CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2013
Author | Lis, Aleksandra |
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Title | MAKING A MARKET: THE PROBLEM OF POLISH CARBON IN EU CLIMATE POLICIES |
Summary | The dissertation analyzes the formation of emissions trade regulation in the European Union (Emissions Trading Scheme, or ETS) both as a new tool of environmental governance and as a new market structure. The study provides a historical account of how and why the ETS was established at the beginning of the 2000s and studies its reorganization proposed by the European Commission in January 2008. Because it focuses more particularly on the Polish negotiation of amendments to the ETS, the dissertation also offers a study of the “integration” of Poland in European environmental policy. ETS rules, the dissertation shows, are neither neutral nor innocent as they perform relations of domination on European markets. In addition, they are produced by interested actors with stakes in various fields – markets and policy fields. Through a combination of the performativity approach to economy and markets with the theory of fields, the thesis describes and analyzes the embeddedness of the ETS organization in politics taking place within and across these fields. Embeddedness of emissions trade thus appears to be complex and layered; and its organization has to be defined as a dynamic process whereby interests are articulated, negotiated and stabilized. The interest of the Polish case in such a study resides in the peculiar place of the energy sector in the Polish economy. More particularly, large shares of coal in electricity production (93%) within a fairly isolated, mostly state-owned and aging electricity sector make any environmentalist reform of coal production and use immensely costly to this country. This has generated fierce resistance to the EU’s ETS plans and set in motion a complex process of interest mobilization and formation with significant impact on final outcomes. Through this case study I argue that Europeanization, far from being a top-down process, takes place within networks of communication between businesses, experts, governments and European officials. |
Supervisor | Alexandra Kowalski |
Department | Sociology PhD |
Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2013/lis_aleksandra.pdf |
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