Forest policies by regional regimes: a comparative bureaucracy-oriented analysis

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Lukas Giessen
• Subject Area: Forestry
• Term: from 2015 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 275827276

Forests as an issue in world politics are governed by global and regional regimes. Political analyses have mainly focused on international forest governance by global forest-related regimes. In addition a number of studies lately acknowledge the relevance of regional forest-related regimes. So far, however, they do not provide for detailed empirical analyses of regional forest-related regimes, especially regarding the forest-related policies developed within these regimes; the substance and strengths of these policies; the influence of key actors on the policies; as well as the influence of regime design on the policies. These research desiderates call for the combination of international relations and policy analysis approaches. Hence this project sets out the following objectives: (i) Comparing forest policies of selected regional regimes; (ii) Comparing regional regime designs; (iii) explaining forest policies of regional regimes based on the interests and power resources of key actors and on key properties of regime institutional design. For addressing these objectives the project applies an interest-based, actor-centered, and bureaucracy-oriented approach. It conceptualizes regional regime design, regional bureaucracies, member state bureaucracies and politicians as well as national and transnational private actors as driving factors behind forest-related policies developed by selected regional regimes. It integrates these factors using bureaucratic politics theory and develops hypotheses aiming to explain the forest-related policies of regional regimes. Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) is employed for generating comparative qualitative and quantitative results on the following regional regimes: Pan-European forest cooperation (Forest Europe, form. MCPFE); EU forest governance; Central African Forest Commission (COMIFAC); Congo Basin Forest Partnership (CBFP); Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO); Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN); The Montreal process; Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC); International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO). The working plan includes (i) theoretical and methodological preparations, (ii) qualitative and quantitative desk studies on regime design and policies, (iii) a preliminary synthesis and quantified comparison; (iv) qualitative in-depth field studies on regime design and policies; and (v) a final synthesis on comparative analyses explaining the forest policies of the regional regimes.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants