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The diffusion of new environmental policy instruments 1
Author(s) -
TEWS KERSTIN,
BUSCH PEROLOF,
JÖRGENS HELGE
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
european journal of political research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.267
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1475-6765
pISSN - 0304-4130
DOI - 10.1111/1475-6765.00096
Subject(s) - environmental policy , perspective (graphical) , policy transfer , sustainable development , command and control , control (management) , public economics , national policy , business , diffusion , economics , environmental economics , economic system , political science , public administration , international trade , management , computer science , law , telecommunications , physics , artificial intelligence , thermodynamics
. New Environmental Policy Instruments (NEPIs) are becoming increasingly attractive. From a global perspective, there has been a rapid diffusion of these market‐based, voluntary or informational instruments. This article examines the spread of four different NEPIs – eco‐labels, energy or carbon taxes, national environmental policy plans or strategies for sustainable development, and free‐access‐of‐information (FAI) provisions. The adoption of NEPIs by national policy makers is not simply a reaction to newly emerging environmental problems or to real or perceived deficits of traditional command and control regulation, rather the use of NEPIs can also be ascribed to the inner dynamics of international processes of policy transfer or policy diffusion. These processes make it increasingly difficult for national policy makers to ignore new approaches in environmental policy that have already been put into practice in ‘forerunner’ countries.