ABSTRACT
The macro-level model suggests that in agri-environmental policy making, the likelihood that environmental interests will succeed in having high cost policies introduced is greatest if farmers have only limited structural power in parliament and if the state is centralised is centralised. This chapter examines whether the macro-level model can contribute to an explanation of the differences in policy choices. Since the European Parliament does not have much influence in agricultural policy making, the comparison of farmers' structural power in parliament only includes Denmark and Sweden. The EC and states can be compared on the centralisation-fragmentation continuum because the way in which political institutions relate to each other has a major impact on policy change, irrespective of whether the process of change takes place in the EC or in nation states. The other macro-political variable which has explanatory force at the meso-level is the structure of the Danish and Swedish state and the EC.
