Increasing representation of states by utilitarian as compared to environmental bureaucracies in international forest and forest–environmental policy negotiations

This article analyses the representation of selected countries (EU-27 and the five influential “forest states”) to international forest-related negotiations by national utilitarian vis-à-vis conservation-oriented ministerial bureaucracies. It is hypothesised that due to the bureaucracies' informal goal of gaining and maintaining responsibility over political issues, mainly ministries of agriculture including forestry and ministries of environment are competing for the task of representing states in international forest and forest–environmental negotiations. A survey design based on a semi-structured questionnaire was used to study the bureaucratic representation of the selected states to the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) and to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) negotiations between 2000 and 2011. The results show that in the processes under study the representation of states by utilitarian types of bureaucracies is rather increasing, while the role of conservationist bureaucracies is declining. Likewise, the roles of ministries of foreign affairs and economic affairs are declining, while hybrid organisations on agriculture/environment were observed being on a strong increase. Under CBD negotiations the vast majority of responding countries was represented by environmental bureaucracies, while agricultural ones played a marginal role. In contrast, under UNFF negotiations countries were represented by agricultural, economic and hybrid agricultural/environmental bureaucracies in approx. equal shares. Agricultural bureaucracies especially gained influence under UNFF negotiations during the study period. The article concludes on these trends also highlighting options for future research.