The common agricultural policy and institutional change.

Abstract

AbstractThe first part of this chapter considers approaches to studying Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reforms which, to varying degrees, have a concern with the role of ideas in the development of the CAP. Succeeding sections look at: approaches that emphasize a relationship between the various levels of negotiation; approaches that have their point of departure in rational choice theory; and approaches that are eclectic in the sense that, in order to fully understand various CAP reforms, it is proposed that different types of theoretical models may be needed. There follows a section that sums up the explanations of continuity and change offered by the literature concerned with CAP reform. The chapter concludes with a critical discussion that throws down five challenges to the methodologies and concepts offered by the body of literature concerned with CAP reform in the endeavour to capture ideational change.