Dismantling the Acquis? Twenty Years of Environmental Policy Reform in the European Union

Gravey, Viviane and Jordan, Andy (2015) Dismantling the Acquis? Twenty Years of Environmental Policy Reform in the European Union. [Conference Proceedings] (Submitted)

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Abstract

The financial crisis triggered yet more demands to halt and even reverse the expansion of EU policies. But have these and previous demands resulted in policy dismantling? The existing literature has certainly charted the rise of dismantling discourses (including better regulation), but not the net effect on the acquis. For the first time, this paper empirically addresses this gap in the literature through a diachronic study of changes in a policy area repeatedly targeted for dismantling. It is guided by a coding framework capturing the direction of policy change. Despite its disposition towards consensus, it reveals that the EU has become a locus for activities aimed directly at dismantling. However, not all policies targeted have been cut; many have stayed the same and some have expanded. It concludes by identifying new directions for research on a topic that has continually fallen into the analytical blind spot of EU scholars.

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