IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/forpol/v129y2021ics1389934121000939.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The (post)politicisation of timber trade: (Un)invited participation in the EU-Vietnam Voluntary Partnership Agreement

Author

Listed:
  • Verhaeghe, Elke

Abstract

This article analyses the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) between the European Union (EU) and Vietnam as a form of postpoliticisation. In addition to their primary objective the governing of bilateral timber trade value chains, VPAs also entail an element of democratisation, as they are conditional upon stakeholder and civil society participation. Building on poststructuralist discourse-theory (PDT) and Erik Swyngedouw's notion of ‘the postpolitical condition’, this article asks how (un)invited non-state actor participation in the EU-Vietnam VPA discursively (re-)articulates and (de)politicises problems and solutions. The article finds that invited participation in Vietnam was characterised by consensual and technocratic governance practices and a discursive foreclosure of problems and solutions. The VPA's consensual space was ruptured by uninvited participation by several Cambodia NGOs, who questioned the VPA's rationalistic logics of legality verification and certification for imported timber products. These concerns were dismissed as nonsensical by the EU, demonstrating the postpolitical discursive foreclosure for non-state actor engagement. The research is based on 33 interviews with respondents in Vietnam and Europe as well as a document analysis of the VPA text and annexes, EU communications, NGO advocacy materials and media appearances by Cambodian NGOs.

Suggested Citation

  • Verhaeghe, Elke, 2021. "The (post)politicisation of timber trade: (Un)invited participation in the EU-Vietnam Voluntary Partnership Agreement," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:forpol:v:129:y:2021:i:c:s1389934121000939
    DOI: 10.1016/j.forpol.2021.102487
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389934121000939
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.forpol.2021.102487?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. Satyal, Poshendra, 2018. "Civil society participation in REDD+ and FLEGT processes: Case study analysis from Cameroon, Ghana, Liberia and the Republic of Congo," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 83-96.
    2. Cashore, Benjamin & Nathan, Iben, 2020. "Can finance and market driven (FMD) interventions make “weak states” stronger? Lessons from the good governance norm complex in Cambodia," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    3. Erik Swyngedouw, 2009. "The Antinomies of the Postpolitical City: In Search of a Democratic Politics of Environmental Production," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(3), pages 601-620, September.
    4. Ramcilovic-Suominen, Sabaheta & Lovric, Marko & Mustalahti, Irmeli, 2019. "Mapping policy actor networks and their interests in the FLEGT Voluntary Partnership Agreement in Lao PDR," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 128-148.
    5. Lesniewska, Feja & McDermott, Constance L., 2014. "FLEGT VPAs: Laying a pathway to sustainability via legality lessons from Ghana and Indonesia," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 16-23.
    6. Hansen, Christian P. & Rutt, Rebecca & Acheampong, Emmanuel, 2018. "‘Experimental’ or business as usual? Implementing the European Union Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Voluntary Partnership Agreement in Ghana," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 75-82.
    7. Wodschow, Astrid & Nathan, Iben & Cerutti, Paolo, 2016. "Participation, public policy-making, and legitimacy in the EU Voluntary Partnership Agreement process: The Cameroon case," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 1-10.
    8. Anh Ngoc Vu, 2019. "NGO-led activism under authoritarian rule of Vietnam: Between cooperation and contestation," Community Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(4), pages 422-439, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cary, Michael, 2023. "Climate policy boosts trade competitiveness: Evidence from timber trade networks," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).

    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. Adams, Marshall Alhassan & Kayira, Jean & Tegegne, Yitagesu Tekle & Gruber, James S., 2020. "A comparative analysis of the institutional capacity of FLEGT VPA in Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Ghana, Liberia, and the Republic of the Congo," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    2. Tegegne, Yitagesu T. & Ramcilovic-Suominen, Sabaheta & FOBISSIE, KALAME & Visseren-Hamakers, Ingrid J. & Lindner, Marcus & Kanninen, Markku, 2017. "Synergies among social safeguards in FLEGT and REDD+ in Cameroon," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 1-11.
    3. Khanal, Ghanashyam & Zhang, Daowei & Prestemon, Jeffrey P., 2024. "A gravity model analysis of trade regulations on wood products exports: Evidence from Cameroon, Ghana, and the republic of Congo," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    4. Mbzibain, Aurelian & Tchoudjen, Teodyl Nkuintchua, 2021. "NGO-state relations in the monitoring of illegal forest logging and wildlife trafficking in Central Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    5. Arts, Bas & Heukels, Bas & Turnhout, Esther, 2021. "Tracing timber legality in practice: The case of Ghana and the EU," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    6. Yitagesu Tekle Tegegne & Mathias Cramm & Jo Van Brusselen, 2018. "Sustainable Forest Management, FLEGT, and REDD+: Exploring Interlinkages to Strengthen Forest Policy Coherence," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-22, December.
    7. Ramcilovic-Suominen, Sabaheta & Lovric, Marko & Mustalahti, Irmeli, 2019. "Mapping policy actor networks and their interests in the FLEGT Voluntary Partnership Agreement in Lao PDR," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 128-148.
    8. Erik Swyngedouw & Joseph Williams, 2017. "The pleasures of hydro-controversies: a reply to Leandro del Moral, Julia Martínez and Nuria Hernández-Mora," Water International, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(3), pages 339-341, April.
    9. Park, Mi Sun & Lee, Hyowon, 2019. "Accountability and reciprocal interests of bilateral forest cooperation under the global forest regime," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 32-44.
    10. Andrew Clarke & Lynda Cheshire, 2018. "The post-political state? The role of administrative reform in managing tensions between urban growth and liveability in Brisbane, Australia," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(16), pages 3545-3562, December.
    11. Nathan, Iben & Chen, Jie & Hansen, Christian Pilegaard & Xu, Bin & Li, Yan, 2018. "Facing the complexities of the global timber trade regime: How do Chinese wood enterprises respond to international legality verification requirements, and what are the implications for regime effecti," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 169-180.
    12. Kleemann, Janina & Struve, Berenike & Spyra, Marcin, 2023. "Conflicts in urban peripheries in Europe," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    13. Hillary Angelo & David Wachsmuth, 2015. "Urbanizing Urban Political Ecology: A Critique of Methodological Cityism," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 16-27, January.
    14. Aryana Soliz, 2021. "Creating Sustainable Cities through Cycling Infrastructure? Learning from Insurgent Mobilities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-21, August.
    15. Ross Beveridge & Philippe Koch, 2017. "The post-political trap? Reflections on politics, agency and the city," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(1), pages 31-43, January.
    16. Laurence Troy, 2018. "The politics of urban renewal in Sydney’s residential apartment market," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(6), pages 1329-1345, May.
    17. Janet Newman, 2014. "Landscapes of antagonism: Local governance, neoliberalism and austerity," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(15), pages 3290-3305, November.
    18. Byron Miller & Samuel Mössner, 2020. "Urban sustainability and counter-sustainability: Spatial contradictions and conflicts in policy and governance in the Freiburg and Calgary metropolitan regions," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(11), pages 2241-2262, August.
    19. Farrukh Nawaz Kayani & Ismat Nasim & Khalil Abu Saleem, 2024. "Analyzing the Impact of Governance, Environment and Trade on Inward FDI: A Case of Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam from ASEAN," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 14(2), pages 523-534, March.
    20. Marit Rosol & Vincent Béal & Samuel Mössner, 2017. "Greenest cities? The (post-)politics of new urban environmental regimes," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(8), pages 1710-1718, August.

    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:forpol:v:129:y:2021:i:c:s1389934121000939. 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/forpol .

    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.