Climate policy integration as a process: from shallow to embedded integration

ABSTRACT

Across many policy areas, policymakers try to integrate new policy issues into old policy processes. This is challenging. Getting to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions requires radical change across a broad range of societal sectors; thus, climate policy integration is essential. This article develops a new processual perspective on climate policy integration, allowing assessment, classification, and comparison of various stages of integration across policy processes, and over time. The integration process can be shaped by differing institutional logics. In a study of Norwegian agricultural policy, we identify three logics: multifunctional, market failure, and socio-technological transition. These portray differing frames, objectives, instruments, and sector involvement as appropriate ways of linking climate concerns to agricultural policy. We suggest that a shallow integration process is characterized by a sector-specific logic that facilitates discussions of policy frames and goals. In an embedded integration process, multiple logics are mobilized, and a broader range of policy elements are discussed: frames, goals, instruments, and sector involvement in the process. Consistent and contested integration processes are intermediate categories. Climate integration in Norwegian agricultural policy had the hallmarks of a shallow process in 2006–2009 but changed to a contested process in 2016–2021.

KEYWORDS:

• Policy integration
• institutional logics
• agricultural policy
• climate transition
• climate policy
• climate policy integration

Introduction

For decades, scholars and practitioners of public policy have discussed how the integration of a specific policy may be integrated into other policy areas (Tosun & Lang, 2017). Policy integration is regarded as key to success in many policy areas, not least within climate policy. Climate change is a ‘wicked’ crosscutting problem, implying that in addition to cross-scale dynamics, it involves high degrees of ambiguity, controversy, uncertainty, and deadlocked interaction patterns (Candel & Biesbroek, 2016, p. 211; Rittel & Webber, 1973). Climate governance faces abundant challenges relating to compartmentalization, fragmentation, competing and incoherent objectives, policy under- and overreaction, competing issue attention, and inconsistent instrument mixes (Candel & Biesbroek, 2016, p. 212). By conducting a longitudinal case study regarding how actors work to integrate climate issues into Norwegian agricultural policy, we show that climate policy integration is not a one-dimensional question of low and high integration. Rather, it is a complex process that may unfold in multiple ways.

When climate change first hit the political agenda in the early 1990s, both scientists and policymakers assumed that the issue could be solved by slightly reducing emissions. Due to the ensuing decades of continuous increases in emissions, more radical approaches were eventually needed. Indeed, the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting temperature increase to 1.5⁰C expected global emissions to peak as soon as possible (IPCC, 2021). By 2020, almost 90% of countries had adopted net-zero climate emissions objectives (Climate Change Committee, 2022, p. 62). This implies that sectors with less intensive greenhouse gas emissions, such as agriculture, also need to radically cut emissions.

Policy integration broadly refers to a process of embedding crosscutting policy issues across compartmentalised, fragmented, and siloed policy systems (Biesbroek, 2021, p. 75). Climate policy integration seeks to help overcome the challenges of ensuring emission reductions in new sectors by incorporating climate-related considerations into planning and policies (Bauer & Steurer, 2015). Previously, the degree of policy integration was measured against whether environmental policy objectives gained principled priority over sectoral policy (Lafferty & Hovden, 2003). Policy integration was regarded as an outcome, something governments aimed to achieve when dealing with crosscutting policy issues (Biesbroek, 2021, p. 75). Within climate policy integration, the energy sector was often the primary focus (Dupont & Oberthür, 2012; Kettner & Kletzan-Slamaning, 2019). In this sector, practices that generate high emissions, such as the production and consumption of coal, oil, and gas, could in theory be replaced with energy sources that produce few or zero emissions, such as wind and solar. This is not the case with sectors that gained attention as climate issue areas at a later stage, such as agriculture. Here, climate policy integration is a complex task, with food production as a biological process embedded in the biological carbon cycle, and the provision of food taking precedence over mitigating climate change (Hidalgo et al., 2021, p. 486).

Within the agricultural sector, ‘new issues,’ such as climate change mitigation, have broadened the agricultural policy agenda (Daugbjerg & Swinbank, 2012). Integrating agricultural policy with new policy domains, as well as actors promoting values that may be conflicting, increases the need for coordination and balancing of policy and values. Nevertheless, contemporary agricultural practices are widely recognized as largely unsustainable, with the current global food system accounting for an estimated third of all greenhouse gas emissions (Clark et al., 2020; IPCC, 2019, p. 7). Integrating climate change considerations into sectoral policies that frame economic activities and social development at the national level is crucial (Hernández & Lucatello, 2022, p. 56). The agricultural sector is closely tied to national governments, as it is governed by detailed regulations and subsidy schemes. Hence, changes in public policies play a key role in the climate transition of this sector.

The institutional logics approach establishes that shared belief systems tend to guide behavior and decision-making (Ocasio et al., 2017). Drawing on this, we develop new conceptualizations that enable us to capture how climate policy integration may play out in different ways. Three logics for climate policy integration in agriculture are identified: multifunctional, market failure, and socio-technological transition. Four dimensions crucial to policy integration are applied to demonstrate variation between logics: policy frame, goals, instruments, and subsystem involvement (Candel & Biesbroek, 2016). Norwegian agricultural policy results from a transparent negotiation process between the government and agrarian organizations, which provides a valuable case study for analyzing the various ways sector-specific climate policy integration may play out. Long-term policy integration processes are rarely analyzed (Reber et al., 2023), the following will thus perform a longitudinal study of these negotiations, spanning 15 years.

This article specifies types of climate policy integration in this sector, rather than explaining policy decisions or implementation. Hence, we will (1) conceptualize the climate policy integration process within a sectoral policy, (2) examine which types of climate policy integration have manifested in the annual agricultural negotiations in Norway, and (3) present a framework for detecting climate policy integration within sector-specific policy processes. First, we present the literature on climate policy integration and show that combining it with an institutional logic perspective provides better insight into the process of climate policy integration. Based on differing strands of agriculture and climate governance literature, we present three climate policy integration logics in relation to agriculture, before examining how these have played out in Norway. We conclude by presenting four types of policy integration processes and hypotheses on how they may influence policy development and implementation. We hope this framework can be applied in other sectors and countries.

Climate policy integration: from principal priority to a processual understanding

Underdal’s (1980) work on marine policy is often recognized as the first paper on environmental policy integration. His conceptualization aligns with a standard understanding of rational action, in which policy integration is achieved when consequences are recognized as decision premises and policy options are evaluated based on their effects on aggregated measures of utility (Underdal, 1980, p. 162). Here, integration implies that different policy elements are consistent, brought together, and made subject to a single, unifying conception (Underdal, 1980, p. 159). Using this as a ‘bridge’ to environmental policymaking, Lafferty and Hovden define environmental policy integration as:

The incorporation of environmental objectives into all stages of policy making in non-environmental policy sectors, with a specific recognition of this goal as a guiding principle for the planning and execution of policy; accompanied by […] a commitment to minimise contradictions between environmental and sectoral policies by giving principled priority to the former over the latter (Lafferty & Hovden, 2003, p. 9).

Like Underdal, Lafferty and Hovden rely on a standard understanding of rational action, but they focus on objectives rather than on ‘different policy elements’ and regard ‘principled priority’ as the crucial issue. Some have argued for a more nuanced measurement of integration. For instance, Nilsson and Persson (2003, pp. 340–1) argue that the level of learning is crucial. Climate policy integration emerged as a similar concept and shares the goal of managing cross cutting issues, but often focuses on a narrower set of sectors working together towards specific goals (Adelle & Russel, 2013). Even though recent literature has underlined the importance of the process of policy integration (see Cejudo & Trein, 2023a), goal-centered and one-dimensional understandings dominate the literature on climate policy integration (Ahmad, 2009). In their work on the European Union, Dupont and Oberthür define climate policy integration as ‘promoting climate policy objectives in the policy process and the output in non-environmental policy sectors to achieve the long-term policy objective of ensuring global temperature rise does not exceed 2°C’ (2012, pp. 230–231). They stress that both policy process and output within non-environmental policy sectors should align with climate policy objectives. Full integration will only be achieved if policies are 100% in line with established (scientifically grounded) climate policy objectives. This understanding only regards policy integration in ‘one flavour: It is the desired state that is reached, or else we do not speak of integration at all’ (Candel & Biesbroek, 2016, p. 213).

It is challenging to transfer this approach to policy integration into the agricultural sector. The conflictual nature between climate policy and agricultural policy is well established (Vik, 2020), as is the complexity of integrating climate policy (Hidalgo et al., 2021). A ‘principled priority’ of climate goals would entail that producing food should be less important than curbing climate change. This narrow conceptualization can hinder, rather than facilitate that new policy areas, such as agriculture, contribute to the climate transition. A more processual understanding may enable us to capture how integration operates in practice. Candel and Biesbroek (2016, p. 211) understand policy integration as ‘a process that entails various elements that do not necessarily move in a concerted manner but may develop at different paces or even in opposite directions.’ They acknowledge that policies change over time, that elements interact, and that integration is also about disintegration (Candel & Biesbroek, 2020). Inspired by their contribution, we distinguish four dimensions that constitute policy integration.

1. The policy frame denotes how a particular problem is perceived within a given governance system, whether climate change is recognized as a crosscutting problem and, if so, to what extent it requires a holistic governance approach.

2. We take policy goals into account, as climate concerns influence goal setting, and determine whether this is coherent with sector-specific goals. We also focus on the range of policies where concerns about climate change are adopted as a goal, and the coherence between these goals.

3. A third dimension relates to the substantive or procedural instruments within a governance system. Higher degrees of integration may be characterized by a wide range of instruments addressing the issue, the deployment of instruments at the governance level to coordinate the field level, and strong consistency of policy instrument mixes.

4. Lastly, subsystem involvement depicts the range of actors and institutions involved in the governance of a particular crosscutting policy issue. It captures which actors are involved in decision-making and the interaction between them.

Although this processual understanding allows for more nuance, it still implicitly assumes a linear view of climate policy integration processes moving from high to low. In the real world, there are probably different ways of integrating climate policy and no ‘one size fits all’ linear mode of integration. We need to recognize that there is no consensus on how to design good climate governance (Boasson & Tatham, 2022) and that actors tend to understand climate policy in different ways. The institutional logic’s perspective can help us with this.

