Brexit, Devolution, and Climate Mitigation in British Agricultural Policies

• In Event: Comparative Climate Impacts, Politics, and Policy

Abstract

How do we think of climate mitigation policies? And how do we understand the process through which governments implement these policies? Thus far, we lack a comprehensive way for understanding climate mitigation policy adoption. In this paper, I conduct a comparative case study of policy change in the agricultural sector of devolved governments in the United Kingdom following Britain’s exit from the European Union (Brexit). Brexit represents an exogenous shock, requiring the devolved governments to redesign agriculture policies as a result of the referendum. I compare the climate mitigation policy adoption process regarding the agricultural sectors in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales following Brexit. The overall contributions of this project then include first developing the new typology of climate mitigation policies based upon descriptive analysis of the array of different policy actions governments have taken. To build upon this typology I seek to explain how the variation and timing of climate mitigation policies fits into previous theories of the policies process to try to explain why different countries vary in climate mitigation policy adoption using a comparative case study approach. I investigate why path dependence or interest group-based conflict did not occur in other cases.

Author

• Dan Ziebarth, George Washington University