The governance of a common in the European Community, the common fisheries policy

• Main Author: Thom, Mireille
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Published: 1993
• Subjects: North East Atlantic
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.48730/t1cv-yy39; https://stax.strath.ac.uk/concern/theses/6m311p28w

This thesis investigates the variables that explain the behaviour of States in their national arenas regarding the implementation of collectively agreed measures within the framework of fisheries regimes. According to orthodoxy, States set up regimes to manage fish exploitation and subsequently fail to implement the policies they have devised. Overexploitation and scarcity are said to follow. Using the first ten years of the twenty year common fisheries policy, agreed in January 1983, this thesis examines and compares Implementation of Community measures in France and in the United Kingdom. Two competing conceptual approaches are tested: the sectoral policy approach and the national policy style approach. In the policy sector approach, public policy is said to show variation across sectors within countries and similarities across countries. In such a model, policy determines politics. The national policy style approach, on the other hand, predicts that policy will be shaped by national characteristics and variations In policy processes. The study demonstrates that, despite contrasting traditions, patterns of Interest representation, policy making processes, ideological background of government in power in France and the UK and timing in compliance, the substance of policy, in the implementation of fisheries measures, was strikingly similar in the two countries. Sectoral imperatives determined States' decisions more than any other variable. It was also found that the normative dimension within the European Community, absent in other arenas, made States comply in a way, which, although unsatisfactory, was still better than had been the case with the CFP's predecessor, the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission.