IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v83y2012icp42-50.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the deliberative capacity of private multi-stakeholder governance: The Roundtables on Responsible Soy and Sustainable Palm Oil

Author

Listed:
  • Schouten, Greetje
  • Leroy, Pieter
  • Glasbergen, Pieter

Abstract

The democratic quality of private multi-stakeholder governance is an important subject of academic and political debate. On the one hand, private multi-stakeholder arrangements are seen as a way of democratizing international environmental governance. On the other hand, the democratic potential of these arrangements has been heavily criticized and interpreted as a privatization of what should be public. To nuance this debate, this paper assesses the democratic potential of one specific type of arrangement: Roundtables. These Roundtables are presented as being based on a deliberative democratic rationale. This paper therefore assesses the deliberative capacity of the Roundtables on Responsible Soy and Sustainable Palm Oil and shows to what extent the communicative processes in these Roundtables are inclusive, consequential and authentic. This paper concludes that the Roundtable model tends to fall short on two criteria of deliberative democracy: inclusiveness (of actors and discourses) and consequentiality.

Suggested Citation

  • Schouten, Greetje & Leroy, Pieter & Glasbergen, Pieter, 2012. "On the deliberative capacity of private multi-stakeholder governance: The Roundtables on Responsible Soy and Sustainable Palm Oil," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 42-50.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:83:y:2012:i:c:p:42-50
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2012.08.007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800912003230
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2012.08.007?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robinson, John, 2004. "Squaring the circle? Some thoughts on the idea of sustainable development," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 369-384, April.
    2. Robert Falkner, 2003. "Private Environmental Governance and International Relations: Exploring the Links," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 3(2), pages 72-87, May.
    3. Biermann, Frank & Gupta, Aarti, 2011. "Accountability and legitimacy in earth system governance: A research framework," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 1856-1864, September.
    4. Dryzek, John S. & Stevenson, Hayley, 2011. "Global democracy and earth system governance," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 1865-1874, September.
    5. Biermann, Frank & Gupta, Aarti, 2011. "Accountability and legitimacy: An analytical challenge for earth system governance," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 1854-1855, September.
    6. Grimble, Robin & Wellard, Kate, 1997. "Stakeholder methodologies in natural resource management: a review of principles, contexts, experiences and opportunities," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 173-193, October.
    7. Pieter Glasbergen, 2011. "Mechanisms of private meta-governance: an analysis of global private governance for sustainable development," International Journal of Human Rights and Constitutional Studies, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 2(3), pages 189-206.
    8. Schouten, Greetje & Glasbergen, Pieter, 2011. "Creating legitimacy in global private governance: The case of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 1891-1899, September.
    9. James Meadowcroft, 2007. "Democracy and Accountability: The Challenge for Cross-sectoral Partnerships," Chapters, in: Pieter Glasbergen & Frank Biermann & Arthur P.J. Mol (ed.), Partnerships, Governance and Sustainable Development, chapter 9, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    10. García-López, Gustavo A. & Arizpe, Nancy, 2010. "Participatory processes in the soy conflicts in Paraguay and Argentina," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 196-206, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Marin-Burgos, Victoria & Clancy, Joy S. & Lovett, Jon C., 2015. "Contesting legitimacy of voluntary sustainability certification schemes: Valuation languages and power asymmetries in the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil in Colombia," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 303-313.
    2. Biermann, Frank, 2012. "Planetary boundaries and earth system governance: Exploring the links," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 4-9.
    3. Duncan Weaver, 2018. "The Aarhus convention and process cosmopolitanism," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 199-213, April.
    4. Nasiritousi, Naghmeh & Hjerpe, Mattias & Buhr, Katarina, 2014. "Pluralising climate change solutions? Views held and voiced by participants at the international climate change negotiations," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 177-184.
    5. Atika Wijaya & Pieter Glasbergen & Pieter Leroy & Ari Darmastuti, 2018. "Governance challenges of cocoa partnership projects in Indonesia: seeking synergy in multi-stakeholder arrangements for sustainable agriculture," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 129-153, February.
    6. Schouten, Greetje & Glasbergen, Pieter, 2012. "Private Multi-stakeholder Governance in the Agricultural Market Place: An Analysis of Legitimization Processes of the Roundtables on Sustainable Palm Oil and Responsible Soy," International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, International Food and Agribusiness Management Association, vol. 15(B), pages 1-26, December.
    7. Michelle Scobie, 2018. "Accountability in climate change governance and Caribbean SIDS," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 769-787, April.
    8. Schouten, Greetje & Bitzer, Verena, 2015. "The emergence of Southern standards in agricultural value chains: A new trend in sustainability governance?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 175-184.
    9. Craik, Neil & Gardner, Holly & McCarthy, Daniel, 2017. "Indigenous – corporate private governance and legitimacy: Lessons learned from impact and benefit agreements," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 379-388.
    10. Dellas, Eleni, 2011. "CSD water partnerships: Privatization, participation and legitimacy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 1916-1923, September.
    11. Carole-Anne Sénit, 2020. "Transforming our world? Discursive representation in the negotiations on the Sustainable Development Goals," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 20(3), pages 411-429, September.
    12. Carole-Anne Sénit, 0. "Transforming our world? Discursive representation in the negotiations on the Sustainable Development Goals," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-19.
    13. van Kerkhoff, Lorrae & Berry, Helen, 2016. "Serving the public good: Empirical links between governance and research investment in the context of global environmental change," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 101-107.
    14. Teresa Kramarz & Susan Park, 2016. "Accountability in Global Environmental Governance: A Meaningful Tool for Action?," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 16(2), pages 1-21, May.
    15. Cathrin Zengerling, 2019. "Governing the City of Flows: How Urban Metabolism Approaches May Strengthen Accountability in Strategic Planning," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 4(1), pages 187-199.
    16. Domenico Dentoni & Verena Bitzer & Greetje Schouten, 2018. "Harnessing Wicked Problems in Multi-stakeholder Partnerships," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 150(2), pages 333-356, June.
    17. van der Ven, Hamish & Sun, Yixian & Cashore, Benjamin, 2021. "Sustainable commodity governance and the global south," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    18. Joseph Earsom, 2024. "Fit for purpose? Just Energy Transition Partnerships and accountability in international climate governance," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 15(1), pages 135-141, February.
    19. Shukui Tan & Haipeng Song & Ghulam Akhmat & Javeed Hussain, 2014. "Governing Harmonious Human Engagement with the Spatial Capital," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 6(3), pages 1-19, March.
    20. Lederer, Markus, 2011. "From CDM to REDD+ -- What do we know for setting up effective and legitimate carbon governance?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 1900-1907, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:83:y:2012:i:c:p:42-50. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.