Science–policy interactions in Austrian, Dutch, and Swiss climate policy: a comparative account

ABSTRACT

Scientific expertise plays an important role in the complex field of climate policy. Consequently, science–policy interactions have been institutionalized in many countries. However, science–policy arenas vary considerably across countries. Scholars mainly attribute these differences to the influence of specific political cultures. The literature has primarily compared science–policy arenas of countries with diverging political cultures, whereas comparisons of countries with similar political cultures are rare. The latter is especially true for neo-corporatist cultures. Against this background, we compare the climate science–policy arenas of three neo-corporatist countries, Austria, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. Conceptually, we draw on the literature regarding politico-cultural imprints in science–policy arenas. We operationalize national science–policy arenas along four dimensions: the knowledge actors, the organizational formats, the styles of science–policy interactions, and their transparency and visibility. Overall, the three arenas reveal many similarities and much fewer differences. Most similarities correspond to neo-corporatist patterns. However, some similarities consistently deviate from neo-corporatist patterns. Interestingly, almost all differences between the countries match national variations of neo-corporatism. In light of these observations and the specific problem structure of climate policy, we develop research questions to investigate potential explanations for correspondence to and deviation from neo-corporatist patterns.

KEYWORDS:

• Science–policy interactions
• climate policy
• neo-corporatism
• Austria
• the Netherlands
• Switzerland

Acknowledgement

We thank two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments that helped us to improve the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Andrea Tony Hermann is a political scientist and Ph.D. student at the Institute of Forest, Environmental, and Natural Resource Policy (InFER) at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna, Austria. Her research interests are science-policy interactions in climate policy, expertise and policy advice in different politico-cultural contexts, and the representation of science in the media.

Karl Hogl is Professor for Environmental and Natural Resource Policy and Head of the InFER, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna, Austria. His main research interests are forest sector policy, policy analysis, European forest policy, new modes of governance and national forest programs.

Michael Pregernig is Professor of Sustainability Governance at the Institute of Environmental Social Sciences and Geography at Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, Germany. His expertise is in the fields of environmental politics, participatory governance, and the role of science and expertise in policy-making.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Austrian Climate Research Program (ACRP) (Project No. K10AC1K00033) and has additionally been prepared in the framework of the Doctoral School Sustainable Development (DOKNE) at BOKU University.