^* Material from this paper was presented to a Research Seminar of the Netherlands Institute of Government held at Delft University of Technology on 2 November 2000. I am grateful to the participants at the seminar for their comments, and to Dr Maarten Menzel for the original invitation to the event. I am also grateful to participants at the Department of Government Seminar at the University of Essex on 6 March 2001 for their responses to the paper. I should like to thank Geraint Parry and an anonymous referee for comments on an earlier version. I owe a particular debt to Dr David Lewis, the Secretary of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, for extensive discussion and advice.

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³ Ashby, E. and Anderson, M., The Politics of Clean Air, Oxford, Clarendon, 1981, p. 136.Google ScholarPubMed

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⁶ For a discussion of these trends generally, see my The New Politics of Pollution, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1992.

⁷ See Byatt, I., ‘The Impact of EC Directives on Water Customers in England and Wales’, Journal of European Public Policy, 3:4 (1996), pp. 665–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸ Her Majesty’s Government, Government Response to the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution’s Twenty-First Report, London, The Stationery Office, 2000, Cm 4794.

⁹ Royal Commission, Standards, op. cit., p. 123.

¹⁰ Royal Commission, Standards, op. cit., p. 126.

¹¹ See, inter alia., Hall, P. A., ‘Policy Paradigms, Social Learning and the State’, Comparative Politics, 25 (1993), pp. 275–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jenkins-Smith, H. C. and Sabatier, P., ‘Evaluating the Advocacy Coalition Framework’, Journal of Public Policy, 14 (1994), pp. 175–203 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Blyth, M. M., ‘Any More Bright Ideas? The Ideational Turn of Comparative Political Economy’, Comparative Politics, 29:2 (1997), pp. 229–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; King, A., ‘Ideas, Institutions, and the Policies of Governments: A Comparative Analysis. Parts I and II’, British Journal of Political Science, 3:3 (1973), pp. 291–313 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; King, A., ‘Ideas, Institutions, and the Policies of Governments: A Comparative Analysis. Part III’, British Journal of Political Science, 3:4 (1973), pp. 409–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; G. Majone, Evidence, Argument and Persuasion in the Policy Process, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1989; Sabatier, P. A., ‘Knowledge, Policy-Oriented Learning and Policy Chance: An Advocacy Coalition Framework’, Knowledge: Creation, Diffusion, Utilization, 8:4 (1987), pp. 64–92 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also the symposium, ‘Towards Better Theories of the Policy Process’, in PS:Political Science and Politics, 24:2 (1991); P. A. Sabatier and H. C. Jenkins-Smith (eds), Policy Change and Learning: An Advocacy Coalition Approach, Oxford, Westview Press, 1993; Radaelli, C., ‘The Role of Knowledge in the Policy Process’, Journal of European Public Policy, 2 (1995), pp. 159–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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¹² Royal Commission, Standards, op. cit., p. 102, at paragraph 7.7.

¹³ Government Response, op. cit.

¹⁴ Schumpeter, J., Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, London, Allen & Unwin, 1954 edn, p. 295.Google Scholar

¹⁵ For a clear statement of this account of the relationship between elitist and deliberative democracy, see Cohen, J., ‘Deliberation and Democracy’, in Hamlin, A. and Pettit, P. (eds), The Good Polity: Normative Analysis of the State, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1989, pp. 17–34.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Habermas, J., Between Facts and Norms, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1996.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Royal Commission, Standards, op. cit., p. 102.

¹⁸ Ibid., p. 113.

¹⁹ Ibid., p. 111.

²⁰ Ibid., p. 104.

²¹ Ibid., p. 119.

²² ENDS Report, 298 (November 1999), p. 11.

²³ Amy, D., The Politics of Environmental Regulation, New York, Columbia University Press, 1987.Google Scholar

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²⁵ Select Committee on Science and Technology, Science and Society, p.76.

²⁶ See, Weale, A. et al., Environmental Governance in Europe, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 403–8.Google Scholar

²⁷ Environment Agency, Endocrine-Disrupting Substances in the Environment: The Environment Agency’s Strategy, available at http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/ourservices/consultations.

²⁸ Royal Commission, Standards, op. cit., p. 110 at paragraph 7.37.

²⁹ For a discussion of the Swiss electorate in relation to a referendum on environ-mental issues, see Kriesi, H., ‘Individual Opinion Formation in a Direct-Democratic Campaign’, British Journal of Political Science Google Scholar, forthcoming.