Participation, public policy-making, and legitimacy in the EU Voluntary Partnership Agreement process: The Cameroon case

Participation, public policy-making, and legitimacy in the EU Voluntary Partnership Agreement process: The Cameroon case

Forest Policy and Economics 63 (2016) 1–10 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Forest Policy and Economics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/...

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Forest Policy and Economics 63 (2016) 1–10

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Forest Policy and Economics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/forpol

Participation, public policy-making, and legitimacy in the EU Voluntary Partnership Agreement process: The Cameroon case Astrid Wodschow a,⁎, Iben Nathan b, Paolo Cerutti c a b c

NEPCon, Skindergade 23, 3. th, 1159 Copenhagen, Denmark University of Copenhagen, Rolighedsvej 25, 1958 Frederiksberg C, Denmark Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), World Agroforestry Centre, United Nations Avenue, Gigiri, P.O. Box 30677, 00100, Nairobi, Kenya

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 20 May 2015 Received in revised form 3 December 2015 Accepted 6 December 2015 Available online xxxx Keywords: Cameroon FLEGT Voluntary Partnership Agreement Participatory policy-making Ideal model Legitimacy

a b s t r a c t This paper discusses how participatory policy-making processes such as the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) negotiations are and should be organised to foster political legitimacy and support. The VPAs are bilateral agreements between the European Union (EU) and timber producing countries. VPAs constitute a cornerstone in EU's Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) programme, the most important tool for the EU to address illegal logging problems. The EU requires that national VPA negotiations include participation by the relevant stakeholders. Based on primary data, we compare the VPA negotiations in Cameroon (2006–2009) with three different ‘ideal’ models of participatory policy-making: the rationalist, the communicative incremental and the mixed model, which we expect have different implications for legitimacy. We conclude that the Cameroonian process is closest to a rationalist model with elements of the mixed model, and that this has increased legitimacy and support only to a limited extent. For future processes in other countries, we recommend stronger elements of the mixed model, and more careful considerations about stakeholder identification processes; how to adapt policy-process to specific contexts; and how to strengthen communication and information flows. Considerations about these elements could also strengthen the applicability of the ideal models. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Public participation has become a widely applied concept in natural resource governance. Previous paradigms prescribed top-down technical approaches to natural resource management, and forest governance by professionals. Current paradigms recommend bottom-up policymaking processes and participation by a broad range of stakeholders. The arguments are e.g. that inclusive bottom-up processes have more legitimacy, are better at creating a sense of “ownership”, and therefore are more likely to get greater support from stakeholders (Chambers, 1983; FAO, 2014; Hogl et al., 2012; Jabeen and Iqbal, 2009); that stakeholder participation is a focal element in good governance (EC, 2002; EFI, 2015; Heidbreder, 2012; UNESCAP, 2011), and/or that participation is an objective in its own rights (Boon et al., 2008). The paradigmatic change appears from international agreements such as the Rio Declaration on the Environment and Development, the Aarhus Convention, and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UN, 1992, 2008; UNCED, 1992; UNECE, 1998). The latter's emphasis on Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) has also had great influence on REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestations and Forest ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (A. Wodschow), [email protected] (I. Nathan), [email protected] (P. Cerutti).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2015.12.001 1389-9341/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Degradation) programmes (Fuente and Hajjar, 2013; Pham et al., 2015). The mentioned agreements aim at promoting participation in public policy processes surrounding natural resource governance and point to participation as one of the important means for ensuring legitimacy, support, and therefore effective policy implementation. Public participation also plays an essential role for the European Commission (EC). For instance, in its White Paper on European Governance, the EC (2001) links the European Union's legitimacy with involvement and participation at all levels, and argues that improved participation is likely to create more confidence in the end result and in the institutions which deliver policies. For the same reason, the EC aims at improving the dialogue with governmental and nongovernmental actors of third countries when developing policy proposals with an international dimension (EC, 2001, 2003; Hogl et al., 2012). One of the most recent examples of such policy proposals is the Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs). VPAs constitute a cornerstone in EU's Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) action plan (EC, 2003, 2007). FLEGT is the most important tool for the European Union (EU) to address illegal logging in tropical countries (EFI, 2009), and aims to ensure that only wood produced in accordance with the laws of the producer country will be accessible to the European market (EC, 2003, 2008; EFI, 2009). The VPAs are bilateral agreements between the EU and tropical wood producing countries, and deal with

