IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/policy/v46y2013i1p63-81.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

“My forest, my kingdom”—Self-referentiality as a strategy in the case of small forest owners coping with government regulations

Author

Listed:
  • Ann Herzele
  • Noelle Aarts

Abstract

Social research that informs the implementation of natural resource policies is frequently driven by the logic of the policy system itself. A prevailing concern with achieving policy outcomes can lead, however, to lack of attention to equally important aspects, for example the challenges the policy instruments present to those they are targeting and the consequences this might have for government–citizen relationships. To help guide research into these issues we have developed a situational–interactional approach to interpretive policy analysis that seeks to examine the processes involved when people collectively make sense of government instruments. The theoretical basis is provided to a large extent by Luhmann’s theory of self-referential social systems. In addition, we operationalise the concepts of interactional framing and resemiotisation to capture the active work of the citizens in sense-making processes. We then apply our situational–interactional analysis to small-scale forest ownership in Flanders. Analysis of data from focus groups with forest owners reveals how interactions build on each other in the co-development of particular strategies to cope with government intervention. Finally, we discuss two future directions for research. First, the forest owners find themselves in an inescapable relationship with the government, and feel their autonomy is threatened. Government intervention, therefore, will almost necessarily lead to resistance. Second, forest groups enhance compatibility between the government system and the forest owners, but rather than narrowing the gap between the two worlds they tend to emphasise it. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. 2013

Suggested Citation

  • Ann Herzele & Noelle Aarts, 2013. "“My forest, my kingdom”—Self-referentiality as a strategy in the case of small forest owners coping with government regulations," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 46(1), pages 63-81, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:kap:policy:v:46:y:2013:i:1:p:63-81
    DOI: 10.1007/s11077-012-9157-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11077-012-9157-7
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11077-012-9157-7?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. Van Herzele, Ann & Van Gossum, Peter, 2009. "Owner-specific factors associated with conversion activity in secondary pine plantations," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 230-236, July.
    2. Buizer, Marleen & Van Herzele, Ann, 2012. "Combining deliberative governance theory and discourse analysis to understand the deliberative incompleteness of centrally formulated plans," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(C), pages 93-101.
    3. Serbruyns, Inge & Luyssaert, Sebastiaan, 2006. "Acceptance of sticks, carrots and sermons as policy instruments for directing private forest management," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 285-296, December.
    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. Górriz-Mifsud, Elena & Olza Donazar, Luis & Montero Eseverri, Eduardo & Marini Govigli, Valentino, 2019. "The challenges of coordinating forest owners for joint management," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 100-109.
    2. Banos, Vincent & Deuffic, Philippe & Brahic, Elodie, 2022. "Engaging or resisting? How forest–based industry and private forest owners respond to bioenergy policies in Aquitaine (Southwestern France)," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    3. Van Herzele, Ann & Ceuterick, Melissa & Buizer, Marleen & Leone, Michael, 2019. "Ecosystem Services as (Co-)performative Practice: Experiences from Integrated Water Management in Flanders," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 29-38.
    4. Robin R. Sears & Manuel R. Guariguata & Peter Cronkleton & Cristina Miranda Beas, 2021. "Strengthening Local Governance of Secondary Forest in Peru," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-16, November.
    5. Turkelboom, Francis & Leone, Michael & Jacobs, Sander & Kelemen, Eszter & García-Llorente, Marina & Baró, Francesc & Termansen, Mette & Barton, David N. & Berry, Pam & Stange, Erik & Thoonen, Marijke , 2018. "When we cannot have it all: Ecosystem services trade-offs in the context of spatial planning," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 29(PC), pages 566-578.
    6. E. E. A. Wolf & Wouter Van Dooren, 2017. "How policies become contested: a spiral of imagination and evidence in a large infrastructure project," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 50(3), pages 449-468, September.

