Emanuela Bozzini Livres

This book explores the regulation of pesticides in the European Union in order to reveal the complex, controversial, and contested nature of an assessment system proudly declared by the EU to be ‘the strictest in the world’. The current regulatory framework is based on Regulation 1107/2009, which substantially reformed the previous system. The analysis describes the new criteria and procedures for the authorization of active substances to be used in the production of pesticides, traces the lengthy policy formulation process, and identifies factors that made policy change possible. Further, the book illustrates the current controversies that characterise the implementation of Regulation 1107/2009: the ban of pesticides harmful to pollinators, the renewal of the authorization of glyphosate, and the definition of criteria for the assessment of endocrine disruption. The author provides information on policy outcomes and highlights persisting shortcomings in the enforcement of EU regulation. This book will appeal to students and scholars from a variety of disciplines, including political science, political sociology, and public policy.

The book’s approach to governance underscores the need to a broader look at governance beyond networks and network governance. The focus on ambiguities which are consubstantial to governance raises the question of how those ambiguities are handled and resolved through the institutionalization of practices and on the social, political and policy outcomes and consequences of these institutional solutions. As a result, contributions to this volume explicitly address ambiguities in governance dynamics, institutions and actors, and aim at shedding light on their complex interactions. Most chapters present a comparative perspective to governance arrangements, providing detailed knowledge on case studies in a number of crucial policy sectors: health care, rural and urban development, local planning. On the whole, the book collects a set of local/national experiences that allows to elaborate on conceptual issues through the notion of governance ambiguities. The book is structured in three parts: ambiguities, hybridity and failures; networks, participation and community; decision-making, democracy and power.