Strategies in Environmental Policy

Abstract

The institutionalisation of environmental policy in the Netherlands will be discussed in this chapter. Institutionalisation is a process that constructs and preserves day-to-day activities and interactions within a context of societal and political change. Institutionalisation is one of the central concepts used in the social and political sciences to study the ongoing process of transformation in different polities. “Social, political and economic institutions have become larger, considerably more complex and resourceful, and `prima facie’ more important to collective life” (March & Olson, 1984, p. 734). This `new’ institutionalism emphasises the relative autonomy of political institutions, the possibilities for inefficiency in history, and the importance of symbolic action to an understanding of politics (March & Olson, 1984). Keman (in: Steunenberg et al., 1996) distinguishes between three approaches within neo-institutionalism: the historical-traditional approach, a cultural-organisational approach, and the (political-economic) rational choice approach. In order to make a choice we will follow the argument put forward by Bulmer (1998).