ABSTRACT
The multi-field framework facilitates comprehensive analysis of organizational and political factors and how they interact and change over time. This approach combines elements from various policy process theories and Europeanization approaches with the sociological and historical institutionalism literatures more broadly. A ‘field’ here refers to a socially distinct constellation of actors, with varying degrees of internal coherence, unity and autonomy, and more or less impenetrable boundaries. Thus, a field is not an actor as such, but a distinct social space with some coherence across actors. This chapter conceptualizes the three specific fields – the European environment, the domestic organizational field and the domestic political field – and their interrelationships. All three can be seen as social arenas where the actors take one another into account; and all have a local social order that constrains, facilitates or enables certain behaviours and policy developments. This chapter specifies the conditions under which each field tends to be the most influential, resulting in numerous expectations that are later examined empirically and discussed in the comparative assessment. The chapter introduces a range of new concepts helpful for grasping the political and institutional dynamics often overlooked by other approaches to policy studies and energy and climate transitions.
