vague demands with no clear guidance. As a result, it is possible to lose the advantages of more
flexible approaches that occur through the incentive schemes and power-sharing in policy
implementation, but also it is possible to lose the benefits of certainty and accountability that
usually come with more formal and centralized policy processes. Hence, it is fundamental to
realize that a new model of governmental action should build on the previous successful
practices of policy making and implementation. At the same time, a new model of governmental
action should be developed around encouraging and creating effective policy networks by
increasing the number of legitimate policy participants and enhancing the means to achieve
collective aspirations.
Environmental Policy Institutions and Instruments
Exploring how policies are formed and why policy actors generate new ways of
interaction and new policy instruments is inextricably bound to explaining the institutional
configurations and political and regulatory action. This requires highlighting the development of
political and administrative institutional contexts in which policy struggles unfold.
Contemporary environmental politics and policy present an effective opportunity to uncover the
modes of government intervention and the development of innovative approaches.
It is impossible to analyze how certain new policies are adopted and implemented
without understanding the manner in which innovations become embedded in existing
institutions and the impact of such institutions on new ideas. Movement from one political or
economic strategy to another can be attributed to a growing popularity of new approaches and
ideas (Hall 1993; Sikkink 1991). However, new strategies do not enter an institutional and
ideological vacuum. Whether or not new strategies and mechanisms of social action become
consolidated depends on the degree to which a new model fits with existing institutional
practices and ideologies.
The impact of innovations is only fully realized when they become institutionalized into
the standard operating procedures of key institutions and organizations, and absorbed into the
worldview of those who manage them. New mechanisms also become embodied in institutions
and are symbolized by key political actors when they “fit” with the preexisting political and
economic ideas of a country (Sikkink 1991). Hence, these meanings of new approaches to policy
derive not only from their content but also from the nature of political and institutional context of
a country into which they are introduced. Institutional continuity is necessary for innovations to
Convention