PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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policy analysts to built scientific knowledge on policy processes. In my case, discursive
“frameworks” are to be understood as categorizations that explain fundamental,
structural differences in people’s approaches to policy-making and planning.
3.4.4 Discursive Frameworks versus Epistemic Communities
There is yet another EU-focused strand of the political science literature whose
relationship to my theoretical approach needs to be clarified. My argument that EU
decision-making is dominated by the “discursive framework of ecological
modernization” could seem to imply to some scholars that there is a simply dominant
intellectual community of policy- and decision-makers in Brussels who operate both from
within and outside the European Commission and who share common beliefs and
worldviews. 18
In considering recent political science writings by Haas (1992) as well as
other U.S. (Miller and Fox 2001) and European-based writers (e.g. Radaelli 1999; Toke
1999; Dunlop 2000; Zito 2001), one could therefore be tempted to argue that
Commission employees, EU policy advisers, environmental advocates and lobbyists,
together with scientists from various disciplines, simply form part of different “epistemic
communities,” where the dominant community shares the discursive framework of
ecological modernization, and others adhere to other discursive frameworks. Haas’
18 Note that the frequent distinction between “academics” and “practitioners” is particularly blurry in the
context of the European Commission and the stakeholders surrounding EU decision-making. Commission
employees are highly trained staff coming from all over Europe, usually holding at least one Masters
degree from a major European or U.S. university, and very frequently holding a doctorate as well. Almost
all of them therefore have been socialized within academia, most of them in legal and economic disciplines.
Commission staff are further engaged in an ongoing dialogue with the academic community. The majority
of senior-level employees continues to publish in academic journals and presents papers at international
conferences, and many of them hold academic positions before, during or after their time of employment at
the Commission.