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challenges in the forest sector of these countries. The agreements are voluntary, but once ratified, they become legally binding. The EU commits itself to support the VPA partner countries for a given period of time in developing a licencing system, enforcing the forest law, and supporting good governance (EC, 2003, 2005). According to the EFI (2014) it is a requirement of the legality assurance systems that they are the result of an inclusive, multi-stakeholder process (See also EC, 2007). The FLEGT Action Plan explicitly builds on the Bali Declaration, which underlines the importance of involving stakeholders including local communities in decision-making in the forestry sector, “thereby promoting transparency, reducing the potential for corruption, ensuring greater equity, and minimising the undue influence of privileged groups” (EC, 2003). These approaches to participation ring true to the above mentioned arguments in favour of participatory processes, and also to a related theoretical debate on how to address legitimacy deficits in EC policymaking (e.g. Hogl et al., 2012; Scharpf, 1999). In this debate, it is common to distinguish between input and output legitimacy. Input legitimacy is process oriented and describes political choices that reflect the ‘will of the people’—that is, they derive from processes involving the members of a society. Input-oriented legitimisation therefore relies on the quality of participatory processes. Output legitimacy, on the other hand, refers to choices that promote the common welfare of the constituency, and therefore relies on the extent to which the policymaking processes produce outputs that effectively solve the collective problems addressed by these processes (Scharpf, 1999). It has been argued that although public participation is associated most directly with input legitimacy, it also plays a central role in achieving output legitimacy. This is because input legitimacy calls for mechanisms and procedures including public participation that link political decisions with citizens' preferences. A central criterion for input legitimacy is that those with a stake in a decision become involved in the decision-making process (Newig and Kvarda, 2012). Input legitimacy is therefore expected to increase the chances for policy outputs that are adapted to local needs and knowledge, and for affected parties to seeing their interests reflected in the final decision, and to increase the chances for effective problem solving, and therefore for output legitimacy (Newig and Kvarda, 2012). Following this, a lack of involvement of some stakeholders in decision-making processes could imply a serious risk of undermining input as well as output legitimacy. This could be, for instance because some stakeholders lack the sufficient resources for participating, or because policy designers intentionally or unintentionally have not provided certain stakeholders with the necessary mandates (Papadopoulos and Warin, 2007). On the other hand, there is no automatic link between participation, legitimacy and support. Pro forma participation may undermine input as well as output legitimacy if it covers for existing power relations and serves individual rather than collective interests. Correspondingly, many other factors than the quality of participation may affect output legitimacy and support. The conceptualization of input and output legitimacy has been criticised for capturing only part of reality. Thus, Glasbergen (2013) defines legitimacy as an authoritative multi-actor arrangement whose rules are accepted as appropriate in an issue field by directly involved stakeholders in the arrangement (internal legitimacy) and by relevant audiences in the issue area as a whole (external legitimacy). He argues that the conceptualization of input- and output legitimacy is most useful for understanding internal legitimacy, and also that it is not so useful for capturing legitimacy as a dynamic process. The present paper is based on Glasbergen's definition of legitimacy.1 In our empirical investigation, we have focused mainly on the policy process and those involved directly in it. The study therefore does not 1 For other recent definitions of legitimacy and discussions of its many dimensions in the perspective of environmental policies see, for instance, Bernstein (2011); Bernstein and Cashore (2007); Cashore (2002).