    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. Danley, Brian, 2019. "Forest owner objectives typologies: Instruments for each owner type or instruments for most owner types?," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 72-82.
    2. Ficko, Andrej & Boncina, Andrej, 2013. "Probabilistic typology of management decision making in private forest properties," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 34-43.
    3. Põllumäe, Priit & Lilleleht, Ando & Korjus, Henn, 2016. "Institutional barriers in forest owners' cooperation: The case of Estonia," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 9-16.
    4. Fabra-Crespo, M. & Rojas-Briales, E., 2015. "Comparative analysis on the communication strategies of the forest owners' associations in Europe," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 20-30.
    5. Blicharska, Malgorzata & Van Herzele, Ann, 2015. "What a forest? Whose forest? Struggles over concepts and meanings in the debate about the conservation of the Białowieża Forest in Poland," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 22-30.
    6. Yelizaveta Mikhailovna Sharonova, 2021. "Quantitative Cross-country Analysis of Nuclear Power Discourse in Politically Distinct India and Russia," South Asian Survey, , vol. 28(2), pages 205-221, September.
    7. Lawrence, Anna & Deuffic, Philippe & Hujala, Teppo & Nichiforel, Liviu & Feliciano, Diana & Jodlowski, Krzysztof & Lind, Torgny & Marchal, Didier & Talkkari, Ari & Teder, Meelis & Vilkriste, Lelde & W, 2020. "Extension, advice and knowledge systems for private forestry: Understanding diversity and change across Europe," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    8. Ficko, Andrej & Lidestav, Gun & Ní Dhubháin, Áine & Karppinen, Heimo & Zivojinovic, Ivana & Westin, Kerstin, 2019. "European private forest owner typologies: A review of methods and use," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 21-31.
    9. Tikkanen, Jukka, 2018. "Participatory turn - and down-turn - in Finland's regional forest programme process," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 87-97.
    10. Primmer, Eeva & Karppinen, Heimo, 2010. "Professional judgment in non-industrial private forestry: Forester attitudes and social norms influencing biodiversity conservation," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 136-146, February.
    11. Nana Tian & Neelam Poudyal & Fadian Lu, 2021. "Assessments of Landowners’ Willingness to Accept Compensation for Participating in Forest Certification in Shandong, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-15, January.
    12. Ekström, Hanna & Danley, Brian & Clough, Yann & Droste, Nils, 2024. "Barking up the wrong tree? - A guide to forest owner typology methods," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    13. Bastola, Sapana & Penn, Jerrod & Blazier, Michael, 2022. "Assessing Hypothetical Bias in Nudging: Willingness to Pay for Consultation towards Improved Forest Management," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322477, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    14. Van Gossum, Peter & Arts, Bas & Verheyen, Kris, 2012. "“Smart regulation”: Can policy instrument design solve forest policy aims of expansion and sustainability in Flanders and the Netherlands?," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(C), pages 23-34.
    15. Urquhart, Julie & Courtney, Paul, 2011. "Seeing the owner behind the trees: A typology of small-scale private woodland owners in England," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(7), pages 535-544, September.
    16. Banos, Vincent & Deuffic, Philippe & Brahic, Elodie, 2022. "Engaging or resisting? How forest–based industry and private forest owners respond to bioenergy policies in Aquitaine (Southwestern France)," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    17. Tian, Nana & Poudyal, Neelam C. & Lu, Fadian, 2018. "Understanding landowners’ interest and willingness to participate in forest certification program in China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 271-280.
    18. Sotirov, Metodi & Sallnäs, Ola & Eriksson, Ljusk Ola, 2019. "Forest owner behavioral models, policy changes, and forest management. An agent-based framework for studying the provision of forest ecosystem goods and services at the landscape level," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 79-89.
    19. Petucco, Claudio & Abildtrup, Jens & Stenger, Anne, 2015. "Influences of nonindustrial private forest landowners’ management priorities on the timber harvest decision—A case study in France," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 152-166.
    20. Hujala, Teppo & Laitila, Tanja & Kurttila, Mikko & Tikkanen, Jukka, 6. "Multiple motives of family forest owners in their speech about forest-related decision-making," Scandinavian Forest Economics: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Scandinavian Society of Forest Economics, Scandinavian Society of Forest Economics, issue 42, April.

    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:kap:policy:v:46:y:2013:i:1:p:63-81. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.