Andersen and Liefferink's edited volume takes a different approach to comparative environmental policy studies. Governments at times need to build domestic political support to enable a regional agreement to be reached, and at other times they need to use regional policy-making as a way to put pressure on domestic constituencies. Most analyses of EU policy-making tend to downplay domestic politics, and the volume provides glimpses of how to connect European and national politics, though it does not quite realize its promise. The introduction usefully outlines the key variables involved in EU and national policy-making, and explores the strategies followed by the specific countries studied in the EU in terms of pushers, forerunners and followers.
Individual chapters cover each of the seven countries in the study.
These countries have acted as catalysts at various times in European environmental policy, either by developing innovative domestic policies or by pushing other EU members to adopt policies. Each chapter author is an expert on his or her country's environmental policy. Since little readily available material exists on Finland and Austria, these particular chapters help fill the literature gap. The chapters collectively focus on the environmental problems and policies, institutions, political context, key actors, foreign environmental policies and participation in the EU of each country. Different chapters have varying emphases, and sometimes do not treat national policy-making styles explicitly.