ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
is forced to address an environmental issue, the major actors will seek solu-
tions that require no questioning of the principles shared by the policy com-
munity, such as the commitment to agricultural price support. When envi-
ronmental issues grew in importance after the 1970s, policy networks were
already well established in sectors such as agriculture, energy and indus-
try (Daugbjerg 1998 ), so that environmental groups confronted entrenched
institutional frameworks that were resistant to the penetration of new ideas
and issues, and sought to prevent access to environmental groups (Rawcliffe
1998 ). Policy communities also reinforce a sectoral approach to environmen-
tal policymaking. Individual ministries, such as agriculture or energy, are
waryof co-ordinated strategies to address cross-sectoral problems such as
climate change, fearing disruption of established sectoral patterns of policy-
making. In short, the institutional structure of the state has reinforced the
traditional environmental policy paradigm.
However, policy communities are neither ubiquitous nor static. Even in
Britain some policy areas, usually those concerned with ‘secondary issues’
(Lindblom 1977 )such as nature conservation and countryside recreation,
where there is no major threat to the interests of economic or professional
groups, are characterised by more pluralistic issue networks. Elsewhere, par-
ticularly in North America, pluralistic relations are more common. More-
over, where policy communities do exist, these institutional arrangements
are not set in stone and environmental policy change can occur. Thenext
sectionexamines the dynamics of policy change.Critical question 3
Does the capitalist state present insuperable barriers to a co-ordinated
environmental policy?◗ Achieving policy change
Despite the powerful structural and institutional factors reinforcing the tra-
ditional environmental policy paradigm, policy change is not impossible.
In recent years, all governments have introduced new measures to improve
environmental protection, although evidence ofradicalchange is scarce (see
Box7. 4). This section draws selectively from the wide literature on poli-
cymaking by highlighting the agenda-setting, advocacy coalition and net-
work approaches as useful frameworks for exploring the potential for policy
change and, in particular, to indicate how the traditional paradigm might
be superseded by an alternative framework.◗ Agenda-setting
The agenda-setting stage of the policy process is a critical point at which
policy change can be initiated. Amongst several models that seek to explain