[IUFRO Div 9] New Paper: Is bioeconomy policy a policy field? A conceptual framework and findings on the European Union and Germany

Dear colleagues, we are happy to inform you about the publication of our new paper in the Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning: "Is bioeconomy policy a policy field? A conceptual framework and findings on the European Union and Germany" by Annette Toeller, Thomas Vogelpohl, Katrin Beer and Michael Boecher ABSTRACT Bioeconomy policy is often labelled a policy field or at least an emerging policy field. But is it really one? And how can one tell and what does it mean? Drawing on the scarce research on what exactly are policy fields and what are the factors driving their emergence, we aim to answer these questions based on the definition of a policy field as a specific and long-term constellation of related problems, actors, institutions and instruments. Empirically drawing on the European Union and Germany, in a first step we find that bioeconomy policy can be characterised as an emerging policy field at most, as it is limitedly institutionalised and lacks a genuinely bioeconomy-related actor constellation and problem structure. Moreover, there are hardly any bioeconomy-specific instruments in place. In a second step, we find that the fragmented institutional and regulatory landscape particularly hinders the establishment of bioeconomy policy as a policy field, as do the ambiguity and inconsistency of its overarching goals as well as its fragile supportive actor constellations. As a result, bioeconomy policy to date rather serves as a conceptual umbrella for a number of already existing policies, so far with little tangible effect. KEYWORDS Bioeconomy; policy analysis; policy fields; environmental policy; European Union; Germany Free copies are available ( the first 50) here: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/KCQI5MN8NZYNNUGXHYA8/full?target=10.1080… The paper is one result of the project "Political processes of bioeconomy between economy and ecology" http://www.bio-oekopoli.de/bio-oekopoli/en/, a cooperation between FernUniversität in Hagen, Germany and Otto-von-Guericke-University, Magdeburg, Germany. It has been funded by the German Federal Ministry of Research and Education (BMBF). Best regards Michael Boecher Prof. Dr. Michael Böcher Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg Institute for Social Science Chair of Political Science and Sustainable Development Universitätsplatz 2 39106 Magdeburg GERMANY http://www.pw.ovgu.de/Lehrst%C3%BChle/Lehrstuhl+Nachhaltige+Entwicklung.html Visit us on Facebook<https://www.facebook.com/Lehrstuhl-Politikwissenschaft-Schwerpu…3/>!