Institutional logics: three paths toward minimal emissions from agriculture

Institutional logics capture institutionalized cognitive belief systems and shared understandings among actors (Ocasio et al., 2017), as well as the templates and rules that guide and constrain decision makers (Thornton & Ocasio, 1999, p. 804). While policy frames relate to general understandings, logics refer to rationalities that may be rooted in various institutionalized practices. Logics constrain and enable actors by helping them make sense of situations, problems, and possible solutions. They function as specific scripts or templates that actors mobilize to justify arguments, actions, and, in extension, policy (Friedland & Alford, 1991; Thornton et al., 2012). Agriculture and climate actors probably hold different entrenched beliefs that guide preferences and behavior, and this approach can help us grasp how this, in extension, shapes their views on how climate should and could be integrated into agriculture. A logic approach may uncover how climate change is understood, appropriate solutions, favorable policy instruments, and division of responsibility.

Although policy integration scholars have underlined the importance of similar topics, such as beliefs (Rietig, 2019), and claimed that the actors within a policy subsystem operate according to the subsystems logic (Cejudo & Trein, 2023b), the institutional logics approach has not been applied in studies of climate policy integration. In this paper we conceptualize sectoral logics and propose that internally consistent logics may guide climate policy integration. Drawing on the literature on agricultural regimes and climate governance and inspired by the policy integration categories developed by Candel and Biesbroek (2016), we specify three logics for climate integration in agriculture presented in Table 1.

Table 1. Climate integration logics.

	Climate Integration Logic
	Multifunctional	Market failure	Sociotechnological transition
Frame	Win–win solutions	Making emission-intensive activities less profitable	All sectors need to transform
Goals	Preserving traditional agriculture, while meeting env. and climate targets	Cutting GHG emissions from agriculture when least costly	Minimizing CO2 emissions from agriculture
Instruments	Agreements within existing decision-making procedures	Carbon pricing, R&D	Sector-specific policy packages and procedures
Subsystem involvement	All policy making within the agri. field	No involvement	Climate and agricultural fields involved

A multifunctional logic is derived from agricultural regime literature, where multifunctional agriculture emphasizes the environmental and social services of farming (Alons, 2017; Wilson, 2001). In addition to its primary role of producing food and fiber, agriculture has several important societal functions (Bjørkhaug & Richards, 2008). It produces non-commodity outputs or public goods, such as food security, rural life, environmental protection, biodiversity, and cultural landscapes. These are seen as interlinked with the production of renewable energy and climate mitigation and can be obtained through win–win solutions. In this view, food production and environmental concerns are not at odds with each other. Rather, climate change is used as an argument for preserving traditional agriculture, framed as inseparable from other environmental challenges. Appropriate solutions to cut emissions already exist within environmental policy. According to Alons (2017, p. 1608), ideas within the multifunctional paradigm resonate with the ideas underlying environmental policy integration, attaching importance to environmental concerns. Climate policy integration is achieved through the identification of win–win solutions and instruments that incentivize these. Climate frames, goals, instruments and subsystem involvement does not challenge the well-established agricultural policy process. Rather, existing sector-specific procedures can be used to facilitate the introduction of climate measures.

In contrast, the market failure logic emanates from environmental economics and has dominated climate governance for decades (Boasson & Tatham, 2022). Climate change is conceptualized as a problem of misaligned incentives, a failure of collective action (Stavins, 2011), and a ‘tragedy of the commons’ (Bernstein & Hoffmann, 2019). Since climate change is understood as a market failure, measures to correct this failure (such as carbon pricing) are needed to ensure an economic incentive for change. By making emission-intensive activities less profitable than low-carbon practices, actors take climate mitigation into account when they make decisions. The literature emphasizes economy-wide carbon prizing and assumes little need for changes in sector-specific climate policies. This resembles the ‘competitive paradigm’ from agricultural regime theory, which argues that agriculture is an economic sector like any other (Alons, 2017). Farmers should be treated as business entrepreneurs, and market forces should take precedence over state intervention (Coleman, 1998; Skogstad, 1998). Climate policy integration is achieved by carbon pricing agricultural products and investment activities. As a result, food suppliers and demanders take climate concerns into account in their market behavior. Policymakers will set a price that reduces the emissions from agriculture enough to reach climate targets, and there is no need to change sector-specific policy procedures beyond this.

Since 2010, a sociotechnological transition logic has gained more dominance in climate governance (Boasson & Tatham, 2022). This logic highlights the role of sector-specific industrial changes and technological innovations. It is rooted in innovation studies and institutional economics and refined by human geography, sociology, and political science scholars. Portraying increasing emissions as primarily resulting from fossil fuel ‘lock-in’ effects in a range of socio-technological systems (Hughes & Urpelainen, 2015), it sees mitigation as requiring major changes in infrastructure, industrial practices, and technology (Geels, 2014). Governments should target each sector with a broad set of sector-specific measures and support schemes that incentivize changes in technologies and practices (Boasson et al., 2022). Climate policy should be aligned with sector-specific technoeconomic situations. Industry and government are regarded as intimately interlinked; thus, the agricultural sector should be engaged in re-negotiating sector-specific policies in a way that facilitates climate transitions. Climate policy integration requires collaboration and negotiation between climate experts and sectoral actors. Together, they will identify which practices and technologies need to change to minimize emissions and how to adjust frames, goals, instruments and subsystem-involvement.

