The consultation dilemma in private regulatory regimes: negotiating FSC regional standards in the United States and Canada

Building the iron cage: institutional creation work in the context of competing proto-institutions

“…21 This coercive pressure had the added effect of creating a normative network that built and enhanced solidarity among industry members, particularly with respect to SFI. The solidarity not only acted as a normative foundation for compliance, but was likely responsible for the FSC's inability to generate sufficient timber supply in North America, which lead to a relaxation of FSC standards (Gale 2004). Auditing and monitoring functions also served as common regulative maintenance mechanisms.…”

Differences That ‘Matter’? A Framework for Comparing Environmental Certification Standards and Government Policies

“…In other words, a key difference between state-based forest governance and forest certification is the source of authority. The scope of that authority, however-i.e., the degree to which citizens and firms feel compelled to follow any governance systems' rules, be they public or private-is a different issue and one that is of critical importance to regulatory policy scholars (Clapp, 1998;Gereffi et al, 2001;Cashore, 2002;Meidinger, 2003;Gale, 2004). Table 5 provides one way to characterize differences in the governance approach of Comparison of environmental certification standards and government policies 61 state-based systems versus forest certification, while portraying the dynamic nature of actor participation.…”

“…Others have assessed the perceptions of landowners, certifiers, and/or stakeholders regarding the clarity, adequacy, credibility, and/or other key features of different certification standards and procedures (Mater et al, 2002;UPM, 2005). Another approach has been to assess the difficulty of achieving a given certification standard in comparison with other standards (Gale, 2004;UPM, 2005) and/or with underlying government regulations (Fletcher et al, 2001;Cook & O'Laughlin, 2003;Dicus & Delfino, 2003). A 'checklist approach' has been favored by some as a means to compare a large number of standards by recording the number and range of issues of relevance to 'SFM' (Holvoet & Muys, 2004).…”

“…Previous studies have focused on the structure (Gale, 2004) and power dynamics of standards-setting processes as key factors in explaining policy differences. If certification standards are largely shaped by state-based regulatory norms, however, then more attention needs to be paid to precisely why and how this mimicry occurs within the standards-setting process.…”

Third-sector Global Environmental Governance, Space and Science: Comparing Fishery and Forestry Certification

“…Certification schemes have therefore been described as "nonstate market-driven governance" (Cashore et al 2004, 195-6;also Cashore et al 2007;Gulbrandsen 2005), suggesting that the market, rather than civil society, is the driving force and that certification is (merely) a vehicle for neoliberalisation. This has led to much debate about whether public sector or private sector influence is more important (Cashore et al 2004;Gale 2004;Mansfield 2007). Unfortunately, such debates tend exclusively (and implicitly) to deal in the restrictive binary of public-private, leaving little room for examining nongovernmental or "third sector" actors.…”