An elephant in the room? Explaining agenda-setting in antimicrobial resistance policies in 30 European countries.

Antimicrobial resistances (AMR) present a particularly challenging cross-sectoral policy problem, affecting human and animal health as well as the environment. Compared to the actual problem pressure, the public awareness for AMR is comparatively low and the issue has not been high on the political agenda in most. Given the rising problem pressure, we aim to find out as to what degree and under which conditions political parties bring AMR on the political agenda. By means of multilevel logit regressions based on 173 electoral manifestos in 30 European countries from 2015 to 2020, we explore the conditions that explain whether AMR are taken up in manifestos. The empirical findings indicate firstly that AMR are only addressed by political parties in Northern and Western Europe, in no case in Eastern, and only in one case in Southern Europe, though resistant bacteria are more widely spread in the latter. Secondly, Green parties are those who are most likely to address the AMR challenge. Thirdly, vote share is positively associated with AMR agenda-setting, while EU membership is insignificant and the national average on antibiotics consumption is negatively related to AMR agenda-setting. Finally, AMR are surprisingly mainly perceived as a problem of the agricultural policy subsystem despite its cross-sectoral policy character. The study makes theoretical and empirical contributions: regarding theory, the article shows that typical variables that are used for agenda-setting are less explanatory for complex intersectoral policies. This is also accompanied by the empirical contribution: since problem awareness and complexity of policy problems are correlated, AMR are reduced to an agricultural issue and as such, it is taken over by political parties that have expertise on agricultural-environmental topics.

Shifting governance cooperatively - coordination by public discourses in the German water-food nexus.

In face of the interdependencies between policy areas in the management of common pool resources, studying nexus challenges is insightful for the exploration of new governance strategies. This includes the co-occurrence of and the interaction between different governance modes. We put forward the argument that a promising approach to explore these dynamics over time is the method of discourse network analysis. By conducting a discourse network analysis of German agricultural and water policy in a region with intensive livestock farming and large surpluses of manure that exert pressure on water and soil resources, we analyse the development of discourses within and across policy areas. We show that the analysis of public discourses contributes to the understanding of coordination between actors.

Market-Based Governance in Farm Animal Welfare-A Comparative Analysis of Public and Private Policies in Germany and France.

The intensification of livestock production and the focus on economic gains of agricultural policy have resulted in animal welfare related challenges. In many countries the societal concern for the welfare of farmed animals is increasing. Whereas policymakers on the European Union's level and in EU member states have passed specific farm animal protection laws, the existing policies do not always guarantee the welfare of farmed animals. At the same time, the engagement of market actors in the field is increasing. This article explores the development of public and private policies in two countries with very different levels of regulation. By conducting a comparative analysis of public and private policies in Germany and France, the findings illustrate that, although they have different starting points, retailers in both countries are getting increasingly involved in farm animal welfare. In addition, there is evidence that governmental policies are shifting from regulatory to voluntary approaches in cooperation with the private sector. Given that in both countries these dynamics are a very recent development, it remains to be seen whether governmental actors will (re-)assume the lead in the field, whether they will engage in cooperation with private actors, or whether they will leave the task of agricultural restructuring to the market.