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Almost two decades have now passed since the publication of Peter Haas' Saving the Mediterranean in 1990, in which he employed the concept of "epistemic communities" for his analysis of the "low politics" negotiations on environmental issues for the Mediterranean Action Plan since 1975. A number of similar regional initiatives were launched throughout Europe since then and, for instance, the Barcelona Convention on coastal areas and the UNEP Regional Seas Programme, as well as the Alpine and Carpathian Conventions on mountain regions were developed. As in the case of the Mediterranean Action Plan analyzed by Haas, UNEP played an active role in the development of most of these initiatives, while the EU maintained a certain distance from these initiatives. This submission proposes an appraisal of the Alpine Convention after decades of activity, as well as it sketches an evaluation of the respective roles of UNEP and the EU in the development of this initiative. It also examines the effects on the long run of "low interest" levels, few spillover effects, and loose epistemic communities on overlapping international organizations. Functionalism revisited. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Almost two decades have now passed since the launching of the Mediterranean Action Plan since 1975. A number of similar regional initiatives were launched throughout Europe since then as, for instance, the Barcelona, Helsinki, Oslo and Paris Conventions on coastal areas. Concerning mountain areas, the Alpine Convention was opened for signature in 1991 and it was followed in 2003 by its "sister" Carpathian Convention. This paper proposes an appraisal of the design of the Alpine Convention in the light of how it was written, one decade of implementation and how it is impacting the development of the Carpathian Convention and future multilateral agreements for the protection and sustainable development of other mountain regions. While the former had remarkable effects on the design of both conventions, the latter strongly impacted their respective implementation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we integrate the literature that is concerned with how to conceptualize and explain the effect of member states on processes and outcomes of regional integration with the literature on the responses of member states to the impact of supranational processes and institutions. This is done by analyzing the role of the EU members as shapers and takers of European environmental policies. Thereby, we try to simultaneously answer the two following questions: (i) Why do some member states achieve a better European policy fit than others? (ii) Why do some members infringe (even) on (fitting) environmental policies more frequently than others? We argue that member states that are good shapers are also effective takers of supranational policies â€" not only due to the better fit between obligations and domestic settings, but also because the factors that enable member states to shape environmental policies help them to ensure their effective implementation. In order to develop and test this argument, our paper proceeds in three steps. Drawing on the two-level games literature, the first part presents a theoretical framework that systematically links the making and taking stages of supranational policies. In the second part we employ econometric methods to assess the impact of several factors identified in the relevant literature against empirical evidence from the field of European environmental policy. The paper concludes with a discussion on the generalizability of our findings. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental monitoring by governments and their agents offers unique opportunities for studying processes of international policy diffusion because it is associated with discrete choices that are clearly identifiable in space and time. Besides, effective monitoring is essential for effective environmental policy. We describe and explain the evolution of one of the most important international environmental monitoring networks in Europe, the one for water quality, in the time-period 1965-2005. Drawing on data from the European Environment Agency and other sources we use a geographic information system to construct a dataset that contains information on the location of several thousand active monitoring stations across the continent. We then examine whether and to what extent the evolution of this monitoring network is driven by domestic factors (e.g., political system, income, trade openness) and network / interdependency effects (e.g., involvement in international policy-making networks, EU membership, behavior of other countries). In this preliminary version of the paper we review the relevant literature and outline the hypotheses to be tested. We also report on how the dataset was constructed and present some preliminary results. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the conference paper "Leaders and Laggards? Comparing European and North American Approaches to Non-State Environmental Governance" presented at the "46th International Studies Association Conference" held from March 2 to 6, 2005 in Honolulu, Hawaii. The paper discloses the differences within Europe and North America regarding the emergence of non-state market driven in the forest sector known as forest certification. It also reviews the historical development of forest certification in Finland.