We are interested in how climate policy integration unfolds over time, from the initial first call for climate mitigation towards a sector and until the climate transition is recognized. Thus, we will also examine whether we find any pattern with respect to which logics are invoked at different stages in the integration process and whether the importance of the different logics change over time. Note that this framework does not aim at explaining differences in climate policy integration across cases or over time. Such explanations require causal assessments that capture power play as well as policy entrepreneurship.

Methodology

We conducted a longitudinal, qualitative document analysis of the annual Norwegian agricultural negotiations. Due to the extraordinary volume of documents (we have assessed 3719 pages) we have been able to perform a detailed examination of how the policy integration process developed over time. We have also performed 8 qualitative background interviews with 10 key actors, aimed at validating our interpretations of the large written material (see list of interviewees in annex 1).

Here, informants confirmed that although climate concerns over time have come higher on the agenda, it is still much lower than the main objectives for which the agricultural agreement is constructed to maintain. Bureaucrats and politicians within both sectors underlined how it would be easier to get support for climate- and environmental measures if the responsibility was within the parliamentary budget process instead of the agricultural negotiations. A key politician emphasized how too much power lies within the agricultural agreement. As one informant said, ‘it is nearly unthinkable that an institution established in the 50s, that got its present form more or less in the 70s or 80s, that that institute would be possible to use effectively for this […] It is a goal conflict grand lux here’. Despite new information and new political priorities, the agricultural agreement withstands.

Generally, agriculture has been characterized as highly independent and privileged, with notions of exceptionalism, or the idea that agriculture is unlike any other sector and warrants special government support (Daugbjerg & Feindt, 2017; Skogstad, 1998). Likewise, Norwegian agriculture has traditionally been described as highly protected, corporative, and closed off (Egeberg et al., 1978; Hernes, 1983; Rommetvedt, 2002). To a large extent, agricultural policy is decided solely through a highly institutionalized agreement system consisting of the main agreement from 1950 and an annual negotiation process between the state¹ and the agrarian interest organizations (Norges Bondelag and Norsk Bonde- og Småbrukarlag) (Prestegard, 2016). Informants emphasized that the agricultural sector and the annual negotiations is a protected and special sector. The main agreement outlines the principal negotiation rights, while the ongoing terms and conditions are decided within the negotiations. The negotiation process provides the agrarian organizations with great influence over policy making, seen as most elements of Norwegian agricultural policy are adopted and changed within these settlements (Farsund, 2014; Prestegard, 2016). The main negotiating areas include governmentally induced price setting, support schemes and distribution of state aid. Furthermore, in 2021 the government decided that climate policy across the agricultural sector will be decided within the settlements (MCE, 2021, p. 23). Essentially this makes the negotiation process the core institution for agricultural policymaking, as well as climate policy development within the agricultural sector.

Relying primarily on policy documents comes with certain limitations, such as less insight into contextual factors that could impact policy. In this paper, we do not focus on the full policy circle, such a feat would have been too extensive considering the longitudinal design and the volume of documents that were analyzed. Rather, the aim is to shed light on differing ways of understanding climate policy integration in the agricultural sector. Thus, we narrow it down to agenda-setting and decision-making within the sector. The negotiation texts provide exceptional access for investigating how climate policy integration unfolds over time. Furthermore, the negotiation texts provide great insight into differences between the actors involved in the process and their understanding of climate policy. Actors are an important element for understanding how cross-sectoral policy integration can occur (Reber et al., 2023), and specific types of actors can contribute to or impact policy integration in different ways. They can defend and support the structure and logic of a subsystem, which again impact policymaking and could undermine policy integration (Cejudo & Trein, 2023b). In this paper, the agrarian and state actors adhere to different roles in the climate policy integration process. The two agrarian organizations first submit their joint demand for the next agricultural year to the Ministry of Agriculture. The ministry, on behalf of the state, responds with its offer before the parties enter the negotiation process. The negotiations are based on these two documents, which detail and argue for important policy priorities.

The role of agriculture in climate change was put on the agenda for the first time during the 2007 negotiations (Grue, 2014, p. 539). Therefore, we started mapping the demands and offers the year prior to the initial introduction of climate change. In 2021, the Norwegian government introduced climate policy into the settlements (MCE, 2021, p. 23). Documents were retrieved between 2006 and 2021, with the exception of 2020 due to the simplified negotiations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.² All state offers are made publicly available through the government’s website.³ Agrarian demands were mostly retrieved through the agrarian organization’s websites.⁴ All documents are listed in the appendix.

We conducted a close qualitative reading of all the documents, which consisted of 1665 pages from the agrarian demands and 2054 pages from the state offers, adding up to a total of 3719 pages. Content was then thematically coded, producing close to a hundred pages of coded material, which was then organized across categories, including the following:

• Framing of climate change, problems, and solutions.

• Goals, priorities, and issues emphasized as important.

• Suggested instruments or measures.

• Responsibility for handling climate change, and actors included in the process.

This is thus a study of how the actors think about and understand climate and agricultural policies, not an analysis of policy implementation. The following analysis is organized into three periods, delineated by critical shifts in how climate was understood.

Institutional logics within Norwegian agricultural negotiations

2006–2009: Shallow multifunctional climate policy integration

During this period, there was remarkable similarity in how the government and agrarian organizations approached the integration of climate policy. In 2006, the government referred to climate change as an environmental issue together with air pollution and noise, but it did not distinguish climate as a policy issue in its own right (State offer, 2006, p. 24). Climate concerns were absent from the agrarian demand, but both the government and the agrarian organizations emphasized environmental concerns, particularly traditional pollution issues. The agricultural demand highlighted farmers’ social responsibility with respect to food production and maintaining cultural landscapes and vibrant rural life (Agricultural demand, 2006, p. 12).

