in the 1990s
Deike Peters
Introduction
Already well before Manuel Castells’ (1996) The Rise of the Network Society,
“networks” had become an important new buzzword concept in planning and public policy-making. Broadly speaking, scholars associate it with the move from more hierarchical political and societal structures firmly rooted in the idea of the sovereign nation-state to a world where decisions at the local, regional, national, and global level all involve an increasing multitude of both govern- mental and non-governmental actors. This move toward multi-level governance has been particularly dramatic in Western Europe, where the establishment and progressive institutionalization of the European Union as a new form of both government and governancehas brought about important shifts in policy-making structures (Marks et al. 1996; Bache 1998; Hix 1998; Peterson and Bomberg 1999; Scharpf 1999; Wallace and Wallace 2000). This chapter uses the develop- ment of trans-national high-speed rail infrastructures in Western Europe in the 1990s as a case study to investigate which kinds of governance “networks”
were, and still are, responsible for embarking on such a vast international infrastructure program. This study questions the often only implicitly made yet wide-spread assumption that a move from hierarchical structures to
“networks” necessarily implies a move toward more democratic and trans- parent decision-making structures. Rather, the evidence supports instead Benz and Papadopoulos’s (2003: 2) conclusion that “networks are necessarily exclus- ive – i.e., they consist of interactions among limited groups of actors. They 1111
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constitute particular power relations, which do not conform to the principle of equality and inclusiveness.”
At least in the case of infrastructure planning, “democratic” networking at the EU level includes a rather narrow set of key actors. The story of
“networking for ‘missing links’ in Europe” appears more like a story of semi- exclusive “old boys networking” between industry representatives and national politicians than anything else. On the other hand, broader political and social movements in favor of a “modern,” “sustainable” transport system as well as other factors, more institutional and structural, also played a key role in promoting the construction of an international high-speed rail system.
This chapter also provides insights into the effectiveness of the EU as a new form of governance. The move toward an “ever closer union” has had an undeniably positive impact on decision making in Europe. However, this favor- able assessment is mostly limited to contexts in which prospects for economic modernization and growth provide additional motivating factors for taking action.
Analyzing Networks: Inspiration from the Literature
What is the best way to go about analyzing and characterizing stakeholders and their powers and preferences within the new context of European governance?
The concept of “policy networks” is a particularly abused term here. At this point in the debate, there are probably more articles claiming to “clarify” the concept as there were articles defining it originally. Although my own approach is similar to that of Robinson (1994: 872) who treats the term as “a ‘generic term’ encompassing all types of interest group mediation,” at least one key distinction should be made: The German (and Dutch) literature on the concept tends to treat networks more broadly as a new form of governance and an alter- native to markets and hierarchies, while British and American scholars tend to focus more narrowly on how networks influence the development and imple- mentation of particular policies. Börzel (1998), for example, distinguishes between an (Anglo-American) “interest intermediation school” and a (German)
“governance” school of policy networks.
Building on Rhodes’ (1997: 7) definition of policy networks as aggregating the interests of actors in a highly “differentiated polity” in a context of frag- mented policies, Peterson and Bomberg (1999: 8) characterize EU policy networks as tending to be “technocratic, consensual, and policy-specific.” What remains unresolved, however, is how far policy networks should be regarded as a full-blown theory, a model, a method or even simply a metaphor. This chapter tends to treat it as the latter, thus reverting to the broad way the British originators of the concept employed the term (Richardson and Jordan 1979).
But what are the alternatives to relying on the over-used concept of
“policy networks”? Two well-known alternative – also increasingly fashionable – policy concepts for analyzing multi-level decision making and network- ing in Europe are Sabatier’s “advocacy coalitions” and Haas’s “epistemic Deike Peters
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communities.” According to Sabatier (1988: 138), “advocacy coalitions” can be comprised of a mélange of interest groups, administrative agencies, analysts, researchers, journalists, and other stakeholders with an interest in a given policy sector. By contrast, Haas’s “epistemic communities” are a more narrowly defined group consisting of “a network of professionals with recognized expertise and competence in a particular domain . . . [and] (1) a shared set of normative and principled beliefs . . ., (2) shared causal beliefs . . ., (3) shared notions of validity, and (4) a common policy enterprise” (Haas 1992: 3).
The usefulness of these two concepts has been widely and controversially discussed in the literature (Sabatier 1998; Radaelli 1999; Toke 1999; Dudley et al. 2000; Dunlop 2000; Miller and Fox 2001; Zito 2001). Yet both actor- centered models and concepts do not give adequate attention to the structural rationales underlying material decisions. In other words: the key problem of the inadequate or unclear conceptualization of the relationship between the agenda- setting powers of the so-defined “networks,” “coalitions,” or “communities,” and external institutional constraints and/or structural factors (“discourses”) remains.
