This book examines sustainability in European environmental policy and explores the related challenges of governance and knowledge, featuring cross-national and comparative case studies on nine European countries.

1. Introduction: Governance, Knowledge and Sustainability - An Introduction and Overview Rob Atkinson, Georgios Terizakis and Karsten Zimmermann 2. Sustainability and Knowledge: European Environmental Policy and the Challenge of Sustainability in a Multilevel System Karsten Zimmermann, Bas Denters and Pieter-Jan Klok 3. The Place of Knowledge in Policy Making Processes An Assessment of Three EU Environmental Policy Instruments Sonja Löber 4. Governance and Knowledge: How do they Interact? Conceptual Propositions Hubert Heinelt, Gerd Held, Tanja Kopp-Malek, Ulf Matthiesen, Eva Reisinger and Karsten Zimmermann 5. The Cognitive Turn in Political Science Frank Nullmeier Tanja Kopp-Malek and Steffen Schneider 6. The Zone of Knowledge Transactions: Recent Tendencies in Knowledge Production, Knowledge Sharing and the Trading of Knowledge from a Socio-Spatial Perspective Ulf Matthiese and Eva Reisinger 7. Theories of Discourse and Narrative: What do They Mean for Governance and Policy? Rob Atkinson, Gerhard Held and Stephen Jeffares 8. Strategic Environmental Assessment, Strategic Spatial Planning, and the Politics of Local Knowledge Alessandro Balducci, Claudio Calvaresi and Karsten Zimmermann 9. How Great Expectations in Brussels are Dashed in Großkrotzenburg: The Impacts of Reflective Knowledge Demonstrated in an Empirical Case of Implementing the EU Emissions Trading Scheme Sonja Löber and Hubert Heinelt 10. Governance, Knowledge and Policy Networks in Strategic Environmental Assessment Carolina Pacchi, Kara Davies,Valeria Fedeli and Martin Lund-Iversen 11. Governing Knowledge for Sustainability: An Appropriate Research Heuristic or Too Complex for Reality? Rob Atkinson, Georgios Terizakis and Karsten Zimmermann