Although 2007 is widely seen as a turning point, with climate on the agenda for the first time, there was miniscule space afforded to the industry’s role in the climate transition. Both actors discussed climate in general terms, and it was not specified which farming practices contributed more to emissions. The agrarian organizations listed climate change under ‘other important priorities’ (Agricultural demand, 2007). The government underlined the uncertainty associated with emissions and a lack of knowledge regarding measures that might provide measurable emissions reductions, thus emphasizing a need for knowledge and expertise (State offer, 2007). Enhanced knowledge was also seen as crucial for the industry to successfully exploit the advantages that follow from climate change and a green transition. In 2008, agrarian organizations asserted themselves as a solution to the climate challenge:

[…] agriculture [will] be part of the solution, not just for food, but also for production of renewable energy (Agricultural demand, 2008, p. 18).

Over subsequent years, they gradually rebranded themselves as ‘climate solvers,’ although it remained unclear what this entailed. The government continued to emphasize the need for increased knowledge and expertise, while also underlining that research had yet to produce measures that reduce emissions without reducing food production (State offer, 2008, p. 74). Increasing food production was the primary target, and it was not an option to introduce climate measures that could reduce production. Instead, farming and agricultural practices were exempt from climate measures due to biological processes and ruminant animals being part of a natural cycle (State offer, 2008, p. 74–76).

Table 2 shows that throughout this period, both actors relied on the multifunctional logic. However, this logic is invoked only as a frame and in relation to goals, not as a full-fledged climate integration logic. Both argued that established solutions to other environmental challenges also contributed to mitigating climate change, and both aimed to identify win–win solutions. Interestingly, none of them identified such solutions or were specific about how climate might be integrated into agricultural policy procedures. No new policy instruments to mitigate emissions from agriculture were suggested by the parties. The organizations argued that the sector should take responsibility and ownership of the climate issue, framing the sector as a ‘climate solution’ and implicitly concluding that climate change could be dealt with using existing policy procedures.

Table 2. Logics between 2006 and 2009 in agricultural demand (X) and government offer (O).

	Climate integration logic
	Multifunctional	Market failure	Socio-tech. transition
Frame	X O
Goals	X O
Instruments
Subsystem Involvement

2010–2015: Rivaling logics and contested integration

During this period, the parties developed more full-fledged policy integration logics, but they aligned with differing logics. Actual policy instruments aimed at reducing emissions were introduced, and attention was directed at farming practices with the highest emissions, such as livestock production. In 2010, the government highlighted that emissions were closely tied to the number of livestock. Livestock manure was regarded as a crucial emission source but also an important resource for biogas production (State offer, 2010, p. 42). Agrarian organizations reiterated that agriculture is a ‘climate solver’ and ‘photosynthesis custodian,’ emphasizing possible contributions to biogas (Agricultural demand, 2010, p. 5; 47). According to the organizations, the government should make climate solutions economically profitable for farmers. Ruminant meat was described as a renewable resource, contributing to solve food, environmental, and climate challenges (Agricultural demand, 2010, p. 40).

The government offer from 2011 presented tangible climate solutions, highlighting biogas, increased efficiency in dairy production and sheep farming, use of straw for bioenergy, and more efficient use of nitrous oxide and livestock manure (State offer, 2011). Bioenergy was portrayed as a cost-efficient climate measure that could be combined with increased value creation for forest owners. The agrarian organizations argued that changes in practices should be incentivized by making climate measures economically profitable for the farmer, while avoiding restrictions and prohibitions (Agricultural demand, 2011). In addition, it was emphasized that the sector could produce renewable energy. Bioenergy development and livestock manure for biogas were highlighted by both parties (Agricultural demand, 2011; State offer, 2012). Agrarian organizations regarded increasing domestic food production as crucial (Agricultural demand, 2011, p. 5). Despite high emissions from livestock, they explicitly highlight increased grazing as a renewable resource and a win–win solution. Livestock produced on pasture and roughage was framed as a sustainable climate solution, as well as a good utilization of domestic resources (Agricultural demand, 2011, p. 85–86). Since grassland used for grazing binds more CO₂ than a forest, it is a solution to the two most pressing issues: increasing food production and dealing with climate challenges.

In 2013, agrarian organizations declared agriculture a green industry, underlining its natural role in the carbon cycle (Agricultural demand, 2013, p. 6). Existing policy goals, including varied production throughout the country and increased food production, are relabeled sustainability objectives, enabling Norway to cope with future climate challenges. Increasing and strengthening ruminant meat production was prioritized.

[…] instruments that stimulate voluntary environmental measures should be used. This would give the best anchoring, ownership, and understanding of the problem amongst users, and would secure the foundation for long-term environmental benefits (Agricultural demand, 2012, p. 88).

In 2014, agrarian organizations paid more attention to climate change, simultaneously defining beef production as ‘climate friendly’ and emphasizing the need for adaptation and mitigation (Agricultural demand, 2014, p. 65; p. 8). Interestingly, ‘climate friendly agriculture’ is defined as the sustainable use of resources and increased resilience facing climate changes and is not directly coupled to emission reductions.

