Journal
FOREST POLICY AND ECONOMICS
Volume 11, Issue 3, Pages 202-208Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.forpol.2009.03.001
Keywords
Policy arrangement approach; (De-)institutionalisation; Dutch forest policy; Discursive shift
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Over the past thirty years, forest policy in the Netherlands has almost entirely been integrated into nature policy. This process of 'de-institutionalisation' is surprising in view of widely accepted theories of institutional stability and 'path dependency'. The process is investigated in this paper along the four dimensions of the policy arrangement approach: discourse, power, rules and actors. It is argued that a discursive shift, moving the focus from production forest to 'forest as part of nature' and fuelled by a number of underlying factors, lies at the heart of the process. In concordance with this shift, advocates of timber autarky lost power in favour of 'nature advocates'. A more diverse set of actors became involved in forest policy, also reflecting a more general trend in Dutch politics towards greater openness and the erosion of neo-corporatist rules. Thus, changes in all four dimensions of the policy arrangement worked into one direction. This may explain the unusually quick and radical 'de-institutionalisation' of Dutch forest policy. (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier B.V.
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