Europeanisation of Policy Instruments
Résumé
This work package is the last section of our « policy instruments » project within the NEW-GOV project. After the first round of cases on policy instruments, then the database on policy instruments in urban and environment policy in Britain, France and Germany, we now focus on the policy instruments used by the EU for urban and environmental policy. By developing a longitudinal and sociological analysis of the elaboration, selection and integration of the EU's environmental and urban policy instruments since the early 1970s, our research design enables to critically examine the link between policy instruments and policy change and con-tributes to the understanding of restructuring forms of governance at the EU level.
Drawing on the lists of policy instruments we developed during our research project and on the databases we developed, we firstly critically assess the methodology we developed during our project. Secondly, we continue by analysing the evolution of both public policies through the lenses of their instruments. In the case of urban policy area, we show that the capacity for innovation was limited, thus explaining why urban policy instruments have more or less al-ways been a version of regional policy instruments. In the case of the environment policy, we show that from the viewpoint of the origin of this policy's instruments, the EU has not been a source of innovation, but relied mostly on experiences developed in member states or at inter-national level. Thirdly, we analyse evolving forms of instrumentation in both policy sectors and show to what extent it constrained the development of these policy domains as well as the European integration process.