Eva Thomann awarded the IUPPA Best Book Award 2019

Dr Eva Thomann has been awarded the prestigious International Public Policy Association (IPPA) Award for Best Book in 2019.

Dr Thomann’s book is entitled Customized Implementation of European Union Food Safety Policy – United in Diversity and was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2018.  

The book makes an important contribution to the literature on policy implementation in the EU context.  It sheds light on the patterns, causes and consequences of the “customization” of European Union (EU) policies. Even if they comply, member states interpret and adapt EU rules in very diverse ways when putting them into practice. We can think of and measure this diversity as a phenomenon of regulatory change along the implementation chain.

The book explores what explains customization, and what it means for providing policy solutions to shared problems. It studies the implementation of EU food safety policies in Austria, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Switzerland using innovative qualitative comparative techniques. After looking at the role of prominent compliance arguments and the “logics of action” for customization, the study assesses how differing degrees of customization affect the success of the implementation.

The book provides a new, evidence-based perspective on “gold-plating” and better regulation in Europe for scholars, students and practitioners of policy implementation, European integration and Europeanization alike. 

Klaus Schubert from the University of Munster, one of the panel judges noted "In the conceptualisation and analysis of customization, the book makes an important contribution to the analysis of multi-level governance relevant not just to the EU, and provides a foundation for future studies. It is also strong methodologically and timely, given Brexit and the widespread dissatisfaction with the European project in member countries."

The IPPA Best Book Award is awarded biennially at the Association’s International Conference on Public Policy (ICPP). The award is given to a single- or co-authored monograph that makes an original and significant theoretical, methodological and/or empirical contribution to the field of Public Policy and/or Public Administration.