Hypocrisy as a crisis response?

Knill, Christoph; Steinebach, Yves und Fernández-i-Marín, Xavier (9. August 2018): Hypocrisy as a crisis response? Assessing changes in talk, decisions, and actions of the european commission in eu environmental policy. In: Public Administration

Abstract

In this article, we assess the changing role of the European Commission in EU environmental policy. In line with organizational theory, we expect organizational hypocrisy, namely a decoupling of talk, decisions, and actions, to characterize the Commission’s behavior in the aftermath of the financial and economic crisis. We analyze the extent to which the Commission (1) promotes environmental matters and concepts in press releases and public statements; (2) proposes new and stricter environmental policy changes; and (3) takes action against member states in case of non‐compliance between the year 2000 and 2016. Our empirical analysis reveals that the Commission has indeed moved towards pattern of hypocritical policy entrepreneurship in the post‐crisis period. We argue that the decoupling of talk, decision, and action allows the European Commission to keep up its reputation as an environmental policy entrepreneur while, at the same, pleasing member states’ preference for economic recovery and less environmental regulation.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Sozialwissenschaften > Geschwister-Scholl-Institut für Politikwissenschaft
• Themengebiete: 300 Sozialwissenschaften > 320 Politik
• ISSN: 1467-9299; 0033-3298
• Sprache: Englisch