Agriculture is part of the climate solution. The agricultural industry is based on renewable resources. Also in the future, agriculture must be an industry that produces food and energy without tearing away at the resource base. We can contribute to climate neutrality and climate positive value creation. The potential for developing renewable energy is huge (Agricultural demand, 2014, p. 41).

Likewise, in 2015, the organizations emphasized that the agricultural industry would be part of the solution in a climate transition but that it should be financially beneficial (Agricultural demand, 2015, p. 39). To achieve this, they need targeted information, economic leeway, and the development of technologies and economically profitable solutions. Increasing global food production would necessitate using all available resources and adapting production to natural conditions (Agricultural demand, 2015, p. 38). The government demonstrated signs of a market failure logic by emphasizing economically favorable solutions that take more into account than just one specific industry, repeatedly stressing sectoral responsibility for climate action and suggesting measures such as taxes and fees on agricultural production (State offer, 2015).

We conclude that both parties’ views on policy integration matured (see Table 3). The organizations demonstrated a clearer multifunctional logic in terms of frame (the agricultural sector is a climate solution in itself), goals (traditional agriculture can be strengthened while also meeting climate targets), instruments (voluntary action), and subsystem involvement (strong agricultural field). The government focused more on what could be done to cut emissions while emphasizing that such actions should not be at the expense of established policy goals. Thus, the government’s logic is challenging to pin down. In line with a multifunctional logic, climate change is understood as a serious problem that needs to be addressed, and a range of existing practices are relabeled as ‘climate solutions,’ particularly grazing and beef production. Moreover, in line with a market failure logic, the government suggested policy instruments such as taxing agricultural production.

Table 3. Logics between 2010 and 2015 in agricultural demand (X) and government offer (O).

	Climate integration logic
	Multifunctional	Market failure	Socio-tech. transition
Frame	X O	O
Goals	X	O
Instruments	X	O
Subsystem involvement	X O

2016–2021: Contested integration and competing logics

In the years following the adoption of the Paris Agreement, climate policy integration gained increased attention in agricultural policy processes. For the first time, the sociotechnological transition logic was present, and the level of conflict increased. In 2016, agrarian organizations emphasized that increasing food production through the increased use of ‘sustainable grazing resources’ is essential, while also calling for food production to be exempt from climate policy (Agricultural demand, 2016). They aimed to contribute to solving climate change in areas other than food production, including renewable energy, transitioning out fossil fuels and carbon sequestration through forestry (Agricultural demand, 2016, p. 6). Meanwhile, the government highlights a lack of instruments or efforts aimed at reducing emissions (State offer, 2016, p. 83). The following year, the agrarian demand stated that:

It is the overall long-term agricultural policy that has provided us with an agricultural industry with low climate footprints per produced unit. […] The climate results have come despite the decisive instruments not having climate concerns in either purpose or name (Agricultural demand, 2017, p. 46).

Moreover, the organizations described grazing and pastures as ‘targeted climate actions’ due to carbon sequestration (Agricultural demand, 2017). When such holistic carbon calculations are considered, the emissions from Norwegian beef are comparatively low, providing great conditions for low-carbon beef production (Agricultural demand, 2017, p. 72; p. 45; p. 74).

Furthermore, reduced grazing causes biodiversity loss and decreased carbon sequestration. Both actors argue that emissions from food production are inevitable and cannot be controlled or managed in the same way as fossil fuels emissions and that there is a risk of carbon leakage if domestic production is reduced (Agricultural demand, 2017, p. 45, 72; State offer, 2017, p. 100). However, the organizations place greater emphasis on the need to facilitate green value creation, as well as the industry’s ability to simultaneously reduce emissions from food production, adapt to a new climate reality, and increase carbon sequestration (Agricultural demand, 2017, p. 5). The climate threat needs to be taken seriously, but agriculture is exceptional and cannot be juxtaposed with other sectors.

The development of climate policy within the agricultural sector is now happening at express speed. As a relatively new sector in a climate context, this is challenging. The knowledge in the area is partially non-existent, lacking or in an early phase (Agricultural demand 2017, p. 47).

In 2018, there was a visible shift in how both parties understood and conceptualized climate change, its potential impact on the sector, and its contribution in reaching climate objectives. There was a darker and more pessimistic outlook on the future of agriculture and food production, and a stronger call for action was made with a greater sense of urgency. The government underlined that production must be sustainable to uphold production ability over time and that emissions must be reduced (State offer, 2018, p. 71). According to the organizations, food shortages might be the most dramatic problem of all and could easily lead to chaos and revolt (Agricultural demand, 2018, p. 17). However, a tax on ruminant meat products is highly contested and seen as potentially diminishing competitiveness, replacing domestic production with imports and creating carbon leakage (Agricultural demand, 2018, p. 53). Instead, attention should be directed toward phasing out fossil fuels, reducing emissions from each production unit within biological processes, creating an investment fund for climate actions, and developing equivalent positive instruments for agriculture as for other sectors.

Both actors highlighted food production as a biological process and the importance of carbon sequestration and renewable energy production. The organizations argued that this differentiated the sector from those that only consume carbon (Agricultural demand, 2018, p. 53). The government stressed that it is still necessary to cut emissions and presented a ‘development-package for environmental- and climate friendly technology’ (State offer, 2018, p. 7; p. 89). New technology will increase value creation and competitiveness as well as stimulate production with lower emissions. Technological development is conceptualized as a central driver for such a transition.

