It has been argued that the body of literature dealing with CAP reforms, on the one hand, provides great insights into the continuity of the CAP. The explanations of continuity offered are largely institutional and suggest that the CAP is resistant to change due to:
the fragmented nature of the EU polity, with its dispersion of power and the existence of a wide number of veto players;
the highly sectorised nature of the CAP;
The Common Agricultural Policy and Organic Farming: An Institutional 183 Perspective on Continuity and Change
the privileged access of the farm lobby to political institutions both at the national and EU levels;
the existence of a permanent 'free-rider' problem within the CAP;
the constitutionalised nature of the CAP objectives (path-dependency);
agricultural exceptionalism;
the adoption of environmental concerns which are not common within the agricultural sector itself but, rather, used to legitimise continuing support of agricultural production;
the close monitoring of the Commission by Member State representatives;
the Agriculture Council acting as a strong defender of the status quo.
On the other hand, parts of the CAP reform literature have increasingly suggested that changes have indeed appeared within the CAP. Accordingly, attention has increasingly been given to change within the CAP caused by: (i) international free trade negotiations and the policy entrepreneurial role of the Commission; (ii) a diversification of the interests of the farm lobby and, likewise, a diversification of the general interest representation both at the European level and within Member States; (iii) a rising degree of autonomy of skilful individuals in favour of change; (iv) the influence of 'outsiders' on both international and EU negotiations on agricultural reforms; (v) the actual and the perceived 'negative externalities' of the CAP; and, (vi) the actual and self- imposed budget crisis. Taken together, the CAP reform literature offers a wide range of institutional explanations as to why the CAP has been highly resistant to change. Yet increasingly some studies have identified changes, which may be regarded as institutional and ideational, and while a number of explanations of change have been proposed, it has been argued that conceptualisations of change offered by the CAP reform literature seem to lag behind the empirical observations made about ideational change within the CAP.
Rather than brushing aside the explanations of change offered by the CAP reform literature, the most promising mechanisms for capturing and conceptualising change - the role of ideas, the working of policy entrepreneurs and crisis as a condition for change - were discussed in the context of the rational choice, historical and sociological institutionalisms. The rational choice, historical and sociological institutionalisms helped to flesh out the concepts and explanations of institutional change hinted at by the CAP reform literature but also added to the palette of conceptualisations of the dynamics and conditions of ideational and institutional change.
Regardless of the virtues of the rational choice, historical and sociological institutionalisms, it has been argued that such approaches to the study of ideational and institutional change have certain limitations. It was argued that:
Conclusions
(a) analytically predefined notions of the nature and direction of ideational change significantly limit the likelihood of capturing ideational change in a given political field;
(b) it was unclear how change in problem perceptions may be identified and described empirically and how such change may be related to institutional change;
(c) assuming ideas are coherent and well-defined entities, significantly limits the likelihood of identifying processes of diffusion or learning: at the same time, such processes are arguably emphasising continuity rather than change;
(d) in order to properly capture the nature and effects of a crisis situation on change, such situations should not be assumed to be non-cognitive factors andlor exogenous to the field under study;
(e) when attributing policy entrepreneurs with psychological predispositions or extraordinary skills, it tends to generate residual and ad hoc explanations of change.
To be sure, the current study has largely refrained from disregarding particular institutional approaches to the study of ideational and institutional change within the CAP against the background of empirical evidence. Rather, above all, the argument has been that rational choice, historical and sociological institutional approaches both in general and in the context of the CAP have their virtues while simultaneously creating certain limitations as to capturing and conceptualising institutional and ideational change within the CAE'.
Against this background a discursive institutional approach to the study of institutional change has been proposed, which has a pronounced concern with the study of institutional change and, in particular, seeks to deal with ideational change. It was suggested that - rather than making assumptions about the nature and direction of change - the study of institutional change is, essentially, an empirical deed, and the dynamic and conditions of institutional change must be understood in a particular discursive and institutional context. It was suggested that change within the CAE' may be captured by means of a discursive institutional analytical strategy (see Chapter 3). It was proposed that the dynamic of institutional change may be conceptualised along the lines of conflicts over meaning, processes of translation and policy entrepreneurship, and the existence of alternative discourse (seen as a necessary precondition for change) and ideational crisis as conducive to institutional change. Finally, it was suggested that the CAE' constitute a critical case for the study of institutional change, and that the articulation and institutionalisation of organic farming within the CAE' may reflect processes of change beyond relevance for organic farming and be potentially illustrative for the usefulness of the discursive institutional approach proposed to the study of institutional change.
The Common Agricultural Policy and Organic Farming: An Institutional 185 Perspective on Continuity and Change