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Whilst transport bio­fuels have enjoyed strong political support in Europe for much of the past decade, concerns over their full impacts have an almost equally long history. Since 2008 these concerns have centred most intently upon the land-use change impacts of biofuel production, whereby increased demand for biofuels leads nonagricultural landscapes to be converted—either directly or indirectly—into agricultural ones. Amongst other things, biofuel-driven land-use change might potentially lead to significant emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG), losses of biodiversity, reduced ecosystem resilience, degradation of soil and water resources, declines in regional food security, or even land rights infringements through so-called 'land-grabbing'. Political debates surrounding biofuel-driven land-use change in Europe have historically been restricted, however, to considerations of technical modelling work addressing the GHG emissions that might result from this process, thereby ignoring a wide range of alternative issues. Adopting a discursive-institutionalist perspective, this paper scrutinises two interrelated sets of dynamics pertaining to the handling of this political issue in Europe. First, it examines how the specific bureaucratic context of Brussels has itself been constitutive of the discursive practices used by policy makers to establish and retain control of the prevailing political conception of biofuel-driven land-use change. Second, it examines how these practices have inevitably led to what Scott terms a "narrowing of vision" in policy makers' approach to this problem, with concomitant implications for the role occupied by conceptions of 'place' in the policy process. In both instances the argument is made that such interactions exclude critical perspectives on what is at stake in the drive for biofuels from relevant policy-making procedures altogether. In light of these conclusions, I contend that future geographical analyses of environmental policy making writ large should pay greater attention to the ...

From a discursive-institutionalist perspective I seek to establish the influence exerted over environmental agenda setting and policy change by ideas and discourse, through an examination of recent developments in the UK's flagship biofuels policy, the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation (RTFO). Discursive institutionalism's central contention is that the intricate interactions between ideas and institutions should be at the centre of studies of the policy-making process. By elucidating the mutually reinforcing character of cognitive processes (including 'framing' and 'boundary work') and institutional factors (such as 'standard operating procedures' and path dependency), I show how, despite a raft of countervailing evidence, significant changes in both the form and objectives of the RTFO were precluded. Longer-term research is required to establish the precise precipitating circumstances enabling such stability to result from these feedbacks, however, as it is—theoretically at least—equally likely that far shorter periods of dramatic policy change, or 'paradigm shifts', will emerge.

This paper assesses the recent European governance of risks associated with indirect land-use change (ILUC) arising from biofuel production. Deploying the theoretical concepts of 'wicked problems', 'incertitudes' and 'co-production', it argues that Europe's existing risk governance apparatus has systematically failed to acknowledge the inherent difficulties of both identifying and interpreting knowledge pertaining to this issue, thereby sanctioning a risk management strategy that is both cognitively and democratically illegitimate. In short, existing modes of risk governance have assumed that the questions 'what makes ILUC problematic?' and 'how problematic is ILUC?' are both resolvable through objective, scientific risk assessments, when in fact they are not. This paper's first contribution is to outline the precise characteristics of ILUC that serve to render it a wicked problem, focusing in particular on the epistemological hurdles facing those who seek to answer the two key questions outlined above. Its second contribution is then to assess the appropriateness of those science-policy relationships which have thus far been cultivated in Europe as part of attempts to deal with this issue. Specifically here, the reification of 'ILUC factors' as the dominant metric of ILUC risk assessment is argued to have comprised a classic instance of 'co-production', leading to the systematic 'closing down' of broader political debates around the issue. The paper concludes by contending that Europe's risk governance apparatus will have to strive to be more inclusive, transparent, adaptable and reflexive in the future, particularly given the increasing prominence today of such multi-dimensional 'wicked' problems, both in the environmental sphere and beyond.

No shortage of evidence exists of the strains within the Atlantic Alliance, ranging from bitter disputes over international currency and economic policy and trade, to divergences over foreign policy issues and sharp differences over defence and arms control strategy. The question is less whether the conflicts exist than whether they can be said to add up to a systemic crisis in Atlanticism. (PFB)

During the 1960s and early 1970s, strong economic growth and highly expansionary income security policies led to considerable progress for the entire American population. However, in the last fifteen years much of this progress has been either arrested or reversed, particularly for the non-aged. This retrenchment was the inevitable consequence of numerous phenomena which preceded, and were reinforced by the Reagan era. Future prospects are for slow economic growth, higher targetting of programs by income, and marginal expansions. Major income security problems, especially among the lower income population, will remain. (Abstract amended)