The Modalities of European Union Governance

Abstract

Abstract Against a backcloth of changing political geometries of European integration, there has been a burgeoning academic interest in the nature and functioning of the European Union (EU) polity. It has been in the field of political science that the greatest theoretical developments on the nature and dynamics of EU integration processes have taken place. Hix (1998: 54) notes for example: ‘Never before in the study of the EU has there been such explicit ... debate on so many levels of analysis.’ In sharp relief to political geography, political science is now awash with ontological, methodological, and epistemological debates over the nature of European integration and governance (Marks et al. 1996; Risse-Kappen 1996; Armstrong and Bulmer 1998; Moravcsik 1998; Puchala 1999; Rosamond 2000). These debates have not, unfortunately, transcended the disciplinary boundaries between political geography and political science (see e.g. Taylor and Flint 2000). Our aim in this book, therefore, is to present to (though not exclusively) the political geography community a theoretically informed interpretation of EU political processes using the empirical canvas of the initiation, development, and implementation of agri-environment policy, in the context of the EU’s reforming Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). We deploy both policy network analysis and new institutionalism from political science to explore the mechanisms and procedures of EU governance in this policy area, approaches that have recently attracted considerable interest among geographers working in other substantive contexts (Martin 2000). These approaches highlight issues of scale and territorial identity, agenda formation and deliberative process, scalar flows of knowledge and ideas, and embedded institutional norms and values—all of which, unquestionably, are profoundly relevant to geographical enquiry.