International legislative agreements have become a central mode of governance at the supranational level. The European Union has emerged as a regulatory state enabling the efficient and institutionalized coordination of international legislation in Europe. The regulatory nature of the European Community implies such political systems derive their efficiency and legitimacy through compliance with international laws by member States. However, although member states have engaged in such form of international agreement through voluntary treaty ratification and institutional bargaining, the European Union has been reported to suffer from an implementation deficit whereby national states may fail to comply with their obligation. This paper addresses the issue of state compliance to supranational law by focusing on the European Union political system through cross-country analysis of the application of EU directives promoting trade and environmental agreements since 1980. Trade and environmental policies have high political salience. They define the current context of economic competition and reduce the negative externalities of market mechanism at the national and European level for member states. Using econometric techniques the following research finds functional institutional designs delegating enforcement mechanisms to non-state actors are the main determinant of state compliance. In addition, variances in observed levels of compliance are not the product of rational cost benefit calculations alone and are determined by institutional capabilities and learning. This papers draw empirically verifiable recommendations for the design of efficient institutional models of governance and should provide valuable implications for EU and international political economy research. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human societies are increasingly challenged to find ways to benefit from natural resources without destroying the environment on which they depend. In a globalized world where progressive demands often clash with profit motivations, states seek creative governance mechanisms to achieve these oft-conflicting goals. Governance, understood as the emergence and recognition of principles, rules, and procedures, provides standards of acceptable public behavior that are followed to generate behavioral regularities. The solutions span the range from strict regulatory control to laissez-faire market mechanisms to voluntary mechanisms. This paper argues that governmental processes focusing on policy steering beyond the traditional regulatory approaches are often better able to address the changing nature of societal demands for environmental protection and economic competitiveness. The article analyzes the factors explaining the variation in policy practices including external forces such the competitive economic forces, regime influences, and the spread of norms through the system, and internal pressures such as socio-cultural conditions, institutional framework, government initiative, societal demands, and economic conditions. Using the cases of Lithuania, Estonia, Russia and the United States, the article reveals that regime influences, domestic institutions, socio-cultural conditions and government initiatives take us a long away in explaining the variations of choices we see across states. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there is an increasing number of studies on policy convergence (in recent years especially in the context of Europeanization and globalisation research), we still have a rather limited understanding of this phenomenon. This deficit can not only be traced back to a lack of empirical findings, but is also the result of the heterogeneous and partially inconsistent theoretical literature on policy convergence. Although policy convergence constitutes a central concept in comparative public policy, it is not always consistently used and mixed up with related but not equivalent concepts. In this paper, we aim to address this research deficit. In empirical terms, we analyze, if and to what extent we can observe a convergence of environmental policies in Europe. For this purpose, we analyze the development of 40 environmental measures across 24 countries between 1970 and 2000. From a theoretical perspective, we concentrate on the explanatory power of two factors often mentioned as important causes of cross-national policy convergence, namely international economic and institutional interlinkages between nation states. To what extent can these factors account for the observed patterns of environmental policy convergence or divergence? ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Continued integration of the European Union calls for coordination among member states. While coordination implies achieving common goals, few specifications exist on the means to achieve desired outcomes. New EU member states enjoy flexibility in determining the pathway to environmental policy reform and this is reflected in their particular choices for the implementation of key EU environmental directives. One of the central debates in political science centers on the level of government: How much is enough? Does successful environmental protection require a laissez-faire or regulatory state? Who is involved in the decisionmaking and how does the mix of actors impact policy choices and outcomes? While Brussels is making decisions with an eye toward its member states, creative innovations are emerging at the state and local levels. Indeed, member states respond to Brussels, but the strength, timing, and type of response varies considerably across states. Several factors including historical experience, institutional processes, civil society, and geopolitical pull impact state responses and explain well why states have chosen particular paths for achieving common regional environmental protection goals. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conflict over the Kyoto protocol, European GMO regulation, and environmental standard-setting for export credit agencies provide for very different negotiation dynamics in transatlantic environmental politics. In climate politics, a coalition between European nations and an extensive number of other countries, among them most importantly Russia, Canada, Japan and the major developing countries, appears to have won an intermediate victory over U.S. opposition to Kyoto protocol provisions. In GMO politics, the U.S. ended negotiations by taking the case to the WTO when it became clear that European regulation was to become a de-facto global standard. With regard to ECA politics, the United States managed to bring about an international agreement by building alliances with individual European states which is modeled after its domestic regulation and required substantial concessions by all other parties. It appears that transatlantic environmental agreements are most likely to come about when the United States can shape the provision of the agreement after its domestic regulations. When Europeans define their interest(s) as contrary to the U.S. proposal and therefore resist internationalization of domestic U.S. regulation, contention arises and agreement is less likely. However, we can witness in the case of GMO politics that a unison and determined Europe can drive home (at least intermediate) victories, too. This paper examines what role Europe can play in transatlantic environmental politics if it manages to speak with one voice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]