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Since the 1990s, increasing environmental concerns have spurred the need for information and stimulated the development of numerous indicators, yet without a real impact on corresponding policies. To better account for this weakness, a political sociology approach to analyze how these government tools was developed in two cases: the French generic system of sustainable development indicators; and the implementation of the European Water Framework Directive based on indicators of water status. Comparative analysis shows that in both cases a coalition of actors successfully resisted the effective use of indicators by redesigning them and limiting the impact of quantified environmental information on policy making. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The European Union (EU) is usually described as a promoter of global environmental governance, committed to sustainability and the precautionary principle. Regarding international fisheries management, however, the EU has repeatedly deviated from these principles. This article analyses the EU's policy in two Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs): the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) and the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). The EU's deviation from its environmental principles is explained by the weakness of the pro-environmental advocacy coalition in the EU's fisheries policy subsystem and the overcapacity of the EU's fleet, which first arose when European fishing nations were excluded from traditional fishing grounds during the creation of Exclusive Economic Zones in the 1970s. At the same time the article finds evidence of a trend towards sustainability and precaution in the EU's external fisheries policy since the mid-2000s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]