After 1989, Central and Eastern European countries with planned economies launched a process of transformation. In the Slovak forest policy, the main changes have been in the structure of forest ownership, increasing the share of governance mechanisms within the decision-making, and the organization of the sector. The aim of the paper is to analyse the current Slovak forest policy arrangement in relation to the socialistic political history, via the Policy Arrangement Approach. The analysis is based on literature search and consultations with forest policy experts. In total, 55 scientific publications were analysed. Subsequently, the results were consulted with four national forest policy experts. Despite the three decades-lasting transformation process, in Slovakia, forest policy is characterised by a strong influence of governmental actors, centralisation, and prevailing hierarchical use of policy instruments. Nature protection actors enter the policy arena, for instance, to expand protected areas. The top-down planning has an impact on the forest owners’ performance of rights to use their forests. Non-governmental actors attempt to enforce their interests through participation mechanisms, inter-ministerial commenting procedures, and voluntary instruments. Public opinion is turning towards nature protection and forestry as such has come under pressure with its traditionalist approach.

Forests cover about 30% of the world´s land area and provide people and nature with essential ecosystem services and goods. Despite their importance, forests continue to be degraded. A variety of international forest governance and policy arrangements have developed to foster protection and sustainability of forests. However, number of studies point to nonexistence of a global forest policy regime per se, and growing institutional fragmentation of forest governance arrangements. In line with continuing priority of national sovereignty in the international regulation of forest policy, the role of domestic policies, mainly domestic forest policy actors, is considered central to international forest governance analysis by many researchers. The paper aimed to set the framework for the international forest policy analysis by domestic forestry stakeholders´ perceptions. The dimensions of Policy Arrangements Approach modified for purpose of meeting the nature of research, serve as theoretical foundations. In the first part, the paper aim to define dimensions theoretically. In the second part, specific international forest-focused political processes are described through adapted dimensions. The two steps serve as the basis for research to be subsequently applied in selected European countries.