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Soil is a non-renewable and increasingly deteriorating resource, yet it is barely protected by European Union (EU) legislation. This constitutes a puzzling gap within the otherwise encompassing and progressive environmental policy of the EU. To explain the integration resistance of soil protection, I draw on insights from rationalist and sociological institutionalist theory. The institutional rigidity of the community method of environmental decision-making limits policy change to favorable interest constellations, but this constraint is usually compensated by agenda competition among the national environmental pioneers. However, successful agenda-setting depends on the skillful combination of political venues and issue frames. Matters of land politics, such as soil protection, are difficult to frame in terms that make them suitable for European policy venues. The theoretical argument is illustrated using an in-depth case study of the agenda-setting, negotiation, and eventual withdrawal of the ill-fated proposal for an EU soil framework directive, with a focus on the changing role of Germany. Reframing of soil politics as locally bound and as essentially national affair, subnational actors extended the conflict to include the German federal chamber as policy venue. As a result, Germany turned from “pusher by example” and first mover to “defensive front-runner,” successfully pursuing a blocking strategy.

During the past 30 years environmental policy was never between the top priority areas of public intervention in Greece. Legislative measures related to the protection of human health and nuisance from private economic activities were introduced as early as in the beginning of last century. The post dictatorial constitution of 1975 provided, for the first time, specific provision for the protection of natural environment. However, a comprehensive framework legislation regulating all facets of environmental degradation was adopted only in 1986 but remained, for a long period, practically inactive since the necessary implementing decisions were issued with considerable delay. The country's accession into the EU, in 1981, provided a cognitive and material basis for the modernisation of environmental policy through the incorporation of the environmental acquis into domestic law and building up of domestic administrative capacities through the use of the structural funds. However, low prioritisation of environmental protection in the domestic policy agendas of successive Greek governments continued to affect domestic administrative structures and policy traditions.

The purpose of this chapter is to give an interpretation to the limits of Indonesia’s forestry policy through the sustainable development approach analyzing the crossroads between economic development and environmental sustainability. There is an expansion and intensification of industrial plantations such as palm oil, as part of the economic development strategy, which must coexist with ongoing efforts of conservation of forest resources in the pursuit of environmental sustainability, including policies such as the Forest Moratorium.

The study explores the influence of the economic development of the palm oil industry in the environmental sustainability of the Forest Moratorium during the period 2011–2014. A case study on the Forest Moratorium is presented analyzing the operativeness of sustainable development principles in the discourse and concrete actions of this specific policy.

The study evidences that there is a basic problem in Indonesia’s forestry policy and the sustainable development approach, not only because of its inherent contradictions, but also due to the flaws in its interpretation and implementation. It is necessary to rethink the sustainable development, its scopes and limitations, taking into consideration its hybridity, dynamism, and constant transformation. It is also necessary to consider the feasibility of a paradigm shift or a search for sustainable solutions based on other parameters. One way of doing it should include a more participatory approach with a joint work by the government, local communities, nongovernmental organizations, the private sector, and academia.

First, as this is a case study the findings are not generalizable; and second, the social dimension of sustainable development is not incorporated in its entirety, as this study focuses mainly on the economic and environmental dimensions.

The findings contribute to the discussion in the theoretical and public policy fields, on the crossroads between economic development and environmental sustainability in the international agenda for sustainable development.

The study allows capturing the discussion in a concrete case and learning from the experience of Indonesia, its institutional failures, and the causes of its environmental problems.

To plan environmental policies it is important to identify factors influencing their effective implementation. Regarding Greek environmental policy, several factors have been underlined in the literature influencing its implementation. These include, among others, the structure of state mechanisms, the existence of clientelistic networks, the weak civil society and specific characteristics of political culture (Bromley, 1997; Lekakis, 1995; Spanou, 1998). In the recent literature the social capital of a community has also been recognized as having a significant influence during the implementation of all stages of environmental policy (Jones, Sophoulis, Iosifides, Botetzagias, & Evangelinos 2009).

We aim to comb the current policies that have been developed to promote the environmental industries in China and analyze them in a comparative manner.