claim to capture all aspects of participation and legitimacy. It mainly captures aspects related to the policy process itself. Further, it is based on the assumption that genuine and inclusive participatory public policy processes are ceteris paribus more likely to result in creating input and output legitimacy than is top-down pro forma participatory processes. While input legitimacy depends on the quality of participatory processes, output legitimacy can be but is not necessarily a function of such processes. In the literature there are many different approaches to participation (Applestrand, 2002; Arnstein, 1969; Boon, 1999; Buttoud and Yunusova, 2002; Hobley, 1996), and although the EC (2002) provides some guidelines for VPA processes, these guidelines are not very specific. Furthermore, practical experience with the participatory VPA processes is still scarce (EFI, 2012). Thus, it is an open question exactly what a genuine and inclusive participatory public policy process is, and how it should be organised with a view to best foster input and output legitimacy. The main aim of the present paper therefore is to discuss what a genuine and inclusive participatory public policy-making process is, and how to organise it with a view to best foster input and output legitimacy, in particular with regard to the VPA processes. The analysis proceeds in the following way: First, three “ideal models” for participatory policy-making processes are introduced and the extent to which each can support input and output legitimacy (Section 2) is discussed. Second, the Cameroon VPA case is introduced and the data collection methods are explained (Section 3). Third, the results are explained and discussed by examining which of the three ideal models best describes the FLEGT VPA negotiations in Cameroon (Section 4) and by examining to what extent the different stakeholders in Cameroon actually perceived the negotiations as inclusive and legitimate (Section 5). Finally, based on the lessons learnt in Cameroon, it is discussed how participatory policy-making processes such as future VPA negotiations in other countries should be organised with a view to best foster input and output legitimacy (Section 6). 2. Theory: three ideal models for public participation in policymaking processes We understand the term participation as an activity by citizens designed to influence public policy-making (Huntington and Nelson, 1976). There are many different types of processes and activities labelled as “participatory” and many scholars have developed complementary and overlapping typologies and analytical frameworks. A continuum of meanings can be found in the literature ranging from information given to stakeholders to institutional participation, where all relevant stakeholders are part of all the phases in decision-making processes (Egbe, 1997). Arnstein (1969) suggested seven steps of participation including manipulative, passive, functional, and interactive participation, participation by consultation, participation for material incentives, and selfmobilisation (See also EFI, 2015). This typology is developed on the basis of the participants' motivation for their own participation, e.g. in a development project (Pretty and Shah, 1997). The idea is that the further up the ladder, the stronger the commitment of the participants. Oltheten (1995) used slightly different criteria in distinguishing between target-oriented and process-oriented forms of participation. The target-oriented participation has a focus on obtaining goals; its advantage is that it is time-efficient. The process-oriented form of participation will make more people interested in smooth implementation of the decisions. Buttoud and Yunusova (2002) distinguish between three models for public policy-making: the rationalist, the incremental and the mixed model (see also Etzioni, 1967). We describe and compare the three models in table 1. From this table it appears that the rationalist model describes decision-making as a linear process with a sequence of rational steps leading from the identification of a problem to a decision on how to solve it (Buttoud and Yunusova, 2002). Public authorities

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Table 1 A comparison of the rationalist, the incremental and the mixed models for participation in public policy-making processes. Source: Etzioni (1967) and Buttoud and Yunusova (2002).

1. Who defines the problems and issues prior to the process? 2. Is the process linear?

The rationalist model

The incremental model

The mixed model

The public authorities

All the involved actors continuously define the issues

The public authorities after consultation with the stakeholders

A linear sequence of rational steps

Continuous process with no clear beginning and ending (Incremental cycle) 3. In which phases and to what Participation is either not part of the framework, Both public and private actors are extent does the process or it is “added” especially in the early stages of involved continuously, the more involve public participation? the decision-making process participation the better 4. What is the role of the public Pro-active public authorities take decisions Re-active role of the public authorities vis-à-vis the based on own rules and norms authorities in translating stakeholders? stakeholders' interests into social consensus 5. Who takes the final decisions? The public authorities Networks of stakeholders and public authorities 6. Top-down or bottom-up Top-down Bottom-up process?

