Ways to maintain and challenge hegemony: Actor coalitions in Finnish forest governance

Abstract

Understanding tensions between hegemony and counter-hegemony is crucial for identifying dynamics of socio-political persistence and change. This study examines Finnish forest governance and highlights its shift from a corporativist, monocentric model to a more decentralised, polycentric governance landscape illustrated by the diversification of actors in the domains of policy, civil society, science and business. We analyse two major Forest Act revisions (1994–96, 2010–13) and ongoing debates on the EU Nature Restoration Law to assess whether and how biodiversity concerns are incorporated into legislation and how these relate to the perspectives of the Forestry and Environmental coalitions. Our findings reveal that mainstreaming biodiversity into forest policy and practice has been hampered by cosmetic changes in policy (Forest Act 1996), by arranging multi-actor processes but without impact on policy priorities (Forest Act 2013), and by stressing the importance of economy and national sovereignty over biodiversity concerns (regarding EU Nature Restoration Law). We discuss ways for maintaining and challenging hegemony by Forestry and Environmental coalitions. Our major conclusion is that a shift towards polycentrism through diversification of the forest governance landscape does not necessarily imply changes in hegemony defined as a power to influence the rules of the game within the existing governance landscape. Yet, the ongoing process of preparing the national restoration plans and their actual implementation will show whether the Forestry coalition is able to sustain its hegemonic position in the context of EU Nature Restoration Law.