I therefore take additional inspiration from two key sources: from Peterson and Bomberg’s three-tier model of EU decision making and the so-called “discur- sive” or “argumentative turn” in policy analysis and planning.
According to Peterson and Bomberg (1999: 9):
the student of EU decision-making must be concerned with explaining a range of different decisions taken at different levels in a multi-level system of governance. [One should therefore] draw on a range of theories that are “pitched” at different levels of decision-making.
More precisely, they suggest distinguishing between three types of decisions:
history-making, policy-setting, and policy-shaping decisions. Only for the last, sub-systemic level of decision making, do they consider policy network analysis to be the most appropriate theory for explaining decisions. By contrast, they find New Institutionalist approaches (see e.g., Bulmer 1994), with their focus on path dependency and differentiation between institutions as “rules of the game” and organizations as “the players” (North 1990) most appropriate for the intermediate, policy-setting level, and (liberal) intergovernmentalism (espe- cially Moravcsik 1998) and/or neofunctionalism (see e.g., Burley and Mattli 1993) most appropriate for the history-making level. In the end, the message of their three-level model aimed at “putting theory in its place” is unmistak- able: “Policy network analysis . . . [only] seems apt for a system of governance that is weakly institutionalized, resource-poor and has no ‘government’.” As we will see in our case study example, these three criteria do not apply to high- speed rail decision making. More importantly, depending on the level of decision making, very different rationalities and modes of power come into play – something that policy network analysis does not adequately account for. This brings us to our second analytical amendment for analyzing EU networking in practice: discourse-orientation.
Networking for Trans-national “Missing Links”
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Defined broadly, the “discursive” or “argumentative turn” in policy analysis and planning focuses on “practical processes of argumentation” and on how
“institutionally disciplined rhetorics of policy and planning influence prob- lem selection analysis” (Fischer and Forester 1993: 2). Following Hajer’s (1995) The Politics of Environmental Discourse, there has been a rapidly evolving literature on (environmental) discourses in planning and public policy. Its interdisciplinary influence is reflected in several recent articles in scientific journals relating to environmental studies, planning, geography, and even anthropology (Campbell 1996; Nygren 1998; Fischer and Hajer 1999; Lumley 1999; Ruzza 2000; Harper 2001). In the wake of Foucault and other post- positivist critics, scholars of all disciplines have found it necessary to focus more closely on the various discourses that both researchers and practitioners employ. Struggles over transport-infrastructure decision making, in particular, clearly illustrate the use of different discourses and their consequences, and there is now a rapidly evolving literature on sustainability discourses in trans- port policy (see e.g., Flyvbjerg 1998; Sager 1999; Baeten 2000; Langmyhr 2000, 2001; Richardson 2000; Vigar 2000, 2001; Willson 2001; Peters 2003a;
Low et al. 2003).1Additionally, Flyvbjerg et al.’s recent study on Megaprojects and Risks(2003) has refueled a debate over the rampant problem of excessive cost overruns and the misleading information that project promoters often provide with regard to large-scale transport projects. Such “sugarcoating”
certainly has also been a factor in getting high-speed rail projects approved within EU member states. Yet rather than tracing the genesis of individual high- speed rail lines in the national context, the following case study focuses more on the general networking and the discourses in favor of high-speed rail in the EU in the 1990s.
I have characterized EU transport policy in general as being dominated by the discursive framework of “ecological modernization” (Peters 2003b) and demonstrated that within the particular policy arena of Trans-European Transport Networks (TEN-T), EU transport infrastructure investment policies are mostly being guided by the two key “storylines” of “missing links” and
“bottlenecks” (see especially Peters 2003b: 332–6). I will now take a closer look at how such discursive elements play out in the case of trans-national high- speed rail in Europe.
The Case Study: Networking for a European High-speed Rail System
The Push for European High-speed Rail in the 1990s: Key Decisions and Stakeholders
Plans for developing a high-speed, European-wide integrated rail system pre- date the EU and had been discussed in other international forums, but no trans-national high-speed lines had resulted from these initiatives. By contrast, numerous national-level high-speed rail lines were established in Europe during the 1970s and 1980s, particularly in France and Germany. Yet even among these Deike Peters
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national initiatives, only France followed a genuine network approach from the beginning, based mainly on the construction of a new “TGV” high-speed system. In Germany, the initial approach to high-speed rail was to concentrate on particular stretches of the dense network to overcome bottlenecks. Today, Germany features a comparatively dense network consisting of a mixture of newly constructed lines especially intended for its high-speed ICE trains, and others which are more multi-purpose, running both the very fast (> 250 km/h) ICE trains and more conventional EC or IC trains (up to 200 km/h) at frequent intervals.
