Struggling for an ideal dialogue. An analysis of the regional dialogue processes within Sweden's first National Forest Program

Iris Maria Hertog and Sara Brogaard

Forest Policy and Economics, 2021, vol. 130, issue C

Abstract: In 2018, a strategy for Sweden's first National Forest Program was launched. As part of its implementation, County Administrative Boards have initiated dialogue processes for drafting regional forest strategies. Stakeholder deliberation is ascribed the potential to promote trust and mutual understanding, lead to more robust decisions and smoother implementation. We examine the dialogue processes, focusing on the two regions of Västra Götaland and Gävleborg, by posing three questions: 1) How are the current regional dialogue processes within the National Forest Program designed, and why in this way? 2) To what extent do the dialogues hitherto live up to key conditions needed to reach communicative action as articulated by Habermas and best practices as identified in the academic literature on stakeholder participation in natural resource management and policy? 3) What implications could these findings have for the potential of the dialogue processes to contribute to reconciling the overriding goal conflicts as they play out in Swedish forestry? For the inquiry, we used semi-structured interviews, document analysis and a survey.

Keywords: Participation; Habermas; Sweden; National Forest Program; Communicative action; Forestry (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:forpol:v:130:y:2021:i:c:s1389934121001350

DOI: 10.1016/j.forpol.2021.102529

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