PD Dr. Frank Wendler

Privatdozent

Address

University of Hamburg

Social Sciences

Political Science

Max Brauer Allee 60

D-22765 Hamburg

Office

Center for Sustainable Society Research (CSS)

Room: 114

Contact

Email: frank.wendler"AT"uni-hamburg.de

Welcome to my page!

I am a Senior Researcher and Senior Faculty Member (Privatdozent) for Political Science in the Faculty for Social Sciences. I am also a member of the Center for Sustainable Society Research (CSS).

Since 1 July 2023, I am acting as Lead for the research project: "Political Spaces of Climate Governance", funded by the German Science Foundation DFG (Research Grant). Key questions and concepts of the project are summarized in this poster and in more detail in this Working Paper.

A summary can also be found can be found on my personal homepage.

My main research interests are:

Climate Change Governance in the EU and United States;
Agenda-Setting and Framing processes;
Trade and industrial policy in the context of climate governance;
Political contestation and politicization of EU policy-making.

Currently I am working particularly on the following topics:

Evolution of the European Green Deal and related policies;
Climate Policy Integration as a concept of analysis;
Text-as-data approaches to the analysis of climate politics.

For this latter topic, here is a call for papers published under the roof of the GreenDealNET framework: "The Evolving Politics of the European Green Deal: New Perspectives Using Text-as-Data approaches" (Deadline: 10 January 2025).

Recent publications:

Book (2024): Climate Agendas and Instability. Green Recovery Programs and Policy Change in the EU and US", Routledge Focus in Comparative Politics Series, link to publisher website here.

Working Paper (2024): "Political Spaces of Climate Governance. Theoretical Framework and Research Program", CSS Working Paper Series, WP No. 10, July 2024, link here.

Article (2023): "The European Green Deal Agenda After the Attack on Ukraine: Exogenous Shock Meets Policy‐Making Stability"; in: Politics and Governance, Special Issue: Governing the EU in the Polycrisis, Vol. 11 (4), DOI: https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v11i4.7343

Article (2023): (with Achim Hurrelmann): “How does politicisation affect the ratification of mixed EU trade agreements? The case of CETA”; Journal of European Public Policy, Special Issue: Reacting to the Politicization of Trade Policy. Guest Editors: Dirk De Bièvre, Andreas Dür and Scott Hamilton; https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2023.2202196; link here

Book (2022): “Framing Climate Change in the EU and US After the Paris Agreement”, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022, link here

Working Paper (2022): “The Politicization of Climate Change Governance. Building Blocks for a Theoretical Framework and Research Agenda”, CSS Working Paper 06/2022, Link here

Article (2022): (with Achim Hurrelmann): “Discursive postfunctionalism: theorizing the interface between EU politicization and policy-making”, Journal of European Integration, published 3 March 2022, https://doi.org/10.1080/07036337.2022.2045592; Link here

Article (2021): “Contesting the European Union in a Changing Climate: Policy narratives and the justification of supranational governance”, Journal of Contemporary European Studies, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14782804.2021.1882107; Link here

Research Project

Political Spaces of Climate Governance

Politicization and Policy Stability in the EU and US

Rationales and Question

Climate change has moved to the center of political debate in many Western democracies, to the point that it has become a defining political issue. A familiar concept to capture this dynamic is politicization, but a complicating factor for its evaluation is that it aims at a moving target: As an essentially variable and multi-faceted political issue, and in response to exogenous shocks, climate change is addressed in agendas that define the scope and priority of necessary action in very different ways and by creating new linkages with established policy priorities, particularly in recent proclamations of a green recovery. These related dynamics of politicization and re-framing of climate action cast a new light on extant academic debate on the role of policy stability as a condition of success for policy progress against climate change: particularly, the presence of a stable long-term agenda, incremental policy-making in an institutional setting isolated from external disruption, and efforts to support the adoption of broadly accepted and irreversible policy results. From this point of departure, the project seeks to advance research debate on two related questions:

- How do factors of policy stability and vectors of disruption and conflict interact in extant settings of climate change governance?

- What are observable effects of these interactions on policy-making results?

Theoretical Framework

The project proposes the concept of political space to capture both the expansion of politics associated with climate change, and its highly variable definition and framing as a field of policy-making. Building on the theoretical literature on the link between policy beliefs, institutional venues and policy change, this term is harnessed to relate three components of climate governance that include aspects of space and dimensionality:

its policy space as the scope and framing of political agendas proposed to deal with the climate crisis;
the corresponding institutional space as the format of institutional venues that are selected as relevant for negotiating policy issues; and
the discursive space evolving from the depth and issue dimensions of controversy between involved policy-making agents and coalitions.

A first set of hypotheses addresses how the three dimensions of political space discussed here are interlinked: particularly, how the institutional and discursive spaces respond to an expansion or disruptive change of the policy space as defined by present agendas and policy images. The framework suggests that an expansion of climate action agendas involves further institutional settings with greater friction and accountability, thereby also prompting deeper and more multi-dimensional contestation.

