Mediating change in environmental policy : The case of EEA and Norway Grants in Central European countries
Abstract
This research concentrates on how changes in environmental policy are mediated in the Central European societies based on the influence of the European Economic Area and Norway Grants (EEA/Norway Grants). Every country which is a receiver of the EEA/Norway Grants negotiates with the Agency of EEA/Norway Grants over the fields that are going to be financed.
These fields of investments are negotiated in the memorandum of understanding. These official bilateral documents well describe the change of the priorities of the states during two financial periods, but also represent the change of the policies and direction of the societies.
In my previous research, I have described how Norway uses these EEA/Norway Grants as a soft power tool of the Norwegian foreign policy. The EEA/Norway Grants are used as an instrument of how Norway shares its values which can be forced to be accepted as a condition for financing.
During the analysis, I realised the amount of communication that goes behind the negotiation in both official (governmental) and unofficial levels (media and NGOs). Using the theory of soft power defined by Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye, we can analyse the change over the priority of the states to invest in the environmental fields during the last two financial periods.
But moreover, the mediating of this change in the Central European societies. Using qualitative methods and discursive analysis, we can detect the areas of environmental policy in each memorandum of understanding for two periods, 2009-2014 and 2014-2021.
Altogether with the quantitative methods of causal-comparative research (analysing change of the submitted investments into the environmental issues), we can detect the change and the direction of each state, e. g. whether financing into the environment policy increase or decrease. Then, after analysing both official and unofficial sources (memorandums, official statements, interviews, news articles), we can answer how the change is mediated in society, but also how the change is accepted, e.g. the case of Hungary shows that the mediating change by the hard power, used by Viktor Orban, can lead even into the suspending of financing for the whole financial period or into the diplomatic tiff, contrary Czechia successfully increases both investments and the bilateral relations.
A reaction of each state is different, and so the source needs for examining the answers for the research. The aim of this research is to examine how Central European countries (Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) differ in mediating change in environmental policy, as part of the EEA/Norway Grants, at different levels (a change of priorities, change of the amount of money financed into the state in total, the change in the attitude among the Norwegian foreign policy) and how they differ in communicating these changes in society (e.g. what kind of rhetoric the government uses, what kind of mediation resources are used).
The topic of this research is a part of the long-term analysis of EEA/Norway Grants that the researcher concentrates on and can be a unique outcome because of the researcher's interdisciplinary educational background.