In 2019, the government clearly demonstrated greater urgency for climate adaptation and mitigation, stressing the need for a stronger and faster transition than previously planned (State offer, 2019). More attention is paid to technological solutions while also reiterating previous win–win solutions such as livestock manure and food waste in biogas production to reduce emissions and produce a climate-friendly alternative to fossil fuels (State offer, 2019, p. 58). The agrarian organizations continued to stress that although agriculture cannot be compared to other sectors and should not be subject to the same strict regulations, it should still have the same positive advantages (Agricultural demand, 2019, p. 51). They also highlighted that several investments in climate measures do not necessarily increase profits for farmers. At the same time, the world is facing tremendous consequences from climate change, global food security is under heavy pressure, and emissions need to be reduced while securing food production (Agricultural demand, 2019, p. 50).

By 2021, agrarian organizations have clearly distinguished between ‘low-carbon agriculture’ and ‘sustainable agriculture.’ They explicitly state that any measures or instruments that would reduce food production would be strongly discouraged as part of Norwegian climate policy (Agricultural demand, 2021, p. 16). Green agricultural technology is regarded as key. The government highlights that methane is a short-lived greenhouse gas, which means that its emissions only impact global warming for a few decades, but the impact is much higher than that of other greenhouse gases (State offer, 2021, p. 61). To reach a specific temperature goal, it could therefore be necessary to cut emissions from short-lived gases but not necessarily to zero.

Throughout this period, there is a greater difference between the actors and the logics they use (see Table 4). While the agrarian organizations are still embedded in a multifunctional logic, the government seems to adhere to several logics. We see that the organizations present more elaborate arguments to differentiate the sector and strengthen its distinctiveness but also challenge established practices for calculating emission reductions. The government still relies on the multifunctional frame and instruments but also presents frames and instruments from the two other logics. While a range of tangible instruments and measures are introduced, old instruments are often simply relabeled.

Table 4. Logics between 2016 and 2021 in agricultural demand (X) and government offer (O).

	Climate integration logic
	Multifunctional	Market failure	Socio-tech. transition
Frame	X O	O	X O
Goals	X		O
Instruments	X O	O	O
Subsystem involvement

Concluding discussion

The empirical study shows that goal conflicts are merely one aspect of policy integration. The question of whether climate objectives have principled priority over sectoral objectives is only the tip of the iceberg of discussions that play out when climate policy meets an established policy procedure. The number of agricultural elements discussed in relation to climate change increased over time, and an increasing number of institutional logics were evoked in the process. Our findings are in line with the arguments of Candel and Biesbroek (2016), but the institutional logic perspective enhances our understanding of climate policy integration processes further.

While it seems several logics can facilitate an integration process, the Norwegian study indicates that the process improves when climate governance logics are evoked in addition to the logic that initially dominated the sector. As shown throughout the study, there are slight differences between the two actors in terms of the roles they play in climate change policy and especially the logics they adhere to. It appears that the government’s increased climate focus eventually leads the agrarian organizations to also focus more on climate. Long-term policy integration processes are rarely analyzed, and there has so far been little focus on specific stages of the policy process (Reber et al., 2023). A study of the negotiation process illustrates how climate policy integration can move between various stages or types of integration.

Although policy integration has been a subject of scholarly debate for decades, there is still a limited understanding of the relationship between the policy integration process and concrete policy changes. Thus far, the literature has been characterized by implicit and explicit assumptions about the integration process and policy decisions or output (Biesbroek, 2021; Cejudo & Trein, 2023b). In this paper, we further the academic debate by enhancing our knowledge of the various stages of climate policy integration, but we will need additional analytical tools in order to causally explain shifts from one type of climate policy integration to another.

Norwegian agricultural policy has changed significantly over time, in terms of both policy elements and institutional logics. In Table 5, we have summarized the changes along these two dimensions and propose that the integration process has moved between different types of integration over time; from shallow to consistent and eventually to contested. Whether it moves toward embedded integration in the future remains to be seen. We did not examine the relationship between the integration process within a sector and the policy decisions or implementation. Even so, in the following we elaborate on four types of integration and specify hypothesis regarding how they may influence policy decisions and implementation. Furthermore, we theorize the behavior of actors within each type of integration and how they may impact decision-making.

Table 5. Four types of policy integration processes.

		INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS
		Sector-specific logic dominates	Multiple climate policy integration logics
POLICY ELEMENTS	New issue only integrated into frames and goals	Shallow Process Norwegian Agriculture 2006–2009	Contested Process Norwegian Agriculture 2016–2021
New issue integrated into frames, goals, instruments, and subsystem involvement	Consistent Process Norwegian Agriculture 2010–2015	Embedded Process

A shallow process is characterized by all actors almost exclusively approaching the new issue from the sector-specific logic that initially dominated the field. This integration process centers on defending entrenched understandings and policies. Actors focus on framing the issue in a way that is consistent with the dominant logic, and many would argue that the new issue does not challenge existing policy objectives. Given that the issue is new and often poorly understood, little attention is paid to specific policy instruments or ways to change the subsystem involvement to reduce emissions. Rather, it is more about relabeling existing policy to make it appear as climate policy and not about introducing new policy elements that could disturb established practices. We hypothesize that a shallow process will not lead to actual policy changes or implementation of new policy. If sector policies change during this type of policy integration process, it is likely caused by factors outside the sector-specific policy process. This could happen if decisions are made by higher levels of government.

