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AbstractAs far as local governments are responsible for the practical implementation of many European Union (EU) policies, they codetermine member states' EU compliance records and the fate of EU legislation. Yet, they do so in remarkably different ways, as exemplified by the variegated implementation of the Ambient Air Quality Directive 2008/50/EC by Dutch municipalities. Taking guidance from the literature on EU compliance, in this article we explain the differences in local implementation performance based on the political and managerial approaches. Understanding which of the two approaches drives different local responses to EU policy bears consequences for the appropriate remedy for nonimplementation. Four municipalities were purposefully selected along with the two-by-two implementation performance scoring matrix in the realm of air quality. A comparative within-case analysis specifies how political explanations outweigh managerial explanations in accounting for variation in implementation performance and distils 'policy saliency' as the driving causal mechanism.

This contribution assesses the roles and functions of leaders, pioneers and followers in multi-level and polycentric climate governance. While leaders usually actively seek to attract followers, this is not normally the case for pioneers. We address the following core research questions: (1) Who can be a leader/pioneer?; (2) Why do actors become leaders/pioneers?; (3) How do leaders/pioneers act?; and, (4) How do leaders/pioneers attract followers? In doing so we differentiate between structural, entrepreneurial, cognitive and exemplary leadership and assess the dynamics between leaders/pioneers and followers in climate governance. State-centred, multilevel governance and polycentric governance concepts place different emphasis on the roles played by different types of leadership/pionieership in climate governance. We argue that climate leaders and pioneers can use different types of leadership and often must act (either simultaneously or sequentially) at different levels of climate governance to achieve their ambitions.

This is about policies and strategies for ecologically rational governance and uses the Swedish case study to ask whether it is possible to move form a traditional environmental policy to a broad, integrated pursuit of sustainable development, as illustrated through the 'Sustainable Sweden' programme.

There is no shortage of would-be leaders in EU climate change politics. The EU institutions (e.g. European Council, Council of the EU, Commission and the European Parliament (EP)), member states and societal actors have all, though to varying degrees and at different time periods, tried to offer leadership in EU and international climate change politics. Importantly, public support for EU environmental policy in general, and climate change policy in particular, has been consistently high (e.g. Eurobarometer 2015). The economic recession which followed the 2008 financial crises triggered only a moderate drop in public support for EU action on climate change, although considerable variation exists between member states.