This explorative study aims to shed light on the ways in which Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) c... more This explorative study aims to shed light on the ways in which Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification interacts with the implementation of the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR) in Romania. To this end, the EUTR implementation process is examined, and the relationship between this implementation and FSC certification is explored. There is a particular focus on the extent to which certification has helped companies to comply with EUTR requirements. The study uses the analytical framework of Transnational Business Governance Interactions (TBGI) and a mixed research approach. It is found that FSC certification has to a large extent helped companies to prepare for and align with the EUTR's requirements, in particular concerning risk assessment and risk mitigation procedures needed for a due diligence system (DDS), and in the context of a "policy vacuum" period related to EUTR implementation. Moreover, recent changes in the FSC standard make it theoretically in line with EUTR requirements. However, difficulties remain in relation to the lack of information, costs and bureaucracy associated with both EUTR implementation and FSC certification. Notably, in the absence of a monitoring organization, the establishment of a viable DDS is still problematic as many companies remain unprepared for developing their own systems. Finally, the EUTR and its risk management requirements may have partly fueled the increase in uptake of chain of custody (CoC) certification in Romania. However, due to the risk of CoC certificates including illegally sourced timber, this recent uptake in certification does not necessarily indicate improved sustainable forest management (SFM) or full compliance with EUTR.
Natural resource management requires cross-sectoral policy integration because the scope of curre... more Natural resource management requires cross-sectoral policy integration because the scope of current environmental and sustainability issues surpasses traditional sectoral boundaries. While the emergence of policy networks in such cases has been observed in the policy integration literature, little is known about how these net
Since the UNCED in 1992 and as a result of subsequent meetings within the global forest dialogue,... more Since the UNCED in 1992 and as a result of subsequent meetings within the global forest dialogue, the paradigm of sustainable management, conservation and sustainable development of forests (SFM) has been introduced and promoted as a new long-term policy commitment in the Global Environmental Policy. In the wake of major efforts of policy-making at various levels worldwide, National Forest Programmes (NFPs) have been suggested as an appropriate participatory planning instrument to translate and safeguard the SFM at national and subnational level by highlighting social and ecological priorities. Furthermore, NFPs are seen as means to improve the convergence of short-term political choices and long-term orientation of policy measures, and to coordinate the policy actors through democratic action principles such as participation, decentralisation, holistic and cross-sectoral orientation. Thus, the NFPs are deemed to be promising new participatory governance instruments with potential to contribute to substantial change in the existing policies relevant to natural resource management.
In this paper, we deal with the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) which has been promoted as a p... more In this paper, we deal with the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) which has been promoted as a promising theoretical approach of policy change and stability. After outlining the framework's main features and development over time, we review numerous ACF applications in natural resource policy studies and relate them to existing theoretical debates. The framework accounts for long-lasting policy debates between advocacy coalitions regarding value conflicts in multitude geographical domains and political systems. However, we identify several empirical anomalies and conceptual inconsistencies regarding advocacy coalition properties and causal paths to policy change. We draw on cultural theory and veto-player theory and the empirical evidence to theorize and propose several conceptual improvements and new hypotheses. By doing so, we address the ACF's concepts of belief systems, collective action, the role of and interdependencies among external events, political resources and institutions. Our theoretical proposals could provide for more detailed, dynamic and comprehensive look at the interactions among actors and their wider political and socioeconomic environment. These theoretical enhancements could mediate between the ACF propositions and the long-lasting theoretical critique directed to this framework and the divergent empirical evidence as regards to policy change analysis. We acknowledge that the further conceptual development of the framework will depend on the willingness of ACF theorists to integrate insights from rival research programs.
