Executive Summary The objective of this study was to establish a better understanding of the perf... more Executive Summary The objective of this study was to establish a better understanding of the performance of different voluntary standard schemes from the perspective of small producers in East Africa. The study compared small scale producers' perceptions of the ...
This article investigates the ongoing efforts of trade unions in Kenya and Tanzania to enlarge th... more This article investigates the ongoing efforts of trade unions in Kenya and Tanzania to enlarge their constituency by reconceptualising the notion of workers to include people in the informal economy. How this process plays out is of immense importance as it challenges established understandings of who a worker is; this in turn poses very difficult questions about rights, representation and the distribution of power both internally in the union movements and in society at large. Based on original interview data, the article unpacks this highly contested and politicised process. The article shows how union efforts reflect different ways of tackling the need to constitute people working informally as workers and union members in order to increase the social base, and thereby increase political clout. However, these processes are juxtaposed with the urge to maintain traditional boundaries and protect established privileges and power structures, both internally in the unions and external...
Many policy prescriptions emphasise poverty reduction through closer integration of poor people o... more Many policy prescriptions emphasise poverty reduction through closer integration of poor people or areas with global markets. Global value chain (GVC) studies reveal how firms and farms in developing countries are upgraded by being integrated in global markets, but few ...
In recent years various academics, consultants, retailers, and NGOs have advocated a move towards... more In recent years various academics, consultants, retailers, and NGOs have advocated a move towards cooperative approaches to private sustainability standards as a preferable alternative to unilateral standards and to standard initiatives employing a more compliance-based approach. These cooperative approaches have been promoted as a potential answer to some of the now widely identified shortcomings of the compliance paradigm, including the high cost (for suppliers) of implementing standards, the limited impact of auditing, the lack of capacity building of local suppliers and their workforce, as well as the weak inclusion of workers and smallholders in standard-setting and governance. But is it possible to address these limitations by moving towards multistakeholding, cooperation and capacity building while at the same time catering to the demands of the mainstream market? This article analyses how the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) seeks to do just that, in the process identifying a ...
Explores the campaign leading to the signing in 2001 of an international framework agreement (IFA... more Explores the campaign leading to the signing in 2001 of an international framework agreement (IFA) between the global banana enterprise Chiquita and the Latin American Coordination of Banana Workers Unions (COLSIBA). Shows how the banana workers unions employed innovative tactics of regional coordination and alliances with solidarity groups in the major consumer markets to achieve the agreement. Evaluates the implementation of the agreement and draws lessons for the potential of future IFAs.
In recent years, collaborative multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) between private sector compan... more In recent years, collaborative multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) between private sector companies and civil society organizations have sought to find common solutions to sustainability challenges related to cotton, timber, and other raw materials, as well as hazardous work conditions in industries such as garments, textiles, and leather production. In this article, we contribute to the MSI literature by conceptualizing how intermediate standard implementing organizations deal with organizational tensions as street level bureaucrats, theorizing their differential capacity to navigate between two sets of competing pressures inherent to MSI standards: (1) upscaling in volume terms and maintaining the stringency of the standard; and (2) farmer capacity building and auditing approaches. Empirically, we analyze how intermediary standard implementing organizations of a particular MSI, the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), mediate between these global sustainability standards pressures and...
This synopsis proceeds in Section 2 with a short background introduction to the cut flower value ... more This synopsis proceeds in Section 2 with a short background introduction to the cut flower value chain. In Section 3, I present a summary of the four papers, while in Section 4 I discuss the theoretical elements of this PhD thesis, elaborating on the theoretical approaches I have employed and discuss my contribution to the debate. In Section 5, I consider the limits to labour agency, and in Section 6, I present my methodology. Finally, in Section 7, I provide an overall conclusion.
Price: DKK 25.00 (VAT included) DIIS publications can be downloaded free of charge from www.diis.... more Price: DKK 25.00 (VAT included) DIIS publications can be downloaded free of charge from www.diis.dk DIIS Working Papers • make available DIIS researchers' and DIIS project partners' work in progress towards proper publishing. They may include important documentation which is not necessarily published elsewhere. • are published under the responsibility of the author alone. • should not be quoted without the express permission of the author. DIIS Working Paper sub-series on Standards and Agro-Food Exports (SAFE)
Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch ge... more Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence.
