Skovgaard and Hildingsson on Swedish and Danish Environmental Policy after the Crisis

Published 8 January 2019

Jakob Skovgaard and Roger Hildingsson have co-authored the book chapter “Environmental Policy and the Economic Crisis – The Swedish and Danish Cases” together with Bengt Johansson. The chapter is published in the book “The Impact of the Economic Crisis on European Environmental Policy”. It concerns how environmental policy has developed since the onset of the economic crisis in 2007-2008 in Denmark and Sweden, two countries traditionally seen as environmental pioneers.

An important insight from the chapter is the main influence of economic crises on environmental policy takes place via the political system rather than affecting such policy directly: economic crises may empower or weaken actors and discourses that either favour or oppose more ambitious environmental policy.

Skovgaard, Hildingsson and Johanson studied how in Denmark, the crisis influenced environmental policy negatively only when it had lasted several years, and in Sweden the crisis did not affect environmental policy-making. The analysis shows that in both countries the political orientation of the government and changes of government proved to be the most important factors shaping environmental policy.

Roger Hildingsson’s personal page