“Learning is our Achilles heel”. Conditions for long-term environmental policy integration in Swedish regional development programming

摘要

The aim of this paper isto explore how the capacity to integrate environmental sustainability inSwedish regional development programming has evolved over time, with particularfocus on what facilitates and restricts change in different stages ofimplementation. The study builds on focus-group and individual interviews infour Swedish regions carried out in 2005 and 2011. The results suggesttemporary and partial rather than enduring and substantial environmental policyintegration (EPI). In 2005 the main challenges were to allocate support, focus and priority beyond the national policyrhetoric of regional sustainable development, to identify regional applicationsbeyond singular “pockets of good practice” and to spread ownership andengagement for EPI from specific ambassadors to organizational mainstreaming.In 2011 we find evidence of a more mainstreamed approach of regionalsustainable development but with new challenges of policy diffusion andsectorisation as well as a strong sense of projectification. There is a need todevelop arenas and processes for inter-sectoral exchange, interaction andlearning to achieve a more systematic change – which is, in essence, whatpolicy integration is all about.