Institutions and the Environmental Management of Contaminated Sites: A Theoretical Framework

Abstract

In this theoretical chapter, we argue that management of contaminated sites cannot be understood separately from the institutional context that binds these processes. Within the policy sciences, rational choice institutionalism is presently the dominant scientific paradigm in studies of the relationship between institutions and the outcomes of environmental management processes. However, in order to analyze contaminated sites management in modern democracies, we found it necessary to partially depart from this mainstream. We argue that there is in rational choice institutionalism a problematic oblivion of power and politics that leads to institutional determinism, a neglect of actor processes in environmental decision-making that produces causal reductionism, and a weak understanding of the socio-legal nature of institutions, which does not allow one to fully grasp the changes to environmental management that relate to the governance era. Therefore, we present our own theoretical framework that combines institutional analysis and policy process analysis, in order to study the politics of contaminated sites. Drawing from the literature on institutional regimes, policy process theories and network analysis, we discuss several research hypotheses on what might influence the environmental performance of contaminated sites management.