"Multi-level and cross-level governance and the implementation and revision of European Union water legislation"

Brown, M. Leann and Garman, Julie. (1997) "Multi-level and cross-level governance and the implementation and revision of European Union water legislation". In: UNSPECIFIED, Seattle, WA. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

National domestic factors, members' interests and power, negotiating dynamics, transnational interest groups and regional actors and structures may be important shapers of EU policy. No single interest factor adequately explains its complicated politics and procedures--the more important objective is to identify a model sufficiently nuanced to explain how these factors interact to yield regional policy. This qualitative study delineates the panoply of actors, the interactions, and strategies associated with British-EU disputes over the implementation and revision of water quality directives between 1985 and the mid-1990s, to explore the possibility that the evolving concept of "governance" may very well provide an umbrella broad enough to account for EU decision making. The data suggest that governance is a heuristically useful and empirically valid way to conceptualize EU water politics. Political interactions to affect the water legislation were based on an intersubjective consensus that clean water is a worthy policy objective. A multiplicity of factors influenced the policy process: many actors, interactions and strategies; power assets and coalitions; consensual knowledge, informational and propaganda factors; institutional procedures; etc. Activities to influence policy moved outwardly toward regional actors such as EU bodies and transnational alliances, and inwardly toward subnational interest groups rather than remaining strictly confined to those with legal and constitutional authority to negotiate and legislate.

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