Conclusions and Research Agenda: Political Modernisation and the Dynamics of Environmental Policy Arrangements

Apart from its aim to formulate the general conclusions of the book, this final chapter is at the same time intended as a stimulus for further discussion and research. We hope to achieve this by combining and comparing the two parts of this book. Part I dealt with theories on institutionalisation, political modernisation and policy arrangements. Based upon these theories and insights, we developed a specific conceptual framework to analyse environmental policy making, centred on the ‘policy arrangements’ concept. A ‘policy arrangement’ refers to the temporary stabilisation of the organisation and substance of a policy domain at a specific level of policy making. By introducing this concept we believe it is possible to analyse the dynamics of environmental politics as being the interplay or duality between macro-processes of social and political change, understood as political modernisation, and interactions between actors in day-to-day policy processes. In part II of the book five authors applied this analytical scheme to specific domains or cases in environmental policies.