Executive Summary The objective of this study was to establish a better understanding of the perf... more Executive Summary The objective of this study was to establish a better understanding of the performance of different voluntary standard schemes from the perspective of small producers in East Africa. The study compared small scale producers' perceptions of the ...
This article investigates the ongoing efforts of trade unions in Kenya and Tanzania to enlarge th... more This article investigates the ongoing efforts of trade unions in Kenya and Tanzania to enlarge their constituency by reconceptualising the notion of workers to include people in the informal economy. How this process plays out is of immense importance as it challenges established understandings of who a worker is; this in turn poses very difficult questions about rights, representation and the distribution of power both internally in the union movements and in society at large. Based on original interview data, the article unpacks this highly contested and politicised process. The article shows how union efforts reflect different ways of tackling the need to constitute people working informally as workers and union members in order to increase the social base, and thereby increase political clout. However, these processes are juxtaposed with the urge to maintain traditional boundaries and protect established privileges and power structures, both internally in the unions and external...
Many policy prescriptions emphasise poverty reduction through closer integration of poor people o... more Many policy prescriptions emphasise poverty reduction through closer integration of poor people or areas with global markets. Global value chain (GVC) studies reveal how firms and farms in developing countries are upgraded by being integrated in global markets, but few ...
In recent years various academics, consultants, retailers, and NGOs have advocated a move towards... more In recent years various academics, consultants, retailers, and NGOs have advocated a move towards cooperative approaches to private sustainability standards as a preferable alternative to unilateral standards and to standard initiatives employing a more compliance-based approach. These cooperative approaches have been promoted as a potential answer to some of the now widely identified shortcomings of the compliance paradigm, including the high cost (for suppliers) of implementing standards, the limited impact of auditing, the lack of capacity building of local suppliers and their workforce, as well as the weak inclusion of workers and smallholders in standard-setting and governance. But is it possible to address these limitations by moving towards multistakeholding, cooperation and capacity building while at the same time catering to the demands of the mainstream market? This article analyses how the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) seeks to do just that, in the process identifying a ...
Explores the campaign leading to the signing in 2001 of an international framework agreement (IFA... more Explores the campaign leading to the signing in 2001 of an international framework agreement (IFA) between the global banana enterprise Chiquita and the Latin American Coordination of Banana Workers Unions (COLSIBA). Shows how the banana workers unions employed innovative tactics of regional coordination and alliances with solidarity groups in the major consumer markets to achieve the agreement. Evaluates the implementation of the agreement and draws lessons for the potential of future IFAs.
In recent years, collaborative multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) between private sector compan... more In recent years, collaborative multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) between private sector companies and civil society organizations have sought to find common solutions to sustainability challenges related to cotton, timber, and other raw materials, as well as hazardous work conditions in industries such as garments, textiles, and leather production. In this article, we contribute to the MSI literature by conceptualizing how intermediate standard implementing organizations deal with organizational tensions as street level bureaucrats, theorizing their differential capacity to navigate between two sets of competing pressures inherent to MSI standards: (1) upscaling in volume terms and maintaining the stringency of the standard; and (2) farmer capacity building and auditing approaches. Empirically, we analyze how intermediary standard implementing organizations of a particular MSI, the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), mediate between these global sustainability standards pressures and...
This synopsis proceeds in Section 2 with a short background introduction to the cut flower value ... more This synopsis proceeds in Section 2 with a short background introduction to the cut flower value chain. In Section 3, I present a summary of the four papers, while in Section 4 I discuss the theoretical elements of this PhD thesis, elaborating on the theoretical approaches I have employed and discuss my contribution to the debate. In Section 5, I consider the limits to labour agency, and in Section 6, I present my methodology. Finally, in Section 7, I provide an overall conclusion.
Price: DKK 25.00 (VAT included) DIIS publications can be downloaded free of charge from www.diis.... more Price: DKK 25.00 (VAT included) DIIS publications can be downloaded free of charge from www.diis.dk DIIS Working Papers • make available DIIS researchers' and DIIS project partners' work in progress towards proper publishing. They may include important documentation which is not necessarily published elsewhere. • are published under the responsibility of the author alone. • should not be quoted without the express permission of the author. DIIS Working Paper sub-series on Standards and Agro-Food Exports (SAFE)
Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch ge... more Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence.
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Papers by Lone Riisgaard