1,720,981 research outputs found
Environmental Policy Implementation Amid Shifting Democratic Trajectories. A Comparative Analysis of Hungary and Poland
No full textUnpacking the eco-social perspective in European policy, politics, and polity dimensions
No full textThis article introduces the symposium titled "Political science perspectives on the emerging eco-social policies, politics and polity in the European Union" that brings together the eco-social debate with mainstream theories and concepts from the political science discipline with the aim of encouraging a mutually and reinforcing theoretical and empirical exchange between the two fields. Before presenting the other contributions to the symposium, this article unpacks what "eco-social" is by presenting the existing definitions followed by a bottom-up identification of the "eco-social" essence retrieved through a systematic review of this literature. Furthermore, it takes stock and identifies areas of deficiency of the eco-social literature along the three dimensions of policy, politics, and polity while also outlining potential contributions of political science's approaches to this field
What goes around, comes around? Access and allocation problems in Global North–South waste trade
Full text linkInfamous cases of toxic waste trade and research on its health and environmental implications have made the global waste trade a prominent environmental and social justice issue. Recently, such trade has shifted towards extracting resources from waste as recyclable components and used goods which could create income-generating opportunities and reduce the environmental burdens of waste trade from Global North to Global South countries. Nevertheless, studies highlight persistent problems in the access to these resources and allocation of responsibilities, risks and burdens from processing and disposal of traded waste in Global South countries. This article aims to contribute to the lessons learnt on access and allocation with respect to waste trade by focusing on issues of equity, fairness and distributive justice. Two cases are analysed: trade in discarded electronic and electric equipment (EEE) between the EU and Africa and trade in plastic materials between the UK and China. This study shows that exports of used EEE and recyclable plastic materials exacerbate the environmental burdens of Global South countries while also exporting new environmental risks and social burdens. At the same time, new demands for justice have emerged from Global South countries through waste ship back initiatives, and new international measures have also been adopted. While the access and allocation lens enabled the identification of persistent problems in Global North–South waste trade, directing future Earth System Governance research to the demands emerging from the Global South countries could offer insights into how to better address these problems and deal with growing global inequalities
Post-accession backsliding and European Union environmental policies
Full text linkAn environmental frontrunner in the Central and Eastern European regions since the late 1990s, Hungary followed a gradual but steady approximation progress to the EU environmental legislation. Previous research established an important role of the participation of economic and societal stakeholders in the decision-making and implementation process based on EU environmental legislation in Hungary. With the victory of the FIDESZ party in the parliamentary elections of 2010, the new government started to change the ‘rules of the game’ by nationalising infrastructures and weakening market access to foreign stakeholders. Focusing on the water and waste management sectors, the article analyzes the stages that brought Hungary to the recent governments’ policy changes. We argue that these changes have departed from the environmental policy practices established during the EU accession process and represent a challenge and a potential backsliding in the implementation of the EU environmental legislation in Hungary. Such changes in policy policies need to be seen in the context of the recent transformation of the political order and of the state–market relations in Hungary
Conclusion: bringing together the eco‐social debate and established political science perspectives: synergies and new research pathways
No full textThis symposium makes a frst step in bridging the emerging eco-social debate and
the established political science theories and concepts, indicating the mutually bene-
fcial analytical perspectives and common research pathways that may arise. In addi-
tion to identifying several aspects in the policy, politics and polity dimensions that
appear to be particularly relevant in view of the emerging eco-social policies, this
collection of articles points out two cross-cutting themes, namely the transformation
of the welfare state set-ups, and new cleavages and power relations, which pose new
questions and open a promising research agenda for political scientists
Leaders' ‘Green’ Posts. The Environmental Issues Shared by Politicians on Facebook
No full textIs Facebook “green”? Do political leaders use this social medium to spread information on green policies? The aim of this paper is to investigate on whether and how Facebook is used by politicians as an arena to spread environmental policy proposals or simply information about the environment. The study covers 127 Facebook pages of political leaders in 31 different advanced industrial democracies. The 127 pages have been under observation for 26 months and 99,234 posts were scrutinized. 25,151 out of these 99,234 posts were manually coded and analyzed in order to measure how often contemporary leaders use Facebook to talk about environmental issues. We found that: (i) environmental issues do not represent a relevant concern for the main political leaders of contemporary advanced industrial democracies; (ii) left wing and younger leaders are the ones who used Facebook the most for spreading information about environmental issues; and (iii) relevant differences between leaders of countries with different levels of economic wealth and environmental pollution are noted in regard to Western countries
Catching up with the European Union’s recovery and resilience agenda: green transition reforms in the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan
No full textDrawing on Europeanization and policy change scholarships, and
with the aim of understanding the extent to which Next Generation
EU has become a vector of policy change in the country, this article
analyses policy reforms concerning the ecological transition, which
Italy has designed within the framework of its National Recovery
and Resilience Plan (NRRP). More specifically, the study provides
a descriptive analysis of the two versions of the plan (Conte’s
proposal and Draghi’s final version) in order to unveil the nature
and direction of policy change embedded in particular in its final
version, as compared to previous Italian ecological policies. The
empirical research presented in the article shows that the logics
of path-dependence and policy layering have prevailed in the
design of the green pillar of the NRRP, as it introduced a limited
number of policy reforms; lacked specific implementation targets,
and was developed in conformity with a highly fragmented and
top-down style of policy making: one that was typical of previous
Italian environmental and climate policies
Do environmental preferences in wealthy nations persist in times of crisis? The European environmental attitudes (2008-2017)
Full text linkHow do economic recessions affect European citizens’ attitudes towards environmental policies? In this article we investigate the attitudes of European citizens towards environmental protection considering its importance both at individual and country levels and adopting a longitudinal view. In light of the existing research on the link between pro-environmental attitudes and economic affluence of societies, including Ronald Inglehart’s theory of post-materialism, we hypothesise that levels of economic well-being as well as trust in political institutions are important drivers of Europeans’ attitudes towards environmental protection. Taking into consideration some macroeconomic indicators and the environmental attitude of public opinion, our main results show that even in time of crises, citizens’ pro-environmental attitudes persist in terms of importance, both at country and individual levels
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