| Summary: | Animal health problems such as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy and foot and mouth disease caused significant problems for government in the last two decades of the twentieth century. The ministry responsible for animal health policy, MAFF, was replaced by a new department, Defra, which was given a wider role than simply agriculture and farming, and claimed that it would work in a new, more open and transparent way, with wider stakeholder participation. This thesis evaluates this claim and, in particular, asks how far Defra has adopted a way of working consistent with the ideas of ‘new governance.’ It argues that Defra does work in a new governance manner but that this approach is applied inconsistently in the animal health policy sector. Two recent animal health policies – the Animal Health and Welfare Strategy (AHWS) and the bovine tuberculosis strategy serve as case studies to illustrate the argument. The empirical work - interviews, observation and document analysis examines how Defra delivers these policies in practice. A policy network model is then used to examine and explain the extent of network change over time. Key findings are that a distinctive new governance approach can be seen in the case of the AHWS. However, in the case of bovine TB, the lack of stakeholder consensus has limited the opportunity for partnership working, stakeholder participation and open policy making.
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