ABSTRACT
Introduction The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is a key policy of the EU and has shaped European integration considerably. Over the last three decades though, the CAP has witnessed a serious legitimacy crisis and declining political and public support in EU member states. In order to establish new grounds for legitimacy, the EU launched a comprehensive reform project in recent years that has brought about a substantial shift in underlying policy ideas. In the course of this development, the CAP has shifted away from state assistance and protectionism towards greater market orientation and liberalization. Moreover, environmental, nature, animal and consumer protection have been defined as new EU farm-policy objectives. On the one hand, this policy change was a response of the Community to endogenous challenges and pressures (Garzon 2006; Greer 2005). On the other hand, CAP reform was shaped considerably by exogenous pressures emerging from international trade negotiations and by a change in global policy approach (Coleman, Grant, and Josling 2004; Daugbjerg 2014; Garzon 2007; Moyer and Josling 2002). In fact, agricultural policy can be seen as a particularly instructive example of the top-down diffusion of global policy models. At the same time, the literature suggests that this global input is not simply adopted, but dealt with in selective and specific ways (Daugbjerg and Swinbank 2010).
