Reforming the CAP: Policy Networks and Broader Institutional Structures

Abstract

The article develops an analytical framework to analyse how policy networks and the broader institutional context in which they are embedded influence reform outcomes. The framework is applied in a study of the European Community’s (Ecrsquo;s) agricultural policy reform in 1992. Firstly, it is shown that the EC agricultural policy network led agricultural policy‐makers in the direction of moderate rather than fundamental reform. Secondly, the article shows how the broader institutional structure of the EC made radical reform an almost hopeless objective to pursue because the whole decision‐making structure allowed the existence of many veto points which could be used to block radical changes. Thus, the article demonstrates that at EU level, policy network analysis is a useful approach in particular, if it is supplemented by a macro‐level analysis of the broader institutional context within which networks are embedded. Finally, the article concludes that in the future, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is likely to follow the previous path of moderate reforms.