From ‘Old’ to ‘New’ Governance in the EU: Explaining a Diagnostic Deficit

Abstract

The literature is now exploring the wider implications of the governance ‘turn’ in the European Union. This article develops this work by looking at the administrative demands associated with the use of ‘new’ (and principally network-based) instruments of governance. In the past, the main instrument used to integrate environmental concerns into other sectors was regulation. But in the 1990s, the Cardiff Process was established at EU level to promote a newer and more network-based approach to delivering this objective. Drawing upon an analysis of how well national administrative systems have responded to the demands associated with networks, it argues that both the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ instruments of governance are reliant on the presence of sufficient administrative capacities. It concludes that decision-makers in the EU have traded the ‘old’ governance of regulation for the ‘new’ governance of networks without sufficiently diagnosing the administrative demands associated with either.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the referees and the guest editors of this issue for their valuable comments on earlier drafts. Adriaan Schout and Andrew Jordan are grateful for the financial support of the EPIGOV project, which was funded under EU Framework 6. Michelle Twena's participation was generously funded by the UK ESRC under award number PTA-042-2005-00009. The usual disclaimers apply.