Then, in 1992, the EU’s Maastricht Treaty made the development of the so-called Trans-European Networks (TENs) a European Union priority. In particular, five of the 14 TEN transport priority projects endorsed by the EU’s Essen European Council in December 1994 were high-speed rail links, with another five being conventional rail and/or multi-modal projects. In 2001, the EU proposed six additions and two extensions to this priority project list, again with a strong emphasis on high-speed rail. In 2003, the EU then extensively revised both the guidelines and the financial regulations for the TEN-T as a whole. Moreover, in light of the accession of the ten new EU member states in May 2004, several additional potential priorities for funding, as well as a significant rise in overall funding for TEN-T projects were proposed.
Despite these official EU plans, the EU has not been the primary deci- sion-maker in devising these networks, however. And it was also not the key initiator. The EU explains its own role in developing the TENs as follows:2
Responsibility for creating transport networks lies mainly with the Member States, in line with subsidiarity . . . The Union’s role is to act as a catalyst and problem solver – it takes project proposals from the Member States and turns them into a network design, it encourages Member States to push the projects forward and tries to find ways around financial and regulatory obstacles.
To think of “the EU” and “Member States” as the only relevant stake- holders would be misleading, however. Following the Peterson and Bomberg model, Table 6.1 provides an overview of the key decisions and their respec- tive levels, as well as the pertaining stakeholders, rationalities, and power modes relevant to high-speed rail decision making in Europe in the 1990s.
Power of Decision and Discourse: Putting the Priority “Missing Links” on the European Map
The original discourse around the so-called “missing links” within European transport networks was not brought into play by national or inter-governmental initiatives but by industry players (Peters 2003b). More specifically, it was the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT), an industry lobby group based in Paris, which in the 1980s and early 1990s produced a series of reports pushing the EU and national governments to embark on a series of costly, high-profile Networking for Trans-national “Missing Links”
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transport infrastructure projects linking Western European countries. ERT membership is by invitation only, consisting of about 40 all-male chief execu- tives of large, multi-national – including transport and oil sector – giants such as Total, BP, Volvo, Volkswagen, Rolls Royce, and Renault.3
The ERT’s first landmark report (1984) “Missing Links – Upgrading Europe’s Transborder Ground Infrastructure” proposed three core measures that would eventually – over the course of the next 20 years – be turned into real(istic) infrastructure proposals endorsed by national governments, the EU, and the private sector: (1) the Anglo-French Channel tunnel, (2) road/rail links from Scandinavia to Northern Germany across the Oresund and/or the Fehmarn Belt, and (3) a general network of high-speed train links. Astonishingly, these proposals are mostly congruent with the subsequent rail sector priority proposals for the EU TENs.4 These concrete infrastructure proposals were followed up by further ERT reports in 1989, 1991, and 1992. ERT pro-high-speed rail lobbying of European transport was particularly intense in the late 1980s. The ERT was operating at a level where, according to former ERT General Secretary Keith Richardson, members were “able to phone Helmut Kohl and recommend that he read a report, . . . or [have] lunch with the Swedish Prime minister”
(quoted in Doherty and Hoedeman 1994: 135–7). Other scholars have confirmed this highly influential nature of the ERT’s interventions. Tim Richardson (2000), for example, quotes a Brussels bureaucrat as summarizing TEN transport policy as follows: “TEN-T as a policy has been around for a long time, developed Deike Peters
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Table 6.1 Key Decisions and Stakeholders for the EU High-speed Rail Initiatives in the 1990s
Level Type of Examples Key Type of Key Mode
Decision Relevant Stakeholders Rationality of Power for the
Case Study
Super- History- Maastricht National Political Decision and
systemic making Treaty, governments discourse
commitment industry to TEN-T lobby (ERT)
Systemic Policy- Misc. High-level Political Decision and
setting Council Eurocrats, technocratic discourse
Directives NGOs, and implemen-
and White other interest tation
Papers groups
Sub- Policy- Commission Mid-level Technocratic Implemen- systemic shaping initiatives Eurocrats, consensual tation,
and NGOs, and operation
memorands other interest groups
Source: Adapted and expanded after Peterson and Bomberg 1999: 9
from the missing links and the European Round Table, and all this kind of busi- ness, you know.” Subsequent to the ERT’s initial report, the “Missing Links”
rhetoric was picked up by the European Conference of Ministers of Transport (ECMT), and by the European Union. Of particular importance was Delors’
“White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness, and Employment,” which was endorsed by all heads of state and also promoted the idea of the TENs (Commission of the European Communities 1993). The Commission then gave the respective high-level expert (“Christopherson”) Working Group the mandate to identify a list of potential priority projects.