identify problems and solutions based on rationalist norms. These processes therefore often result in “technical” solutions. This model does not exclude public participation, but when participation is part of decision-making, it is often “added” to the first stages in the decisionmaking process as described by Etzioni (Etzioni, 1967). Buttoud and Yunusova (2002), criticise the rationalist model for more or less ignoring the economic and social context of policy decisions. They and Etzioni (1967) argue that the rationalist model builds on the false assumption that decision-makers can access all the information they need for making rational decisions on behalf of society, and that decision-makers are usually able and willing to do so. Finally, several examples exist in “real life” on how participation is “added” to the first stage of a decision-making process, but in reality is no more than an alibi (Etzioni, 1967). For this reason, we expect that the rationalist model sometimes can but usually is not very well suited to produce input legitimacy, and therefore is likely to depend on other mechanisms for output legitimacy. The communicative incremental model views decisions as sets of actions undertaken by networks of stakeholders and public authorities (Buttoud and Yunusova, 2002; March and Olsen, 1984). It is the actors themselves, who should decide what problems and issues policymaking processes should address based on own needs and interests. This requires continuous deliberation, i.e. processes of discussion and negotiation among stakeholders and networks, and can result in consensus-based decisions. According to this model, the public authorities play a relatively passive role in translating the interests expressed by stakeholders (Etzioni, 1967), and the decision-making processes is mainly “bottom-up”. As a result, the communicative incremental model has a very high potential for producing input legitimacy. Buttoud and Yunusova (2002) criticised the incremental model for not capturing that participants may have a different expectations and perceptions of the problems and use different language in relation to policymaking. In most situations, it is therefore difficult, if not impossible, to reach consensus. Furthermore, there are cases where people do not prioritise a given issue, where there is no urgency to solve a given problem, or where there are none clearly described and expressed. In these cases, comprehensive participatory processes are usually neither desirable nor (cost) effective (Buttoud, 1999). In spite of its high potential for input legitimacy, the incremental model therefore also has the inherent risk of low output legitimacy. Originally, Etzioni (1967) introduced the mixed-scanning model for public decision-making as a more flexible and realistic alternative to the rationalist and the incremental models. Later, his mixed scanning models inspired Buttoud and Yunusova (2002) to develop their mixed model for participatory forest governance according to which public authorities to a certain high extent must facilitate participatory processes

Linear sequences of rational steps at regional (lower) and national (aggregate) levels All relevant stakeholders including public and private actors are involved in all the steps of all processes Active role of the public authorities as conciliators; seek compromise between the needs and interests of the different stakeholders. The public authorities A “realistic” mix between top-down and bottom-up

in public decision making, but also that in the end it is the public authorities who must take the decisions. The public authorities therefore play an active role throughout each process acting as conciliators and seeking compromises rather than consensus. In line with the rationalist model, the mixed model assumes a linear and stepwise rational process, but also presumes stakeholder participation at each step throughout the process. Although the public authorities decide which problems and issues to address and what solutions to apply, they base their decisions not on their own norms or consensus, but rather on a compromise between the needs and interests of the stakeholders. The public authorities therefore play a relatively active role as conciliators in relation to other stakeholders. According to the mixed model, participatory processes should take place first at regional (lower in scope) levels, and feed into similar processes at aggregated levels (Buttoud and Yunusova, 2002). The mixed model introduces a combined top-down and bottom-up approach. Due to its greater emphasis on public participation as an integrated part of public policy-making, we expect the mixed model to have greater potential for input legitimacy than the rationalist model. In addition, due to its greater flexibility with regard to stakeholder involvement, we expect the mixed model to have a somewhat greater potential for output legitimacy than the incremental model. We list and compare all the three models in table 1. Noticeably, none of the models provides direction for who should identify the stakeholders to be involved, or for what types of participatory activities they should engage in. We consider the three models for policy-making in table 1 “ideal types” in the Weberian sense (Jensen, 2012; Weber, 2009). According to Weber (2009), ideal types can be applied for a comparison of different parts of the empirical reality in order to investigate the extent to which they come close to or deviate from the ideal type in question. In the following, we examine how the VPA negotiation process in Cameroon was organised by comparing it with the three ideal models. We will do so by asking the same questions to the process as we did for each of the three models in table 1. Based on our own interviews with the stakeholders, we will then investigate to what extent the VPA process in Cameroon resulted in producing input and output legitimacy. Before proceeding, we will explain our research design. 3. Research design: case and methods 3.1. Introducing the case: the Cameroonian VPA process We designed our investigation as a single case study. With Yin (2003) we define a case as an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, especially when the