National Forest Programmes (NFPs) have been widely discussed as being potential instruments for c... more National Forest Programmes (NFPs) have been widely discussed as being potential instruments for concretizing the abstract international consensus on sustainable forest management at a national level. Furthermore, they were expected to enhance governance principles such as public participation, holistic and inter-sectoral coordination, decentralisation and long-term iterative and adaptive planning. In our paper, we offer a slightly different perspective on NFPs: Drawing on two empirical case studies (Germany and Bulgaria), we first show that the NFPs in both countries met the aforementioned governance principles. However, when it comes to their potential to trigger forest policy change and to concretize sustainable forest management "on the ground", NFPs turned out to be less effective in both countries. Moreover, our analysis, drawing on the Advocacy Coalition Framework, embeds the development of NFPs in long-lasting struggles between actor coalitions of diverging beliefs and allows for an interpretation in which the NFPs in both countries were used by powerful actors to serve certain strategic goals. We argue that in the case of Germany, an important motivation for the forestry coalition to develop the NFP was to occupy their counterpart, the nature conservation coalition, with a long-lasting negotiation process that had no substantial influence on the national forest policy. In Bulgaria, vital reasons for launching the NFP were, on one hand, to satisfy the demands of international donors and, on the other hand, to incorporate beliefs of powerful actors into the national forest policy. These findings, according to our conclusion, notably diminish expectations regarding the potential of NFPs as instruments for policy learning and policy change. Our paper concludes with recommendations for further research.
Romania's and Bulgaria's accession to the European Union (EU) increased... more Romania's and Bulgaria's accession to the European Union (EU) increased the forested area of the Community considerably and lead to significant changes within the forest sectors of these states, which had been shaped by centrally planned economy for a long time. ...
In this article, we introduce an empirical case study of the German forest policy subsystem in or... more In this article, we introduce an empirical case study of the German forest policy subsystem in order to understand how the concept of sustainable forest management has been discursively constructed, challenged, and changed over time. As a theoretical basis, we use an idea-based coalition approach, drawing on both the Advocacy Coalition Framework and Hajer's Argumentative Discourse Analysis. We show that rival coalitions that share a certain idea of forest management have dominated German forest policy for decades by employing different rhetorical and institutional strategies in order to incorporate their ideas into public policy institutions. Analyzing how the issue of climate change is discursively ‘digested’ by the actor coalitions, we find that climate change has been incorporated into the political argumentation of both coalitions in a manner consistent with their existing main policy ideas. Moreover, the membership of the coalitions has remained stable. These findings allow for conclusions regarding both our theoretical approaches and the policy subsystem's ability to adapt forests to cope with climate change.
This explorative study aims to shed light on the ways in which Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) c... more This explorative study aims to shed light on the ways in which Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification interacts with the implementation of the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR) in Romania. To this end, the EUTR implementation process is examined, and the relationship between this implementation and FSC certification is explored. There is a particular focus on the extent to which certification has helped companies to comply with EUTR requirements. The study uses the analytical framework of Transnational Business Governance Interactions (TBGI) and a mixed research approach. It is found that FSC certification has to a large extent helped companies to prepare for and align with the EUTR's requirements, in particular concerning risk assessment and risk mitigation procedures needed for a due diligence system (DDS), and in the context of a "policy vacuum" period related to EUTR implementation. Moreover, recent changes in the FSC standard make it theoretically in line with EUTR requirements. However, difficulties remain in relation to the lack of information, costs and bureaucracy associated with both EUTR implementation and FSC certification. Notably, in the absence of a monitoring organization, the establishment of a viable DDS is still problematic as many companies remain unprepared for developing their own systems. Finally, the EUTR and its risk management requirements may have partly fueled the increase in uptake of chain of custody (CoC) certification in Romania. However, due to the risk of CoC certificates including illegally sourced timber, this recent uptake in certification does not necessarily indicate improved sustainable forest management (SFM) or full compliance with EUTR.
Natural resource management requires cross-sectoral policy integration because the scope of curre... more Natural resource management requires cross-sectoral policy integration because the scope of current environmental and sustainability issues surpasses traditional sectoral boundaries. While the emergence of policy networks in such cases has been observed in the policy integration literature, little is known about how these net
Since the UNCED in 1992 and as a result of subsequent meetings within the global forest dialogue,... more Since the UNCED in 1992 and as a result of subsequent meetings within the global forest dialogue, the paradigm of sustainable management, conservation and sustainable development of forests (SFM) has been introduced and promoted as a new long-term policy commitment in the Global Environmental Policy. In the wake of major efforts of policy-making at various levels worldwide, National Forest Programmes (NFPs) have been suggested as an appropriate participatory planning instrument to translate and safeguard the SFM at national and subnational level by highlighting social and ecological priorities. Furthermore, NFPs are seen as means to improve the convergence of short-term political choices and long-term orientation of policy measures, and to coordinate the policy actors through democratic action principles such as participation, decentralisation, holistic and cross-sectoral orientation. Thus, the NFPs are deemed to be promising new participatory governance instruments with potential to contribute to substantial change in the existing policies relevant to natural resource management.
