The MacSharry reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy: a challenge to public choice theory

This thesis draws on the insights of economics, political economy and political science to study the MacSharry reforms of the CAP enacted in May 1992. It has two objectives. First, to understand the MacSharry reforms in terms of why they happened, when they did and in the form that they did. Second...

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Main Author: Kay, Adrian
Format: Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
Language:English
Published: 1997
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/11838/
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author Kay, Adrian
author_facet Kay, Adrian
author_sort Kay, Adrian
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description This thesis draws on the insights of economics, political economy and political science to study the MacSharry reforms of the CAP enacted in May 1992. It has two objectives. First, to understand the MacSharry reforms in terms of why they happened, when they did and in the form that they did. Second, to develop a more general framework for the interpretation of CAP reforms. The thesis is in two parts. In the first, the public choice paradigm of decision-making systems is introduced as an alternative to neo-classical agricultural economics. It is employed to generate three frameworks of CAP reforms; the interest groups, the prominent players and the institutions. The evidence from the histories of previous reforms of the CAP provides the bias that the institutions framework is the most insightful for understanding the reform process. The second part of the thesis is a case study of the MacSharry reforms. It is constructed from primary and secondary sources. Seventeen in-depth, individual interviews with key participants in, or observers of, the reform process were conducted. These are complimented by an extensive survey of the general news commentary on, the academic analysis of, and specialist agri-business views of the reforms. The institutions framework drawn from part one of the thesis is used to interpret this evidence to achieve objective one of the thesis. The central claim with regard to the second objective is that previous attempts at understanding the CAP reform process and its outcome have tended to underestimate the importance of the institutional structure of decision-making.
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spelling nottingham-118382025-02-28T11:15:52Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/11838/ The MacSharry reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy: a challenge to public choice theory Kay, Adrian This thesis draws on the insights of economics, political economy and political science to study the MacSharry reforms of the CAP enacted in May 1992. It has two objectives. First, to understand the MacSharry reforms in terms of why they happened, when they did and in the form that they did. Second, to develop a more general framework for the interpretation of CAP reforms. The thesis is in two parts. In the first, the public choice paradigm of decision-making systems is introduced as an alternative to neo-classical agricultural economics. It is employed to generate three frameworks of CAP reforms; the interest groups, the prominent players and the institutions. The evidence from the histories of previous reforms of the CAP provides the bias that the institutions framework is the most insightful for understanding the reform process. The second part of the thesis is a case study of the MacSharry reforms. It is constructed from primary and secondary sources. Seventeen in-depth, individual interviews with key participants in, or observers of, the reform process were conducted. These are complimented by an extensive survey of the general news commentary on, the academic analysis of, and specialist agri-business views of the reforms. The institutions framework drawn from part one of the thesis is used to interpret this evidence to achieve objective one of the thesis. The central claim with regard to the second objective is that previous attempts at understanding the CAP reform process and its outcome have tended to underestimate the importance of the institutional structure of decision-making. 1997 Thesis (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en arr https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/11838/1/339641.pdf Kay, Adrian (1997) The MacSharry reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy: a challenge to public choice theory. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham. Agriculture and state European Union countries agricultural price supports
spellingShingle Agriculture and state
European Union countries
agricultural price supports
Kay, Adrian
The MacSharry reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy: a challenge to public choice theory
title The MacSharry reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy: a challenge to public choice theory
title_full The MacSharry reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy: a challenge to public choice theory
title_fullStr The MacSharry reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy: a challenge to public choice theory
title_full_unstemmed The MacSharry reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy: a challenge to public choice theory
title_short The MacSharry reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy: a challenge to public choice theory
title_sort macsharry reforms of the common agricultural policy: a challenge to public choice theory
topic Agriculture and state
European Union countries
agricultural price supports
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/11838/