Governance And Change Management For Sustainability (GEO42604)
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Summary content Governance and Change Management for Sustainability (GEO4-2604)
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Governance And Change Management For Sustainability (GEO42604)
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Universiteit Utrecht (UU)
Summary of the course Governance and Change Management for Sustainability (GEO4-2604)
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Governance And Change Management For Sustainability (GEO42604)
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Summary Governance and Change Management for Sustainability (GEO4-2604)
Including lectures and literature
Week 46 (lecture 1+2): The power to govern for sustainability transformations
Two ingredients for change:
Governance: Steering of societal processes by political actors to change.
o Governance is needed to shape ‘change’
o Sustainability changes are deeply and unavoidably political, and need to be
recognized as such
Firms: Central to understanding, analysing and shaping change towards sustainability
o Firms are changing or need to change towards sustainability
Private governance: Cooperative rule-making by firms and society organizations with no direct
involvement from governments or governmental organizations.
Private groups are not satisfied with what the government is doing decide to do
something by themselves
Non-state actors are increasingly seen as legitimate political actors in global politics, especially in the
context of the creation and implementation of private norms, rules and standards.
A transnational corporation (TNC) is a huge company that does business in several countries
Power: The ability of (business) actors to successfully pursue a desired political objective
Assessing power and the development of these faces of power (Fuchs, 2005):
1. Instrumental concept of power (first face of power): Concept to analyse the influence of business
on politics via lobbying and campaign/party finance The power to influence policy output
The instrumental power of business has increased at national and supranational levels. But
this does not mean that corporate actors do control politics via their lobbying activities.
The EU is probably the world’s largest playground for interest groups, seen the growth in
lobbying activities.
2. Structuralist concepts of power (second face of power): Emphasize that some issues never reach
the agenda because structural contexts make alternatives more or less acceptable before the actual
and observable negotiating starts. Wider scope than instrumentalist. Influence political input
rather than just output
The structural power of corporate actors have increased
First, policies where influenced due to their ability to impose costs for certain policy choices
Today, it goes beyond the ability to move capital. Self-regulation and public-private
partnerships allow business actors to actively set rules.
Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs): Cooperation between governmental actors and business
in the pursuit of specific or broad policy objectives
Self-regulation: The design, implementation and enforcement of rules by business.
Structural power emerges from material structures.
o Material structures: Structures that foster and ban access to and transaction of key
material resources (e.g. control access to the market), which enable particular
private actors to exercise control over others. Retailers are able to control prices
and it allows retailers to make their own standards for suppliers
1
,3. Discursive approaches to power (third face of power): Adopt a sociological perspective on power
relations in society. Power is a characteristic of individuals, groups and a social system. influence
policies and the political process through the shaping of norms and ideas.
Today: Plays a crucial role in policy and politics, such indirect political efforts deserve
attention when exploring the political power of business in a globalized world.
Enables actors to influence the framing of specific policy issues, to construct actors and
identities, and to shape fundamental norms underlying societal organization.
The discursive power of business can improve instrumental power because efforts to "lobby
the public" can serve to generate public support for business' policy objectives and increase
pressure on policy makers
Three faces of power, which are interrelated:
Instrumental power Direct influence on policy outputs; happens at the end of the political
process
Concept Ability of A to make B do something that they would otherwise not do
Key form of influence Political lobbying
Key source of influence Organizational and financial resources
Established channels of access and influence
Provision of policy relevant knowledge and expertise
Structural power Influence on the input side of political processes; comes before
decision making
Concept Agenda-setting power: Ability to keep things off the agenda
Rule-setting power: Ability to create rules and standards
Key form of influence Implicit or explicit threat of relocation of investments
Difficult to research because this type of power is not visible
Key source of influence Level of market concentration
Importance to economic growth, employment and innovation
Dependence of political elites on economic success for political
legitimacy and electoral success
Discursive power Ability to frame norms and ideas; softer type of power
Concept Ability to shape norms and ideas
Ability not only to pursue interests but also to create them
Key form of influence Communication strategies to shape public perceptions
Framing of environmental issues that require business involvement
and solutions Framing causes inefficiency problem
Key source of influence Media time and finance advertisements and information campaigns
New media giants (e.g. Twitter, Facebook)
Revolving doors: Movement of people between industry and politics. E.g. working at the parliament
to working in the industry. This is problematic because as parliament you gained a lot of information
about how this works. Or the other way around is also problematic because you will still represent
the interest of the industry.
