Europeanization and domestic politics:: Europe and the development of a French environmental policy for the agricultural sector

This article examines the impact of Europeanization on French politics. More specifically, three theories, two belonging to international relations and one to comparative public policy, are tested against the contribution of Europe to the development of an environmental policy for agriculture in France. This sector was selected because of the difficulties that French policy-makers face in addressing environmental problems related to agricultural practices. The article shows that Europe helped French policymakers to meet the challenge of adopting stringent environmental regulations for agriculture. However, it also shows that the domestic corporatist setting prevailing in agriculture had a significant impact on the policy outcome. Therefore, it is argued that international relations theories and comparative public policy theories are more powerful when combined. Ways of achieving such a combination are proposed.