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Opening the black box of implementation feedback: An analysis of reloading strategies in EU water governance
Author(s) -
Eerd Marjolein C.J.,
Dieperink Carel,
Wiering Mark A.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
environmental policy and governance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.987
H-Index - 48
eISSN - 1756-9338
pISSN - 1756-932X
DOI - 10.1002/eet.1803
Subject(s) - water framework directive , directive , agency (philosophy) , framing (construction) , corporate governance , european union , experiential knowledge , multi level governance , business , political science , public relations , process management , environmental resource management , public administration , economics , sociology , engineering , computer science , ecology , social science , philosophy , structural engineering , finance , epistemology , water quality , biology , programming language , economic policy
Throughout the legal and practical implementation of the European Union (EU) Water Framework Directive (WFD), subnational implementing agents experience how this policy works in practice. The feedback, or reloading, of these experiences is an important contribution to create resilient EU water governance and to further elaborate the flexible requirements of this framework directive. However, a gap exists concerning our knowledge on the strategies that implementing actors use to mobilize experiential knowledge. Our objective is therefore to understand the reloading of implementation experiences in the WFD's policy process, by studying the conditions that affect strategic mobilization behavior of implementing agents. We build upon existing studies to explore which mobilization strategies are used in WFD reloading cases, and assess which conditions contribute to the identified strategic agency choices. The main finding of this study is that the mobilizing agents often use a smart combination of framing, coalition‐building, venue shopping and timing strategies for reloading implementation experiences as policy‐relevant knowledge. The choice of such combinations is affected by agency and institutional structure‐related conditions, that is, a mobilizing agent's interests, resources and capacities plus the existing EU water governance network contribute to strategic mobilization behavior. Our study is a first exploration of the topic. We therefore conclude this paper with some suggestions for further research.