International Conference

About the Conference The productive thing about the analysis of policy fields is that it can be used to pose clear and outcome-oriented research questions: What political actors do, why they do it, what they ultimately achieve. Up to now, policy fields have mostly been understood as the results of the departmental division of ministries or administrations and examined along their administrative markers. Policy fields are formed through the actions of (a wide variety of) actor groups. Environmental problems that require political measures are not obvious from the outset and equally evident to all stakeholders. They arise through problematisation, through the presentation and discussion of conditions that are considered problematic.

The term "policy field" used here has become so well established that it has almost become common knowledge; an initial search in the German National Library alone reveals 608 independent publications in which the term is used. Several introductions to policy field analysis have been published in German and English, specifically on environmental policy and more generally. International and longer-term comparisons could hardly be identified; policy comparisons within the framework of the EU dominate here. Time-historical longitudinal analyses hardly exist the concept is not used in historiographical presentations. These are descriptive. Moreover, in the available publications, reference is made to the difference between frequent use and theoretical substantiation of the term policy field.

Political fields develop through the "politicisation" of issues. On the one hand, this involves a fundamental debate about what is at stake and how serious the consequences would be in the event of inaction. On the other hand, such a debate raises the question of how to act, i.e. who should be responsible for solving problems, which instruments or institutions should be created and which political programmes should be set up.

Furthermore, discourses, semantics and narratives influence the formation of policy fields. On the one hand, this once again shows the relevance of the mass media: through their agenda-setting, framing and scandal-setting functions, they make a decisive contribution to the establishment of policy fields.

Institute for Governance, Policies & Politics (IGPP), in collaboration with the German Research Foundation, Bonn, Germany, Liebig University Giessen, Germany and Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi is organizing an international conference on the topic “Environmental Policy Discourses since the 1960s: Politics, Problems, and Narratives of Environment Policies in Europe and Asia” on 24th & 25th November 2022, at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Academicians, policy-makers, researchers, and other experts from across the globe will present papers and chair sessions during the international conference in an attempt to bridge narratives and enquire into the discourses of environmental policies that govern Europe and Asia since the 1960s. Although the politics in these two different parts of the world present different trajectories through history; climate change and environmental challenges remain a problem that requires a solution in truly global proportions. The conference is an attempt to compare policies and bridge narratives of environmental discourses across Europe and Asia to arrive at a better understanding and solution in policies for environmental challenges.