Policy feedback and self-reinforcing and self-undermining processes in EU biofuels policy. Issue 1 (2nd January 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Skogstad, Grace
• Is Part Of: Journal of European public policy. Volume 24:Issue 1(2017)
• Page Start: 21
• Page End: 41
• Publication Date: 2017-01-02
• Subjects: Biofuels -- EU -- policy feedback -- self-reinforcing processes -- self-undermining processes; European Union countries -- Politics and government -- Periodicals; Political planning -- European Union countries -- Periodicals; Politique publique -- Pays de l'Union européenne -- Périodiques; Pays de l'Union européenne -- Politique et gouvernement -- Périodiques; 361.61094
• DOI: 10.1080/13501763.2015.1132752
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1350-1763

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This article traces European Union (EU) biofuels policy development from the late 1990s through to 2015, demonstrating the effects of the early multiple rationales for biofuels in generating both self-reinforcing processes of policy continuity as well as self-undermining processes of policy discontinuity. It argues that features of the EU political and institutional context – most importantly, institutional imperatives for a consensus across multiple EU decision-making bodies and the provision of institutionalised opportunities for policy reviews – are deeply implicated in both self-reinforcing and self-undermining feedback processes. The shift in the balance away from self-reinforcing feedback processes to self-undermining processes after 2009 is explained by the interaction of biofuel interpretive feedbacks with contextual changes, including processes of knowledge accumulation regarding the negative environmental impacts of food-based biofuels.