Pressure from industry lobby groups was not the only reason for the success of the “Missing Links”/TENs concept and the resulting EU-backed high-speed rail initiatives in the early 1990s, however. Another important strategic reason was that in the particular political context of the 1990s, (transport) infrastructure policy provided a new, “safe” field of cooperation at a time when it was too early for the EU to seriously embark on a common defense/foreign policy and/or monetary union (also see Turro 1999: 102ff.). In this context, the TEN-T prior- ities are interesting precisely because they do not just express an obvious patchworking together of Member state preferences of national network connec- tions, but also an emerging consensus among those Member states that vesting the EU with additional political powers would ultimately be beneficial to everyone. As Piodi (1997: 24, quoted in Peters 2003b: 321) notes:
The 1990s saw the start of the European Union’s involvement in infra- structure policy . . . This innovation was far more radical than has generally been suggested by politicians, researchers or journalists.
Historically, the role of public works in the Member States has far exceeded their specific function . . . [T]hey also function as a symbol of the tangible reality of power, which is of crucial importance even in the modern age. The fact that responsibility for this sector has been conferred on the Union means that the prospects for the political legitimization of the Union have been enhanced . . . Its new responsibilities mean that it now plays a major role in the decision-making process at all levels of government in the Member States.
Additionally, the promotion of new, competitive high-speed rail lines as a modern, clean, and technologically advanced transport mode was highly compatible with the discourse of “ecological modernization” which has domi- nated political decision making in EU countries since the 1990s. “Ecological modernization” emphasizes “sustainable growth” and a competitive, efficiency- and market-oriented approach to the environment using advanced, high tech- nology (Hajer 1995; Fischer and Hajer 1999; Peters 2003b, especially pages 117–23). In the 1990s the ill-effects of mass motorization were increasingly problematized and official rhetoric turned against road-based transport.
Tellingly, much of the focus in academic and policy debates was on safety issues, emissions control and, most recently, pricing schemes. Sustainable
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transport, understood in the context of ecological modernization, always implied a desired modal shift from road (or air) to rail (or non-motorized) transport, as reflected in many official EU and OECD/ECMT policy statements. So the EU’s emphasis on high-speed rail provided a highly visible, politically important signal supporting this new discourse.
Overall, TEN-T network policy should thus be interpreted not simply as an example of (realist) intergovernmentalism but, rather, as a process of multi-level governance that already included key actors beyond the national governmental level. Nevertheless, discourses and decision-making rationalities at this super-systemic level were highly politicized and access to the decision- making process for both civil society and lower-level bureaucrats was rather limited.
Power of Implementation: Funding and Constructing the TEN-T HSR Projects
Vesting the EU with the power and responsibility to develop a Trans-European transport network and a list of priorities did not yet answer the key question as to how individual projects would be funded and implemented. Grant funding for TEN-T projects was provided through various EU programs. Additionally, the house bank of the European Union, the European Investment Bank (EIB) provided billions of euros for TEN transport projects over the last decade.
Despite the EU’s stated preference for rail, the TEN-T funding record initially remained more dominated by road funding than by rail funding. This contra- diction to official policy rhetoric was most pronounced in the mid-1990s. From 1994 to 1999, over 70 percent of the EU’s EDRF Objective 1 funding for the least developed regions went to roads, and 69 percent of the €5 billion TEN- T project funding in the four EU Cohesion countries (Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain) went to roads as well. Meanwhile, until 2000, the EIB had also committed less than 30 percent of its transport funds to the rail sector. However, over 60 percent of the EU’s special TEN-T budget line until 1998 went to rail, with two-thirds of that devoted to high-speed rail. For the years from 2001 onwards, the TEN-T budget figures show that now that three of the other TEN- T priority projects were completed, almost 37 percent of all special EU TEN transport funding, a total of about €1 billion, was to go into the five high-speed rail priority projects, with another 10 percent going into the other remaining priority projects.5However, no matter how large the EU’s committed sums seem when seen by themselves, they cover but a fraction of the total investments necessary. As the EU itself notes:
The EU budget for 1995–2000 earmarked a total of €1,830 billion for the TEN-T. The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the European Union’s Cohesion Fund contributed a total of some €14 billion for projects of common interest in the “cohesion countries.” The trans- port networks’ share [of the RTD budget] is expected to be around €4 to 4.2 billion . . .
Deike Peters
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