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Environmental “Voluntary” Agreements: Conditions for Making Them Work
Author(s) -
Skjærseth John Birger
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
swiss political science review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.632
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1662-6370
pISSN - 1424-7755
DOI - 10.1002/j.1662-6370.2000.tb00292.x
Subject(s) - regret , context (archaeology) , argument (complex analysis) , turnover , work (physics) , politics , affect (linguistics) , public economics , field (mathematics) , business , economics , political science , law , sociology , computer science , management , engineering , mechanical engineering , paleontology , biochemistry , chemistry , mathematics , communication , machine learning , pure mathematics , biology
In the 1990s, Environmental Voluntary Agreements (EVAs) have received increased attention as an alternative or supplement to traditional policy instruments, such as taxes and legal regulation. Today, there is a tendency in industry and among some countries to consider EVAs as generally viable policy instruments across different sectors and problems. This article points to the risk of viewing EVAs as generally effective by exploring the conditions under which they are likely to affect the behavior of target groups. Three factors are identified: the type of problem to be solved, the political context in which the problem is approached and the type of agreement applied. The argument is that EVAs are most likely to work when problems are "easy" and can be coped with through "no‐regret" measures, when the political context is consensual and when the agreements themselves are advanced. These conditions are then confronted with the comprehensive voluntary program developed in the Netherlands and recent EU initiatives in this field.