The EU as a Source of Instrumental Innovation: Logics of Instrumentation in French Environmental Policy (1971–2006)

Challenging the existing literature, this article questions the role of the EU in the development of the French environmental policy. Drawing on an original dataset, it examines the evolution of French environmental policy instruments, over the past three decades (1971-2006), and considers how and by whom they were chosen and combined. This approach suggests that the role of the EU as a source for instrumental innovation remains marginal. This result contributes to current debates on policy change in the French environmental policy domain and to the understanding of processes of Europeanization in domestic policies.