ABSTRACT
Environmental policy has received tremendous attention from scholars, considering its relatively recent appearance at EU level. As well as being an important subject in its own right, EU environmental policy analysis also speaks to several big debates in EU studies, such as on the dynamics of policymaking and even the very nature of the EU as a new polity. These include understanding how environment developed as a policy area, the kind of instruments used to govern policy problems and their performance in ameliorating policy problems. In this chapter, the existing literature is divided into three analytical phases: the first deriving from an International Relations perspective, the second drawing on public policy approaches and the third focusing on the ‘bigger picture’ of European governance. It concludes that scholarship on EU environmental policy has not only contributed to more fundamental discussions in EU policy analysis but, on occasion, has driven them.
