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Forest certification and democracy

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Abstract

This paper explores the possibility that forest certification represents an important emerging form of transnational democracy. Because it is largely driven and administered by nonstate actors, forest certification can be seen as suffering a democracy deficit. However, because it stresses broad participation, intensive deliberative procedures, responsiveness to state law and widely accepted norms, and competition among regulatory programs to achieve effective implementation and widespread public acceptance, forest certification appears to stand up relatively well under generally understood criteria for democratic governance. Nonetheless, a more satisfactory evaluation will require a better understanding of how responsive certification programs are to diverse, emergent constituencies as well as which certification programs win regulatory competitions, and why.

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Notes

  1. The concept of “organizational field” is used because it points to the larger regulatory system while not being overly prescriptive in terms of analytical categories. Dingwerth and Pattberg, following DiMaggio and Powell (1983), define an organizational field as including “communities of organizations with similar functions or roles insofar as these organizations are aware of each other, interact with each other and perceive each other as peers or “like units” in some important sense” (2010 at 720). This approach is somewhat similar to the “advocacy coalition framework” developed by Sabatier and his colleagues (e.g., Sabatier 1988), but has the advantages of neither assuming a single policy maker nor focusing primarily on advocacy directed toward such a policy maker. In this paper “organizational field” and “regulatory field” are used interchangeably.

  2. In what follows, the terms “program” and “scheme” refer to the institutional arrangements of individual certification organizations and alliances, while the term “system” refers to the overall complex of relationships created by programs and schemes in the larger organizational field.

  3. E.g.: Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (Courville 2003; Jaffee 2007; Levi and Linton 2003), International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (Coleman and Reed 2007; Michelsen 2001), Marine Stewardship Council (Cummins 2004; Gulbrandsen 2005;), and others (Abbott and Snidal 2009a, b; Bartley 2003; Dashwood 2007; Dingwerth and Pattberg 2009; Florini 2000; Honey 2002; Keck and Sikkink 1998; McLennan and Rumsey 2003; Williams 2004).

  4. Interview 50703, on file with the author.

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Acknowledgments

This article is published in honor of Professor Gerhard Oesten, who has steadfastly championed the view that economic institutions must be understood in terms of broader public values. The argument made here was developed in part during the author’s work over the past decade in Professor Oesten’s Institute for Forestry Economics at the University of Freiburg. A version of this article written primarily for legal scholars was published in the Chicago Journal of International Law under the title “Competitive Supragovernmental Regulation: How Could It Be Democratic,” 8(2):513–534 (2008). The author is grateful to the Chicago Journal of International Law for allowing the publication of substantial portions of that article for forestry scholars based in Europe. The author also gratefully acknowledges helpful comments by participants in workshops at SUNY Buffalo Law School and the University of Freiburg Institutes for Forestry Economics and of Forestry and Environmental Policy, and particularly by Dr. Georg Winkel of the latter Institute.

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The author declares that he has no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Law, The State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, 14260, USA

    Errol Meidinger

  2. Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Science, University of Freiburg, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany

    Errol Meidinger

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  1. Errol Meidinger
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Correspondence to Errol Meidinger.

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Communicated by M. Moog.

This is one in a series of articles dedicated to Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Gerhard Oesten on the occasion of his 60th birthday.

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Meidinger, E. Forest certification and democracy. Eur J Forest Res 130, 407–419 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10342-010-0426-8

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