New publication: Narrating plastics governance: policy narratives in the European plastics strategy

New publication: Narrating plastics governance: policy narratives in the European plastics strategy (in the journal Environmental Politics)

Doctoral Student Ellen Palm, Environmental and Energy Systems Studies, Lund University

Doctoral Student Karl Holmberg, Department of Political Science, Lund University

Researcher Dr. Tobias Dan Nielsen, Lund University

Assistant Professor Jacob Hasselbalch, Department of Organization (IOA), Copenhagen Business School (CBS)

Abstract
The European Union (EU) aspires to be an important global agenda-setter on how to treat and regulate the growing plastics problem. We present an analysis of the plastic policy narratives shaping European plastics governance, in particular through the European Commission’s Plastics Strategy. Our aim is to first uncover the policy narratives at play, and then examine how actors make use of those narratives through strategic construction. Based on interviews with key stakeholders and document analysis, we identify four narratives: fossil feedstock dependency, resource inefficiency, pollution, and toxicity. We find that the resource inefficiency and pollution narratives figure most prominently in European plastics governance, and that the circular economy is being advanced as a policy solution that cuts across the different narratives. However, surface agreement on the need for ‘circularity’ hides deeper-lying ideological divisions over what exactly the circular economy means and the different directions this implies for plastics governance.

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