Call for Abstracts

for a workshop on

EU External Environmental Governance Beyond its Neighbourhood

19 & 20 April 2013

Berlin

This workshop adopts a wide angle on a broad variety of different external governance efforts in which the EU engages, including international negotiations, policy promotion and the use of market power. It strives to analyse the effectiveness of different EU external environmental governance efforts, to identify different patterns EU external environmental governance and to explore the conditions in non-EU countries and internationally that enable or impede effective EU external governance.

The slow progress of international climate negotiations and the 'failed' leadership of the European Union at the Copenhagen conference of the parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change attracted significant scholarly attention. Finding consensus on a suitable post-Kyoto Protocol agreement poses major challenges. The difficulties with the 'traditional' multilateral way of governing global environmental problems through treaties gave rise to a search for solutions that complement and support these efforts. The EU has set ambitious domestic climate targets and strives for similar commitments of other major polluters. In other environmental policy areas such as chemicals policy, the EU also leads by adopting and promoting ambitious regulation. Apart from multilateral negotiations, the EU's toolbox comprises bilateral agreements, cooperation efforts with non-EU jurisdictions at different levels of governance, coercion and incentives, and external effects of EU pioneering policy through learning, competition and emulation.

Studies show that the further remote from the EU's neighbourhood a jurisdiction is located, the more important become domestic conditions in non-EU countries because the EU's leverage diminishes. The workshop stresses this aspect and strives to investigate the interplay between non-EU domestic factors and the EU's external governance activities. EU scholars recently have paid increasing attention to the external effects of EU policies and institutions on countries beyond the EU's neighbourhood. They propose conceptualisations of EU external governance and Europeanisation beyond Europe. This workshop aims at contributing to this emerging field by focusing on the area of environmental policy.

We invite paper proposals that cover, in particular, the following aspects and questions. Ideally, papers will cover a number of these elements. Both individual case studies and comparative studies are invited.

-          Different EU activities and mechanisms: What kind of external governance tools and activities (international negotiations, policy promotion, capacity building, conditionality etc.) does the EU engage in with what result? Conditionality figures highly in the EU's neighbourhood and accession policy. However, it becomes less salient in EU external governance beyond its neighbourhood. What mechanisms prevail in external environmental governance?

-          Different domestic factors in third countries: The success of EU external governance efforts depends on certain scope conditions. Which domestic factors foster the effectiveness of or constitute a barrier to EU external environmental governance?

-          Different levels of governance: Not only nation states, also subnational entities and international organisations can be subject to external effects of EU environmental policy. How can we characterise the EU's external environmental governance in a multilevel context?

-          Different regions and countries: How can we characterise EU external environmental governance in different countries and regions of the world? Are there differences with regard to the EU's approach and its effectiveness?

-          Different institutional embeddedness: To what extent is a non-EU jurisdiction embedded in regional networks that are not directed towards Europe (Asia, Latin America, Africa etc.)

-          Different policy subfields: How can we characterise EU external governance in different areas of environmental policy? Are there differences between policy types (for example product- vs. process-related) and policy areas (for example climate change vs. biodiversity)?

Interested authors are invited to send an abstract (max. 500 words) to Katja Biedenkopf (k.biedenkopf@uva.nl) and Diarmuid Torney (diarmuidtorney@gmail.com) by 31 December 2012. Invited paper givers will be asked to submit their final paper by 5 April 2012.

The workshop is funded by the Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG) "The Transformative Power of Europe" of the Freie Universität Berlin. Accommodation and travel expenses will be covered for invited paper givers.