en la política comercial bajo distintas circunstancias.English:This article traces the effects of anti-Americanism on Brazilian trade policy-making during the negotiations of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) and French trade policy-making during the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). While much has been published on the conceptualisation of anti-Americanism, its causes, and its presence in different states, research into the effects of anti-Americanism on politics and policies is rather limited. This article adds to the debate by conducting a comparative study of the Brazilian and French cases and by reflecting on the effects of anti-Americanism on decision-making and policies under different circumstances.