We mainly use the method of text study to study the existing policies that Chinese central government published to promote the development of environmental industry. We built a database of policies and regulations from 1979 to 2015 by searching the official website of the Ministry of Environmental Protection of China.

We find that the existing policies focus on command and control approaches. Policies are more oriented to the stage of production instead of stages of investment and consumption. They rely more on negative incentive when stimulating supply and positive incentive when encouraging demand. Based on existing academic wisdom, we suggest that Chinese government should pay more attention to environmental economic policy and to stimulating demand for environmental products.

Few studies provide a systematic overview of the policy systems that have been developed to promote environmental industry in China in a systematic manner.

Much potential has been ascribed to the emergence and possibilities of a “global civil society,” one that takes the concept of civil society and civic activism and involvement beyond the traditional confines of the nation-state, and moves it instead into a globalized and increasingly politically integrated context. In general, the concept of global civil society has been treated as a positive development, with considerable attention being paid to the emancipatory and participatory opportunities that it presents. This essay explores the other side of the equation, i.e., the marginalization of national and European-level civil society and these participatory and emancipatory benefits in Central and Eastern Europe during a process of globalization and EU integration. Drawing from the emerging literatures on global civil society, this paper compares the normative and empirical emphases of that literature with the experiences and opinions of Central and Eastern European environmental NGOs. It examines how Central and Eastern European environmental movements have moved toward becoming more interconnected both in Europe and worldwide, yet are marginalized in favor of a style of environmental policy-making emerging from Brussels that emphasizes technocracy, scientific over public knowledge, and a top-down approach to the policy-making process. As a result, many of the democratic elements of civil society found at the national level have became neglected at the European and the global levels, replacing democratic politics (at least in the form of social movements) with the emergence of supranational technocratic institutions.

To examine the mobilization of environmental sustainability policies in the Winter Olympic Games in Asia guided by approaches that highlight policy mobilities. The construction of sledding tracks in two cases, the Winter Games in Japan and South Korea, was analyzed to demonstrate how sustainability was framed and which policy programs were implemented.

The first part of the chapter introduces Olympic mega-events as agents of sustainability policy circulation. It discusses the study's key concepts and describes approaches to policy circulation studies. The second part of the chapter outlines the construction of the Nagano and PyeongChang sledding tracks and the sustainability policies that were in use during that time. The third part discusses the two cases from a policy mobility perspective.

The two sledding track cases are described, along with national and Olympic policies of environmental sustainability. Discursive policy framings of environmental sustainability in Nagano and PyeongChang similarly modeled previous Games' best practices that were supported by scientific and technological knowledge. It was clear, however, that best practices were taken up differently in each construction effort, and that the lack of cooperation between Games organizers across these venues and countries meant that environmental expertise was not always transferred from one Games to another. Policy circulation was also affected by entangled transnational power relations, and by the fact that each nation state and the corporate actors who built the sledding tracks arguably had uneven power relations with international expert agencies. Thus, policy priorities and policy mobility from one Olympics to the next were determined by a combination of the interaction with these expert networks, time pressure in the Olympic structure, and rivalry between the countries.

Implications for enhancing policy mobility and deliberation of policy commitments are discussed.

At a time when the US federal government failed to act on climate change, California's success as a subnational climate policy leader has been widely celebrated. However, California's landmark climate law drove a wedge between two segments of the state's environmental community. On one side was a coalition of “market-oriented” environmental social movement organizations (SMOs), who allied with private corporations to advance market-friendly climate policy. On the other side was a coalition of “justice-oriented” environmental SMOs, who viewed capitalist markets as the problem and sought climate policy that would mitigate the uneven distribution of environmental harms within the state. The social movement literature is not well equipped to understand this case, in which coalitional politics helped one environmental social movement succeed in its policy objectives at the expense of another. In this chapter, we draw on legislative and regulatory texts, archival material, and interviews with relevant political actors to compare the policymaking influence of each of these coalitions, and we argue that the composition of the two coalitions is the key to understanding why one was more successful than the other. At the same time, we point out the justice-oriented coalition's growing power, as market-oriented SMOs seek to preserve their legitimacy.