ABSTRACT

This chapter aims to develop a theoretical tool, namely the concept of policy arrangement. This concept is understood as the temporary stabilization of the organization and of the contents of a policy domain. Agro-environmental policy-making is a dialectic process between the agricultural and the environmental bias. This inclusion and exclusion process has been dependent on the institutional position of agricultural and environmental policies in the Netherlands and on the interrelations between these domains of policy-making. The analysis of policy coalitions from the perspective of strategic conduct is comparable with policy network approaches in policy sciences. The analysis focuses on the nature of social relations between interdependent actors, which are shaped around policy problems and or policy programmes in specific policy domains. Policy arrangements are grounded in the knowledgeable activities of policy coalitions that draw upon resources, rules and discourses in a diversity of contexts.