Open Collections

UBC Faculty Research and Publications

Private Forest Governance, Public Policy Impacts: The Forest Stewardship Council in Russia and Brazil Sundstrom, Lisa McIntosh; Henry, Laura A.

Abstract

Under what conditions do private forest governance standards influence state policy and behavior to become more oriented toward sustainability? We argue that governance schemes targeting firms may indirectly shape state behavior, even when designed to bypass state regulation. Through an examination of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) in Russia and Brazil, we find that the FSC has influenced domestic rhetoric, laws, and enforcement practices. FSC has had a more disruptive and consequential impact on Russia’s domestic forest governance; in Brazil, earlier transnational environmental campaigns had already begun to shift domestic institutions toward sustainability. Based on interview data and textual analysis of FSC and government documents, we identify the mechanisms of indirect FSC influence on states—professionalization, civil society mobilization, firm lobbying, and international market pressure, and argue that they are likely to be activated under conditions of poor and decentralized governance, overlapping and competing regulations and high foreign market demand for exports.

Item Metadata

Title
Private Forest Governance, Public Policy Impacts: The Forest Stewardship Council in Russia and Brazil
Creator
Sundstrom, Lisa McIntosh; Henry, Laura A.
Publisher
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
Date Issued
2017-11-16
Description
Under what conditions do private forest governance standards influence state policy and behavior to become more oriented toward sustainability? We argue that governance schemes targeting firms may indirectly shape state behavior, even when designed to bypass state regulation. Through an examination of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) in Russia and Brazil, we find that the FSC has influenced domestic rhetoric, laws, and enforcement practices. FSC has had a more disruptive and consequential impact on Russia’s domestic forest governance; in Brazil, earlier transnational environmental campaigns had already begun to shift domestic institutions toward sustainability. Based on interview data and textual analysis of FSC and government documents, we identify the mechanisms of indirect FSC influence on states—professionalization, civil society mobilization, firm lobbying, and international market pressure, and argue that they are likely to be activated under conditions of poor and decentralized governance, overlapping and competing regulations and high foreign market demand for exports.
Subject
Forests; Certification; Private governance; Russia; Brazil
Genre
Article
Type
Text
Language
eng
Date Available
2019-06-26
Provider
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Rights
CC BY 4.0
DOI
10.14288/1.0379638
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/2429/70820
Affiliation
Arts, Faculty of; Non UBC; Political Science, Department of
Citation
Forests 8 (11): 445 (2017)
Publisher DOI
10.3390/f8110445
Peer Review Status
Reviewed
Scholarly Level
Faculty
Rights URI
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Aggregated Source Repository
DSpace

Item Media

Item Citations and Data

Rights

CC BY 4.0