Varieties of framing the circular economy and the bioeconomy: unpacking business interests in European policymaking

ABSTRACT

This article analyses policy framing as a means of interest politics in the context of the European Union’s circular economy and bioeconomy agendas. It discusses the extent to which business actors engage with the concepts of circular economy and bioeconomy in their public communication, how they frame these concepts, and whether we can observe frame congruence with views held by key policymakers. Empirically the study compares the paper, plastics and bioplastics value chains using computer-assisted text analysis of industry and policy documents. The findings suggest that while industry actors proactively engage with both concepts, they diverge significantly in the ways they do so. This highlights the need to unpack business interests in order to account for frame varieties.

KEYWORDS:

• Bioeconomy
• circular economy
• framing
• interest politics
• plastics

Acknowledgements

The author expresses her gratitude for extremely helpful and constructive comments provided by two anonymous reviewers, the editor of the Journal, the guest editors of the Special Issue as well by Alice Mah. Excellent research assistance provided by Maria Stalla and proofreading by Amber Davis is gratefully acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The article was researched and written when holding a COFUND-AIAS fellowship (European Union Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no 754513 and Aarhus University Research Foundation) awarded by the Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (AIAS).

Notes on contributors

Sandra Eckert

Sandra Eckert holds a Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND Fellowship to conduct research as an Associate Professor at the Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (AIAS) in Denmark. She is currently on leave from her position at the Goethe University Frankfurt/Main. Sandra previously taught at the Universities of Berlin, Darmstadt, Freiburg, Lyon (SciencesPo), Mannheim and Osnabrück. She worked as a research assistant within an EU-funded project at the Robert Schuman Centre of the European University Institute in Florence. Sandra received her PhD from the Free University Berlin, and graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science, the University of Freiburg and the Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne.