New Dimensions in the Politics of Compliance: The Role of Politicization in Shaping EU Compliance Performance in Italy and France

Abstract

This thesis explores how domestic politicization shapes and influences member states’ compliance with EU environmental policy, focusing on the cases of Italy and France. While the EU has switched up on its environmental ambitions, implementation and compliance remain persistent challenges. To better understand this gap, this study investigates one central research question: how does politicization influence compliance performance within EU environmental governance? Using a comparative case study design and process tracing methodology, the analysis draws on a broad range of empirical material, including EU documents, public opinion surveys, media coverage, and NGO reports. A major contribution of this study is to broaden the understanding of politicization as a concept, and it is operationalized here through three key dimensions: issue salience, actor expansion and mobilization, and polarization. The analysis shows that France displays high issue salience and actor engagement but also deep polarization, which can hinder effective compliance by provoking political conflict and undermining policy legitimacy. Italy, by contrast, shows growing salience and actor mobilization but remains fragmented and institutionally weaker, which limits both political commitment and implementation capacity. These findings indicate that politicization can both enable and constrain compliance, depending on the domestic political context and the way it interacts with other important factors, like power and capacity. The analysis builds on Börzel’s power, capacity, and politicization model and offers a more nuanced explanation for diverging compliance patterns in the EU. Ultimately, the study highlights the importance of political context in shaping environmental governance and points to the need for further research across policy sectors and member states.