Governing despite its instruments ?
Résumé
This article explores the link between policy instruments and policy change. Drawing on an original dataset, it examines the evolution of European environmental policy instruments, over the past three decades, and considers how and by whom they were chosen and combined. This approach suggests that the environmental policy domain is one that is primarily structured by its instruments. Challenging the existing literature, the longitudinal analysis on which this article is based shows that EU environmental policy is populated not by new or innovative policy instruments as many who have claimed for the EU a pioneering role in this field, but mainly by instruments derived from other political systems or drawn from the international arena. Analysis of the politics of choice and combination of policy instruments, moreover, reveals how and the extent to which policy instruments have structured EU policy and policy-making in the environmental domain.