Good Governance, Scale and Power: A Case Study of North Sea Fisheries (Routledge Studies in Ecological Economics)

Recently, there have been several high-profile, one might even say, apocalyptic predictions about the future of the planet’s fish stocks. As a result, many national governments and supranational institutions, including the European Union have instituted reforms designed to mitigate the crisis. In 2002, the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), the policy framework charged with managing EU fisheries, underwent its most radical reform to date. This reform is designed to improve the governing structures and mechanisms of the CFP, that is, its governance arrangements. This book examines the discourse and practice of ‘good governance’. It explores this relatively new, but increasingly important governing paradigm through the thorny and fascinating case of European Union fisheries management. In doing this, the book also tests some of the seldom questioned assumptions and axioms that are contained within governance theory, and policy documents about the forms and processes that policymaking under the so-called ‘turn to governance’ now takes.