Associated Doctoral Researchers
Research topic
“Governance-Structures in Climate Policy: Knowledge Transfer in Nation-States"
Short biography
Franziska Ehnert is a junior researcher at the Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER) in Dresden, Germany. Her research focuses on local sustainability initiatives and sustainability transitions. She has worked as a PhD Researcher at the University of Potsdam, Germany, studying policy discourses and policy processes in climate policy. She earned her MA in political science, economics and Slavonic studies at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, Germany.
Abstract
Governance structures in climate policy: knowledge transfer in nation states
Discursive neo-institutionalism has refined and extended the previous neo-institutionalisms by introducing ideas and discursive interaction in the study of institutions and policy analysis. Adopting this discursive neo-institutionalist perspective, this thesis aims at shedding light on the coordinative discourses within governmental institutions. Such an interpretive approach raises the question about which identities and policy frames guide policy deliberation processes. Moreover, by concentrating on the ministerial administration and its role in policy formulation, the thesis ‘brings the state apparatus back in’ the study of climate policy.
As it applies a most dissimilar systems design, the thesis compares coordinative discourses in climate policy in Western and Central Eastern European countries, namely Denmark, Estonia, Germany and Poland, to understand how the interactive dynamics and the ideational content of these policy discourses develop. As these coordinative discourses are embedded in country-specific contexts, which are characterised along the dimensions of policy, politics and polity, this diverse set of countries allows for comparing discursive dynamics across a variety of institutional and political constellations.