In this paper, we deal with the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) which has been promoted as a p... more In this paper, we deal with the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) which has been promoted as a promising theoretical approach of policy change and stability. After outlining the framework's main features and development over time, we review numerous ACF applications in natural resource policy studies and relate them to existing theoretical debates. The framework accounts for long-lasting policy debates between advocacy coalitions regarding value conflicts in multitude geographical domains and political systems. However, we identify several empirical anomalies and conceptual inconsistencies regarding advocacy coalition properties and causal paths to policy change. We draw on cultural theory and veto-player theory and the empirical evidence to theorize and propose several conceptual improvements and new hypotheses. By doing so, we address the ACF's concepts of belief systems, collective action, the role of and interdependencies among external events, political resources and institutions. Our theoretical proposals could provide for more detailed, dynamic and comprehensive look at the interactions among actors and their wider political and socioeconomic environment. These theoretical enhancements could mediate between the ACF propositions and the long-lasting theoretical critique directed to this framework and the divergent empirical evidence as regards to policy change analysis. We acknowledge that the further conceptual development of the framework will depend on the willingness of ACF theorists to integrate insights from rival research programs.
National Forest Programmes (NFPs) have been widely discussed as being potential instruments for c... more National Forest Programmes (NFPs) have been widely discussed as being potential instruments for concretizing the abstract international consensus on sustainable forest management at a national level. Furthermore, they were expected to enhance governance principles such as public participation, holistic and inter-sectoral coordination, decentralisation and long-term iterative and adaptive planning. In our paper, we offer a slightly different perspective on NFPs: Drawing on two empirical case studies (Germany and Bulgaria), we first show that the NFPs in both countries met the aforementioned governance principles. However, when it comes to their potential to trigger forest policy change and to concretize sustainable forest management "on the ground", NFPs turned out to be less effective in both countries. Moreover, our analysis, drawing on the Advocacy Coalition Framework, embeds the development of NFPs in long-lasting struggles between actor coalitions of diverging beliefs and allows for an interpretation in which the NFPs in both countries were used by powerful actors to serve certain strategic goals. We argue that in the case of Germany, an important motivation for the forestry coalition to develop the NFP was to occupy their counterpart, the nature conservation coalition, with a long-lasting negotiation process that had no substantial influence on the national forest policy. In Bulgaria, vital reasons for launching the NFP were, on one hand, to satisfy the demands of international donors and, on the other hand, to incorporate beliefs of powerful actors into the national forest policy. These findings, according to our conclusion, notably diminish expectations regarding the potential of NFPs as instruments for policy learning and policy change. Our paper concludes with recommendations for further research.
Romania's and Bulgaria's accession to the European Union (EU) increased... more Romania's and Bulgaria's accession to the European Union (EU) increased the forested area of the Community considerably and lead to significant changes within the forest sectors of these states, which had been shaped by centrally planned economy for a long time. ...
In this article, we introduce an empirical case study of the German forest policy subsystem in or... more In this article, we introduce an empirical case study of the German forest policy subsystem in order to understand how the concept of sustainable forest management has been discursively constructed, challenged, and changed over time. As a theoretical basis, we use an idea-based coalition approach, drawing on both the Advocacy Coalition Framework and Hajer's Argumentative Discourse Analysis. We show that rival coalitions that share a certain idea of forest management have dominated German forest policy for decades by employing different rhetorical and institutional strategies in order to incorporate their ideas into public policy institutions. Analyzing how the issue of climate change is discursively ‘digested’ by the actor coalitions, we find that climate change has been incorporated into the political argumentation of both coalitions in a manner consistent with their existing main policy ideas. Moreover, the membership of the coalitions has remained stable. These findings allow for conclusions regarding both our theoretical approaches and the policy subsystem's ability to adapt forests to cope with climate change.
Uploads
Papers by Metodi Sotirov