A second set of hypotheses inquires into the link between the stability or disruption of extant governance frameworks and policy-making results. In this regard, the framework weighs the assumption that an expansion of the policy space prompts pressures towards policy change with the expectation that these presssures are also likely to mobilize interests opposed to climate action and to increase institutional friction and deeper discursive contestation. Rather than assuming a direct or linear causal relationship between degrees of political conflict and policy change, the model is used to evaluate how configurations of factors, particularly a relative stability of the institutional space, work towards supporting climate policy.

Cases and research design

The project compares developments in the climate change policies of the European Union (EU) and United States (US). Concerning their respective records on political action against climate change, these two entities appear as strongly contrasting, almost ideal typical examples for policy stability on one hand, and frequent disruption and fragmentation of policy-making, on the other:

The EU has been appraised as a progressive leader of climate action based on a longer-term commitment to international agreements and a gradually expanding and relatively continuous trajectory of policy-making leading up to the proclamation of the European Green Deal and subsequent adoption of a European climate law; in the US, the evolution of climate change policy has been disrupted by changes in the presidency and political majorities in the US, resulting in a more volatile commitment to agreements at the global level and a more fragmented and unstable set of policies, launched primarily through executive action and at the state level but more recently in the context of a ‘green’ recovery program promoted through the BIL and IRA bills.

Considering these differences, a key insight is that the exogenous shocks caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine have prompted the launch of comprehensive recovery and investment programs involving aspects of green and climate conditionality in both entities, generating a similar trend of closer policy integration and turn from restrictive regulation to positive incentives in both systems. These developments establish a very fruitful setting for testing assumptions about policy stability and dynamics of disruption and policy change.

Work in Progress and Preliminary Results

The project has started on 1 July 2023 and is currently in the first phase of theoretical and conceptual specification and preparation of field research. Ongoing work in progress and results include:

Book project: Climate Politics at the Crossroads (Contracted with Routledge)
Article: European Green Deal Agenda after the attack on Ukraine
Working paper: Politicization of Climate Change Governance
A more detailed description of the theoretical approach and research questions of the project can be found here.

CV

Academic qualifications

Positions

Publications

Direct links to the publications listed can be found on my personal homepage.

Books

Editorships

Articles in peer-reviewed journals

2021: "Contesting the European Union in a Changing Climate: Policy narratives and the justification of supranational governance", Journal of Contemporary European Studies, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14782804.2021.1882107, Link to article here

2020: "Framing Climate Change in the European Parliament: Political Contestation, Issue Dimensions, and Legislative Decision-Making", Paper for the ECPR General Conference, revised version under review.

2019: The European Parliament as an Arena and Agent in the Politics of Climate Change: Comparing the External and Internal Dimension; in: Politics and Governance, Special Issue: Out of the Shadows, Into the Limelight: Parliaments and Politicisation (Volume 7, Issue 3 - Open Access)

2018: "Grand Coalition Policy meets the EU's Multiple Crises. Stability Discourse versus Party Politics", in: German Politics, Vol. 28/3, 499-519, DOI: 10.1080/09644008.2018.1555243

2017 (with Sabine Lang and Joyce Mushaben): “German Unification as a Catalyst of Social and Political Change: Introduction”, in: German Politics, Vol. 26/4, 443-56

2017: “Re-Calibrating Germany’s Role in Europe: Framing Leadership as Responsibility”, in: Special Issue of German Politics, Vol. 26/4, 574-90

2014: “Justification and political polarization in national parliamentary debates on EU Treaty Reform”, in: Journal of European Public Policy, Vol. 21/4, 549-67

2014: “End of Consensus? The European leadership discourse of the second Merkel government during the Eurozone crisis and its contestation in debates of the Bundestag (2009-13)”, in: German Politics, Vol. 23/4, 446-459

2013: “Challenging Domestic Politics? European Debates of National Parliaments in France, Germany, and the UK”, in: Journal of European Integration, Vol. 35/7, 801-18

2012: „Die Politisierung von Rechtfertigungen der europäischen Integration. Nationale Parlamentsdebatten zur Reform der EU-Verträge im Deutschen Bundestag und dem britischen House of Commons“, in: Leviathan (Special Issue 27/2012), 190-208

2011: “Contesting Europe, or Germany`s place in Europe? European integration and the EU Policies of the Grand Coalition Government in the Mirror of Parliamentary Debates in the Bundestag”, in: German Politics, Vol. 20/4, 486-505

2011: “Die Politisierung der europäischen Integration: Nationale Parlamentsdebatten zur Europäischen Union im Bundestag und House of Commons” in: Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen, 2/2011, 307-25

2007: (with Susana Borrás und Charalampos Koutalakis): „Independent European agencies in the Post-Delegation Phase: Stakeholder Participation and Credible Procedures“, in: Journal of European Integration, Vol. 29/5, 583-600

2004: “The Paradoxical Effects of Institutional Change for the Legitimacy of European Governance: the Case of EU Social Policy”, in: European Integration Online Papers, Vol. 8 (2004) N° 7.