The integration process is deeper when there is a shift along the policy element dimension toward discussing more specific elements and not only policy frames and goals. A consistent process is still narrow when it comes to how the new issue is understood, as sector-specific logics still dominates. Hence, there is little reason to expect major changes in existing policy. On the other hand, it will probably not be as challenging to implement policy given that the actors involved most likely adhere to the same logic. We hypothesize that a consistent process will lead to decisions that, to only a minor extent, change sector objectives, instruments, and subsystem involvement. Hence, it will cause incremental policy changes.

Turning to a contested process, there is a higher level of conflict, as several logics have entered the process, challenging the way the issue was understood in light of the dominant sector logic. Since the level of conflict increases, focus is again elevated to frames and goals, while instruments and subsystem involvement gain less attention. Here, political contestation does not merely emerge because the actors disagree about the importance of climate policy integration but also because actors are influenced by differing logics. We hypothesize that a contested process will lead to decisions that change the sectors’ policy objectives, but not its instruments and subsystem involvement. This type of integration might require stronger involvement from the actors in the process, with deliberate efforts to overcome the pull towards the sector-specific logic (see Reber et al., 2023). Implementation of policy will likely be difficult, given that the actors involved adhere to different logics and the level of contestation is high. We agree with Nilsson and Persson (2003), who argued that learning is a crucial part of policy integration. Still, we think that contestations are crucial in the collective learning process and that conflicts between differing logics at times will stifle policy change. In the Norwegian case, we saw that a contested process occurred after a consistent process. However, we do not expect this to play out in the same way across all sectors, countries, and issue areas.

Even though we did not identify it in our study, an embedded process is expected to occur when all policy elements and several logics are mobilized. This would not be a smooth process but rather one characterized by high levels of conflict and politicization. We hypothesize that an embedded process will lead to decisions that significantly change sector objectives, instruments, and subsystem involvement. Given that there are several logics mobilized in which actors may adhere to, policy implementation might be influenced by joint-action problems and strong veto-players (Cejudo & Trein, 2023b). Therefore, we do not claim that an embedded process always leads to radical emissions reductions. It may lead to policy outputs such as cross-sectoral policy programs, but still failed implementation. Thus, an embedded process is not necessarily the same as successfully implementing policy. Here we would rather suggest a fifth type of climate policy integration. A kind of new normal where the dominant sector logic has been profoundly changed by the integration process and the level of conflict has decreased. This matured type of policy integration is more likely to be identified in sectors that have been subject to climate mitigation for decades, such as the energy sector. Note that we do not argue that there will be a linear development from shallow to embedded integration. Rather, disintegration can occur at any stage in the process (Candel & Biesbroek, 2020).

We assume that the type of climate integration process that dominates within an issue area influences the type of climate policy decisions that are made. Our proposed framework for policy integration comes with two important limitations. Firstly, we do not assess the explanatory value of the four hypotheses in this piece. To do this, we will need to combine a rich array of research methods, including qualitative methods such as qualitative interviews, comparative case studies and process-tracing. Second, when trying to simplify comprehensive and broad policy integration processes, certain elements will necessarily be excluded. Whether integration affects policy outcomes and implementation, and eventually emissions, depends on a long range of factors. There are several reasons why moving from a shallow to an embedded policy integration process may not lead to more ambitious sector-specific climate policies. For instance, this may be hindered by informal networks, power dynamics or skilled policy entrepreneurship. Further, developments that lie outside the sector in question may influence sectoral policies. For instance, changes in what Kingdon ([1984] 2011) calls the politics stream, namely election results, changes in government, shifts in party internal politics, or waves of public sentiment. International political change or economic shocks (whether caused by a financial crisis or a pandemic) are other factors. Policy integration is in constant flux, and contextual conditions can trigger mechanisms that either increase or decrease integration (see Candel & Biesbroek, 2020). When examining the relationship between integration processes, policy change and implementation, it is important to consider exogenous factors and not only assess sector-specific policy processes.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful for the valuable input from participants and discussants at the National Conference on Political Science at the University of Oslo on 15–17 June 2022, the ECPR panel in Innsbruck on 22–26 August 2022, and the SCANCOR Workshop in Bergen on 23–24 November 2022.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This project has been funded by the Research Council of Norway project ‘VOM [Measures for food system transition]’ (project number 319892).

Notes on contributors

Katrine Skagen

Katrine Skagen is a researcher employed at CICERO Center for International Climate Research while doing a Ph.D. in the Department of Political Science at the University of Oslo.

Elin Lerum Boasson

Elin Lerum Boasson is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Oslo and holds a position at the CICERO Center for International Climate Research.

Notes

1 The state does not refer to the state in its entirety but the part of the state that enters the negotiations. The demands are presented as ‘the state demand.’ For simplicity, we will use ‘the government.’

2 Since the negotiation process starts in April, the parties decided to simplify the process.

3 Jordbruksoppgjør gjennom tidene – regjeringen.no

4 Jordbruksoppgjøret - Norges Bondelag (bondelaget.no); Jordbruksoppgjøret | Norsk Bonde- og Småbrukarlag (smabrukarlaget.no)