CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2016
| Author | Cernov, Elena Alexandr |
|---|---|
| Title | Triathlon for environmental organizations - communication, information and narratives in agricultural lobbying in Brussels |
| Summary | In a time of a growing understanding of the environmental impacts of agricultural practices, environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) are still marginalized actors in shaping agricultural policy in the EU. This thesis traces the lobbying practices of Brussels-based organizations in order to examine how environmental concerns are being made visible and introduced in agricultural policy through various communication channels and narrative building. The study draws on interviews with representatives of ENGOs and other relevant stakeholders (representatives of European Parliament and European Commission; public health organizations), document analysis and event observation done during one month in Brussels in 2016. Findings reveal that environmental NGOs that participate in the policy process go over the formal channels provided by European institutions by developing their own informal channels of access to decision-makers as a need to counter-balance the more dominant stakeholders. Secondly, it focuses on the types of information being used in these communication channels and reveals the fact that due to the high level of technicality and science-based evidences needed for shaping environmental and agricultural policies ENGOs specialize narrowly on certain issues. This allows them to be able to follow the issues and contribute in a more targeted way to the policy shaping. Thirdly it shows how the agricultural lobbyists construct on competing narratives in presenting their own arguments. The thesis argues that despite the primacy of farmers’ interests in agricultural policy making ENGOs manage to have an influence in the political discussion, but further research is needed in order to ascertain how to make the environmental voice in Brussels stronger. |
| Supervisor | Guntra Aistara |
| Department | Environment Sciences and Policy MSc |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2016/cernov_elena.pdf |
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