Title: Emissions trading as an instrument of EU climate policy: a critical analysis of control processes in sociological perspective

Authors: Juliane Göke; Bradley Forder

Addresses: FernUniversität Hagen, Universitätsstraße 33, 58084 Hagen, Germany; Reinhard-Mohn-Institute for Corporate Governance and Management, Witten Herdecke University, Alfred Herrhausen-Str. 50, 58448 Witten, Germany ' University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath, North East Somerset BA2 7AY, UK

Abstract: The study deals with the control procedures in the policy field of the EU climate policy. Initially established hypothesis regarding the efficiency of the EU's climate strategy (H1) and the democratic legitimacy of the policy (H2) were developed on the basis of various theoretical concepts of society, power, action, structure, system and control and analysed with regards to the actors, power structures and interactions involved. Here, the result shows that the EU's democratic legitimacy is questioned and that no equal community exists. In the conclusion, the authors confirm the hypothesis, that the control processes in an effort to regulate the emissions are classified as sufficient from a sociological perspective, as the clearly structured instrument forms a functioning unit.

Keywords: emissions trading; EU climate policy; climate control; EU governance; environmental sociology; democratic legitimacy; distribution of power; public policy; European Union; carbon emissions.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPP.2015.068846

International Journal of Public Policy, 2015 Vol.11 No.1/2/3, pp.17 - 32

Received: 09 Nov 2013
Accepted: 25 Jun 2014

Published online: 15 Apr 2015 *

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