Power of private governance:
Instrumental power allows business actors to relax or stop state regulation from developing
in key issue areas, creating the need for private actors to step in
Control over economy/markets/knowledge sectors allows business actors to develop own
rules and standards
Ability to frame norms and ideas allows business actors to have the consent of society for
their role as legitimate governance actors
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,Growth of private governance pyramid:
Fragility of business power:
Business is not a unitary actor
Differences between large corporations and SMEs
Vulnerability of business to scandals and changes of societal norms and values
Is the structural power of big firms a driver or a barrier for sustainability transformations?
Big firms can have an amount of power. But they can also face an inertia, it is harder to
move to sustainability because companies can stuck in the system because they are already
in the market.
How can structural power be challenged?
Can be challenged by NGOs, social influence (customer behaviour), government.
Which type of power can smaller firms use to foster sustainability transformations?
Discursive power. Small firms can put certain issues on the political agenda through
cooperation with NGOs or by making use of social media for example.
Retail governance of environmental takes place in three different ways (Fuchs and Kalfagianni,
2010):
Good Agricultural Practices (GAP): Standards prescribing farming practices that aim to
contribute to environmental, economic and social sustainability of on-farm production.
o Results in safe and healthy food and non-food agricultural products
Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP): Retail standards which focus on environmental
impact of manufacturing processes and packaging.
o E.g. recycling programs for waste reduction in packaging
Two crucial characteristics of the global political economy of food (Fuchs and Kalfagianni, 2010):
The structural power of agri-food corporations providing them with the power to govern.
The perceived legitimacy of retail food corporations as political actors, which grants them
the authority to govern.
Ideational structure: Next to their political role, retailers are also often accepted as caretakers of the
consumer interest. Retailers are not merely regarded as providers of food, but also as “educators”
for helping consumers to make good choices.
Retailers have a strong position to improve the sustainability of consumption
The construction of legitimacy via ideational structures consists of two dimensions:
A constitutive dimension reflects norms and mindsets
A strategic dimension attempting to influence the norms and mindsets
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, Consequence of private food governance (Fuchs and Kalfagianni, 2010):
Positive impact on the well-being of the food system
Retail standards have negative consequences for farmers and small retail shops
Corporate Power in the Politics of Biotechnology in Argentina (Newell, 2009):
Bio-hegemony: The alignment of material, institutional and power in a way which sustains
a coalition of forces which benefit from the prevailing model of agricultural development
Agro-hegemony: An effect of power that derives from an arrangement of material and
political power that is heavily reliant on agricultural production and is clearly not unique to
GM crops.
Three pillars of bio-hegemony (Newell, 2009):
Material power: Explains degree of structural power of biotechnology firms.
o Trade: Significantly affects the politics of biotechnology (e.g. China as a partner
because of price drop in Argentina)
o Property Rights: Can impact the access to the technology and the extent to which it’s
used. The government and associations of smaller producers want to preserve
maximum access to GM seeds for farmers, while the biotechnology multinationals
want restricted access to their seeds to recover the costs associated with their
development.
Institutional power: Explains the methods biotechnology firms have to shape policy.
Generates insights about the forms of influence that businesses exercise
o Active participation in the channels available to firms, formal and informal, makes
strong strategic sense
Discursive power: Explains how biotechnology firms deflect challenges.
o Sustained through government speeches and policy documents, publicity of
companies, conferences, press conferences, advertising in the media, and through
billboards to reach farmers.
Three ideal-type concepts of power: These show different understandings of decision-making
processes can be influenced in environmental politics by believe agents, structures and discourses
(Partzsch, 2017):
Power with (learning and cooperation): Collaboration for ‘planetary stewardship’
o Implies learning processes that allow actors to question self-perceptions and to
actively build up new awareness of individuals or groups
o An environmental leader is empowered by the collective to act in their name and
seeks ‘to reap joint gains’ of environmentalism.
o Power is seen as serving the common good (i.e. environmental protection, planetary
stewardship). It deals with joint action in solidarity.
Power to (resistance and empowerment): Getting things done for the environment
o Refers to single actors and separate groups who take action. An actor may have the
power to accomplish something all by himself. E.g. start a more sustainable life by
going by bike.
Power over (coercion and manipulation): Environmental politics as domination
o Ask for winners and losers in and through environmental politics: One actor’s
increase in power is another’s decrease
o Actors, structures and discourses influence the actions and even thoughts of others
in the field of environmental politics. To change, agents and/or structures need to
compete with others
o Four dimensions of power over:
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