IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/glenvp/v20y2020i1p60-81.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Public Opinion and the Legitimacy of Global Private EnvironmentalGovernance

Author

Listed:
  • FabianG. Neuner

Abstract

The rise of global private environmental governance has inspired substantialresearch assessing whether organizations like the International Organization forStandardization (ISO) and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) are legitimate.These organizations address global challenges and help overcome collectiveaction problems, but public opposition can severely curb their effectiveness.Yet, we do not know whether the public supports such organizations and perceivesthem as legitimate. This article draws on diverse political science literaturesto outline why a focus on public opinion is important. The article tests twocompeting arguments explaining potential opposition toward organizations likethe ISO and the FSC: accounts centered on the role of sincere preferences overthe legitimate locus of authority and on the influence of domestic eliterhetoric. Results suggest that public opinion is generally positive and thatelite rhetoric about a potential democratic deficit rather than simpleinformation about the bodies’ governance structures decreasesfavorability.

Suggested Citation

  • FabianG. Neuner, 2020. "Public Opinion and the Legitimacy of Global Private EnvironmentalGovernance," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 20(1), pages 60-81, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:glenvp:v:20:y:2020:i:1:p:60-81
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/glep_a_00539
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tim Büthe & Walter Mattli, 2011. "The New Global Rulers: The Privatization of Regulation in the World Economy," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9470.
    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. Graeme Auld & Lars H. Gulbrandsen, 2010. "Transparency in Nonstate Certification: Consequences for Accountability and Legitimacy," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 10(3), pages 97-119, August.
    4. Sander Chan & Philipp Pattberg, 2008. "Private Rule-Making and the Politics of Accountability: Analyzing Global Forest Governance," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 8(3), pages 103-121, August.
    5. Taylor, Peter Leigh, 2005. "In the Market But Not of It: Fair Trade Coffee and Forest Stewardship Council Certification as Market-Based Social Change," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 129-147, January.
    6. Coppock, Alexander, 2019. "Generalizing from Survey Experiments Conducted on Mechanical Turk: A Replication Approach," Political Science Research and Methods, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(3), pages 613-628, July.
    7. Hooghe, Liesbet & Marks, Gary, 2009. "A Postfunctionalist Theory of European Integration: From Permissive Consensus to Constraining Dissensus," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(1), pages 1-23, January.
    8. Lars H. Gulbrandsen, 2004. "Overlapping Public and Private Governance: Can Forest Certification Fill the Gaps in the Global Forest Regime?," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 4(2), pages 75-99, May.
    9. Jonas Tallberg & Michael Zürn, 2019. "The legitimacy and legitimation of international organizations: introduction and framework," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 581-606, December.
    10. Berinsky, Adam J. & Huber, Gregory A. & Lenz, Gabriel S., 2012. "Evaluating Online Labor Markets for Experimental Research: Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(3), pages 351-368, July.
    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. Amelia C Arsenault & Sarah E Kreps & Keren LG Snider & Daphna Canetti, 2024. "Cyber scares and prophylactic policies: Crossnational evidence on the effect of cyberattacks on public support for surveillance," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 61(3), pages 413-428, May.

    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. Janina Grabs & Graeme Auld & Benjamin Cashore, 2021. "Private regulation, public policy, and the perils of adverse ontological selection," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(4), pages 1183-1208, October.
    2. Rafael, Gabriel C. & Fonseca, Alberto & Jacovine, Laércio Antônio Gonçalves, 2018. "Non-conformities to the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standards: Empirical evidence and implications for policy-making in Brazil," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 59-69.
    3. Helen Packer & Wilf Swartz & Yoshitaka Ota & Megan Bailey, 2019. "Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Practices of the Largest Seafood Suppliers in the Wild Capture Fisheries Sector: From Vision to Action," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-24, April.
    4. Olga Malets, 2017. "Recursivity by Organizational Design: The Case of the Forest Stewardship Council," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 8(3), pages 343-352, September.
    5. Abel Brodeur, Nikolai M. Cook, Anthony Heyes, 2022. "We Need to Talk about Mechanical Turk: What 22,989 Hypothesis Tests Tell Us about Publication Bias and p-Hacking in Online Experiments," LCERPA Working Papers am0133, Laurier Centre for Economic Research and Policy Analysis.
    6. Bayer, Patrick & Marcoux, Christopher & Urpelainen, Johannes, 2013. "Leveraging private capital for climate mitigation: Evidence from the Clean Development Mechanism," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 14-24.
    7. Justo-Hanani, Ronit & Dayan, Tamar, 2014. "The role of the state in regulatory policy for nanomaterials risk: Analyzing the expansion of state-centric rulemaking in EU and US chemicals policies," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 169-178.
    8. Niedziałkowski, Krzysztof & Shkaruba, Anton, 2018. "Governance and legitimacy of the Forest Stewardship Council certification in the national contexts – A comparative study of Belarus and Poland," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 180-188.
    9. Carlsen, Kirsten & Hansen, Christian Pilegaard & Lund, Jens Friis, 2012. "Factors affecting certification uptake — Perspectives from the timber industry in Ghana," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 83-92.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. Rauh, Christian, 2022. "Clear messages to the European public? The language of European Commission press releases 1985–2020," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue Latest Ar, pages 1-19.
    13. Agni Kalfagianni, 2014. "Addressing the Global Sustainability Challenge: The Potential and Pitfalls of Private Governance from the Perspective of Human Capabilities," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 122(2), pages 307-320, June.
    14. Brodeur, Abel & Cook, Nikolai & Heyes, Anthony, 2022. "We Need to Talk about Mechanical Turk: What 22,989 Hypothesis Tests Tell us about p-Hacking and Publication Bias in Online Experiments," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1157, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    15. van der Ven, Hamish & Sun, Yixian & Cashore, Benjamin, 2021. "Sustainable commodity governance and the global south," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    16. Büthe Tim, 2010. "Private Regulation in the Global Economy: A (P)Review," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(3), pages 1-40, October.
    17. A. Marx & E. Bécault & J. Wouters, 2012. "Private Standards in Forestry. Assessing the Legitimacy and Effectiveness of the Forest Stewardship Council," Chapters, in: Axel Marx & Miet Maertens & Johan Swinnen & Jan Wouters (ed.), Private Standards and Global Governance, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    18. Secco, Laura & Pettenella, Davide & Gatto, Paola, 2011. "Forestry governance and collective learning process in Italy: Likelihood or utopia?," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 104-112.
    19. Stephen Wyatt & Sara Teitelbaum, 2020. "Certifying a state forestry agency in Quebec: Complementarity and conflict around government responsibilities, indigenous rights, and certification of the state as forest manager," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 14(3), pages 551-567, July.
    20. Donald Schepers, 2010. "Challenges to Legitimacy at the Forest Stewardship Council," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 92(2), pages 279-290, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:tpr:glenvp:v:20:y:2020:i:1:p:60-81. 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: Kelly McDougall (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    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.