Transnational think tanks and environmental policymaking in the Mediterranean: learning to bridge the gap between the two shores?

Environmental concerns lie at the core of the European Union’s (EU) priorities in its southern neighbourhood, as embodied by the 2021 ‘New Agenda for the Mediterranean’. This policy document also attributes a key role to civil society – stressing that its collaboration is instrumental to achieve its objectives. Civil society’s role in fighting climate change is clear (Mittag 2012), ranging from facilitating policy implementation at the local level to representing the voice of local communities in international policy arenas. However, these expectations may create an unresolved tension, especially when the priorities of international stakeholders are not aligned with the needs of local populations. In the Euro-Mediterranean region, this has been evident in the stark contrast between EU’s focus on energy security and economic stability and civil society’s calls for just and democratic environmental policies (Hamouchene and Sandwell 2023). Such misalignment raises attention to the concrete engagement of civil society actors with Euro-Mediterranean environmental policymaking. Specifically, investigating the role played by transnational think tanks is particularly compelling. Not only are they especially equipped to deal with issues that require coordinated action across borders (such as climate change), but they also tend to be most effective in both the agenda-setting and monitoring and evaluation of policy processes (Krawczyk 2019). Given the central role of transnational think tanks in knowledge production patterns, this paper asks: what is the role of transnational think tanks in shaping the development, implementation, and evaluation of environmental policies in the Mediterranean? This paper will identify the main transnational think tanks working on environmental issues in the Mediterranean, analysing the evolution of their thematic focus, strategies, and programmes of action. Concurrently, it will investigate their participation to Euro-Mediterranean policy processes, examining the different arenas that allowed transnational think tanks to engage with environmental policymaking and the contribution sought from them. In doing so, this paper will outline the ways in which transnational think tanks both shaped and were shaped by different policy processes, shedding light on the mechanisms of learning of both institutional and civil society actors in the Mediterranean. This paper fills the gap in the literature by focusing on an understudied set of actors (transnational think tanks), contributing to the current scholarly debates on the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership by widening the set of actors and interactions that shape learning across the Mediterranean.