Policy-Making Dynamics and Emergent Technology: the Evolution of Biofuel Policy in the United States, Germany, and the European Union

摘要

This dissertation advances our understanding of two phenomena that are crucial to studies of public policy: policy-making dynamics, understood as distinct modes of interpersonal interactions between specialized policy actors; and shifts from one policy-making dynamic to another. It proposes a typological theory for explaining different policy-making dynamics (problem-hooking, consensus-keeping, adversarialism, and problem-solving) and the changes therein. This theory development endeavour builds on a detailed account of the evolution of biofuel policy in the United-States, Germany and the European Union over a very long period of time (1906 to early 2014). It proposes a typological theory demonstrating the constitutive role of causal and normative beliefs mobilized in subsystems and the causal role of pathways processes enabling changes from one dynamic to another.