Suchergebnisse

The important role that climate leaders and leadership play at different levels of the European Union (EU) multilevel governance system is exemplified. Initially, climate leader states set the pace with ambitious policy measures that were adopted largely on an ad hoc basis. Since the mid-1980s, the EU has developed a multilevel climate governance system that has facilitated leadership and lesson-drawing at all governance levels including the local level. The EU has become a global climate policy leader by example although it had been set up as a 'leaderless Europe'. The resulting 'leadership without leader' paradox cannot be sufficiently explained merely by reference to top-level EU climate policies. Local level climate innovations and lesson-drawing have increasingly been encouraged by the EU's multilevel climate governance system which has become more polycentric. The recognition of economic co-benefits of climate policy measures has helped to further the EU's climate leadership role.

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This article distinguishes between states acting as environmental leaders or pioneers. While leaders usually actively seek to attract followers, this is not normally the case for pioneers. Dependent on their internal and external ambitions, states may take on the position of a laggard, pioneer, pusher or symbolic leader. When doing so, states employ various combinations of types and styles of leadership or pioneership. Four types of leadership/pioneership–structural, entrepreneurial, cognitive and exemplary–and two styles of leadership/pioneership–transactional/humdrum and transformational/heroic–are used to assess leaders and pioneers. The novel analytical framework put forward is intended to generate greater conceptual clarity, which is urgently needed for more meaningful theory-guided cumulative empirical research on leaders and pioneers.

This book takes an innovative approach to studying international climate governance by providing a critical analysis of climate leadership, pioneership and followership across the globe.

The volume assesses the interactions between climate leaders, pioneers and followers, across multilevel and/or polycentric climate governance contexts. Examining the state and sub-state levels in both the Global South and Global North, as well as regional, supranational EU and international climate governance levels, the authors explore 16 countries across Asia, Australasia, Europe, and Central and North America, plus the European Union. Each chapter employs a comprehensive and consistent framework for analyzing leadership and pioneership, as well as followership. The findings provide new insights into the strategies and actions of sub-state, state-level, and supranational leaders and pioneers.

This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners in environmental politics and climate change governance, as well as those interested in political elites, EU studies and, more broadly, comparative politics and international relations.

The leadership dynamics between the European Council, the Council and the Member States in European Union (EU) environmental policy since the 1970s are analysed. The puzzle is that, although the EU was set up as a 'leaderless Europe', it is widely seen as an environmental leader, albeit sometimes as a one-eyed leader amongst the blind. While differentiating between leadership types, it is argued that the European Council has the largest structural, the Council the most significant entrepreneurial, and the Member States the most important cognitive and exemplary leadership capacities. Most day-to-day environmental policy measures are negotiated by the Environment Council (in collaboration with the European Parliament). The European Council's increased interest in high politics climate change issues is largely due to the EU's global leadership ambitions. Member States have traditionally formed environmental leadership alliances on an ad hoc basis although this may be changing.