2002: „Neue Legitimationsquellen für Europa? Verbände in der europäischen Sozialpolitik“ in: Zeitschrift für internationale Beziehungen, 2/2002, 253-74

Chapters in edited volumes

2018: “Europapolitik der dritten Regierung Merkel: Führungskonflikt und Expansion der parteipolitischen Debatte” in: T. Saalfeld/R. Zohlnhöfer (eds.): Zwischen Stillstand, Politikwandel und Krisenmanagement. Bilanz der Dritten Regierung Merkel, Springer, Berlin, 591-618

2017: “National Parliaments as Arenas of Public Debate and Contestation: Insights from the Eurozone Crisis”, in D. Jancic (ed.): National Parliaments after the Lisbon Treaty and the Euro Crisis: Resilience or Resignation, Oxford University Press, 177-92

2016: “Employer and Labour Associations in the European Union”, in: R. Biermann/J. Koops (eds): Palgrave Handbook on Inter-Organizational Relations, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 29, 611-27

2015: „Die Europapolitik der zweiten Regierung Merkel: zwei Betrachtungen zur transformativen Wirkung der Krise“ in: R. Zohlnhöfer/T. Saalfeld (eds): Politik im Schatten der Krise. Bilanz der zweiten Regierung Merkel (2009-2013), VS Springer, Berlin, 581-603

2011: „Neue Legitimationsquellen für Europa? Verbände in der europäischen Sozialpolitik“ in: S. Stetter/C. Masala/M. Karbowski (eds): Was die EU im Innersten zusammenhält. Debatten zur Legitimität und Effektivität supranationalen Regierens, Nomos, Baden-Baden,157-80

2010: „Pragmatismus, Führung und langsam erodierender Konsens. Eine Bilanz der Europapolitik der Großen Koalition“, in: R. Zohlnhöfer/C. Egle (eds): Die zweite Große Koalition. Eine Bilanz der Regierung Merkel 2005-2009, VS, Wiesbaden 528-48

2009 (with A. Ely, A. Stirling, M. Dreyer, O. Renn and E. Vos): „The Need for Change“ (Ch. 1) & „Overview of the General Framework“ (Ch. 2), in: M. Dreyer/O. Renn (eds): Food Safety Governance. Integrating Science, Precaution, and Public Involvement, Springer, Berlin, 11-46

2009 (with A. Ely, A. Stirling and E. Vos): „The Process of Framing“ (Ch. 3), in: M. Dreyer/O. Renn (eds): Food Safety Governance. Integrating Science, Precaution, and Public Involvement, Springer, Berlin, 47-56

2009 (with E. Vos): „Legal and Institutional Aspects of the General Framework“ (Ch. 6), in: M. Dreyer/O. Renn (eds): Food Safety Governance. Integrating Science, Precaution, and Public Involvement, Springer, Berlin, 83-110

2009 (with M. Dreyer, O. Renn, A. Ely, A. Stirling and E. Vos): „Summary: Key Features of the General Framework“, in: Dreyer, M./Renn, O. (eds): Food Safety Governance. Integrating Science, Precaution, and Public Involvement, Springer, Berlin, 159-66

2008: “The Public-Private Regulation of Food Safety through HACCP: What does it mean for the Governance Capacity of Public and Private Actors?”, in: Vos, Ellen (ed.): European Risk Governance: its Science, its Inclusiveness and its Effectiveness, Mannheim, 223-56

2007: „Die Agenda der EU-Kommission zur ‚Modernisierung des europäischen Sozialmodells’: Anmerkungen zur Entwicklung einer sozialpolitischen Leitidee“, in: R. Fischer/A. Karrass/S. Kröger (eds): Die Europäische Kommission und die Zukunft der EU. Ideenfabrik zwischen europäischem Auftrag und nationalen Interessen, B Budrich, Opladen, 231-50

2007: “La tensa transición a la democracia en México. Conflictos sin solucionar y la crisis de la confianza en las instituciones” in: A. Luengo (ed.): Entre la violencia y la reparación. Estudios interdisciplinarios sobre procesos de democratización en Iberoamérica, edition tranvia, Berlin, 52-75

2007 (with Ellen Vos): “Food Safety Regulation in the European Union”, in: E. Vos, /F. Wendler (eds), Food Safety Regulation in Europe, Intersentia, Antwerp, 65-138

2007: (with Kerstin Dressel et al.): “Food Safety Regulation in Germany”, in: E. Vos/F. Wendler (eds), Food Safety Regulation in Europe, Intersentia, Antwerp, 287-330