The COMPON Project

Comparing Climate Change Policy Networks (COMPON)

The COMPON project concerns the cross-national comparison of the institutions, ideas and interests that bring about different national policy responses to global climate change. The COMPON study will trace the flow of cognitive models ("facts," frames, ideas and normative evaluations) concerning climate change between the global and national levels, and within the national levels in the policy-formation process, for a number of countries. Our policy network method includes the full range of organizations involved in climate change politics (government agencies, political parties, business, union, NGO and movement associations). The issue of climate change is diffuse in responsibility and seemingly distant in impact, so it readily suffers from risk-discounting. Therefore, effective policy response depends upon building an "epistemic community" that accepts the problem as serious and worthy of action. To generate action, this epistemic community must include more than scientists; it must embrace an "advocacy network" composed of diverse stakeholders in government and society. Our working hypothesis is that, as advocated by Agenda 21, government provision of venues for direct participation by diverse stakeholders (form business to NGOs) will result in more effective policy response to climate change. The project will include national cases that represent variation in advocacy networks, participatory venues and policy outputs about climate change: Japan, China, the United States, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, England, and Greece (as well as others). It will also include global sources of scientific information, in particular the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UN-IPCC).