A matter of scale – Study on the politics of agri-environmental policy implementation

Authors

• Minna Kaljonen Finnish Environment Institute SYKE

Abstract

We need a more thorough understanding of the ways in which vertical scales and horizontal networks hang together in tension in order to understand policy failures experienced within agri-environmental policies in Europe. In this paper I ground this argument with the experiences gained from the implementation of Finnish agri-environmental policy. I bring together an extensive body of empirical material of the Finnish implementation practices during 2000–2006 and examine how the concept of mode of ordering (developed by Law, 1994) could assist us in analysing the complexities of implementation. I elaborate the modes of orderings enacted by the various civil servants, how they have come to depend upon one another and evolved as they have interacted. The opening of the implementation practices reveals how the Finnish agri-environmental policy has taken a fixed scalar form contributing to a hardening of conventional categories and actor positions. his fixed scalar form has not had the capability to meet the challenge of fragile environmental relations. I close the article with a discussion on alternative routes of action.