Beyond Legalism? Policy Ideas, Implementation Styles and Emulation-Based Convergence in Canadian and U.S. Environmental Policy

Abstract

Past studies of the dynamics of U.S.-Canada environmental policy and policy-making have found little evidence of ‘weak’ convergence in this sector; that is, of Canadian policy moving towards the U.S. model of adversarial legalism, an implementation style based upon procedural policy instruments such as action-forcing statutes, citizen suits, and judicial activism. However, recent efforts at de-regulation and the reformation of government in the U.S., and moves towards multi-stakeholder policy-making in Canada, have altered the standard against which trends towards Canadian^ American convergence must be assessed. These reforms have moved the U.S. environmental regulatory system closer to that existing in Canada, in which regulations and other elements of the environmental regime are developed through negotiation rather than litigation. Since Canadian environmental implementation has also been altered over the same period, however, it is argued that a form of ‘strong’ convergence is emerging, in which both countries are moving not towards each other but towards a third, common, style, that associated with the development of self-regulation and voluntary initiatives under the influence of New Public Management ideas and principles.