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Fig. 1. The general format for the VPA processes. Source: EFI (2012).

boundaries between phenomenon and context are not evident. We investigated the phenomena of participation and legitimacy in public policy processes in the case of the Cameroonian VPA negotiation process 2006–2009. The VPA was agreed on the 6th May 2010, signed on the 6th October 2010 and ratified on 1st December 2011 (EC, 2010; EFI, 2015). The formal VPA process in Cameroon followed the standard procedure shown in Fig 1. First, there was a phase of “in-country consensus building”, referred to in the Cameroonian context as the prenegotiation phase. This phase took place from 2005 to 06, and involved an assessment of the potential of a VPA to increase timber product exports to Europe and to reinforce ongoing governance reforms. After this phase came the formal political and technical bilateral negotiations, which are in focus of this paper. The EC headed the bilateral negotiations with active participation by some of the member states.2 The Government of Cameroon appointed the General Secretary of the Ministry for Forest and Wildlife (MINFOF) as the main negotiator for Cameroon, and established a multi-stakeholder negotiation board, the Technical Commission. The main declared aim of this Commission was to support the Cameroonian negotiator, and to ensure representation by all relevant stakeholders during the process. The Commission initially had four members from MINFOF, seven members from other Ministries, and five civil society members. Two members from Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) functioned as facilitators (MINFOF, 2007). Later, the National Assembly provided the Commission with two members (MINFOF, 2008). Respondents not representing the Administration referred to MINFOF and the other ministries as the same group, and to private companies and the civil society as two different groups. The Technical Commission was central to the formal negotiation process, but other more informal processes took place in parallel. The most important took place within the realm of a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) platform. The platform had originally been created for other purposes by three international NGOs in 2003–2004 (FERN, 2014). One of these, the Centre for Environment and Development (CED), became the leader of the NGO platform. The platform was to

2 Part of the process was supported financially and technically by the German Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) (ECFP, 2005).

represent the civil society in the Technical Commission, and played an important role throughout the negotiations with 28 Cameroonian NGOs as members (ECFP, 2005). We consider the negotiation process in Cameroon as an informative case (Flyvbjerg, 2006; Neergaard and Ulhoej, 2006). This is because Cameroon was among the first countries to negotiate a VPA (EFI, 2012), and because the participatory process leading to the VPA in Cameroon from the outset was described as successful (LoggingOff, 2015). In some regards, we also consider it a typical case in that it followed the formal procedures for the negotiations that all VPA countries have to follow. It took place in a country with weak governance, which suffers from many of the problems that the FLEGT programme aims to solve in general, such as illegal logging, deforestation, and corruption (Cerutti and Tacconi, 2008). We therefore expect that the early lessons learnt in Cameroon can be of interest to the currently nine countries negotiating a VPA, to the many more who may enter into a negotiation process in the future (EFI, 2015), and to the theoretical debate on participatory policy-making processes and legitimacy (Yin, 2003).

3.2. Methods The main part of our primary data derives from 29 semi-structured interviews conducted by the first author during a two months stay in Cameroon from April to May 2010. At that time, the negotiation phase of the VPA process had recently ended, and the stakeholders still had the process fresh in their minds. The respondents included 12 of the 19 Technical Commission members, and represented all the different stakeholder groups in the committee as defined by MINFOF (CTFC, 2011). We therefore assume that the responses give a broad impression of the different views in the committee. The rest 17 respondents were related to the forestry sector in Cameroon either as donors, NGOs (local and international), labour unions, independent observers, researchers, Commission for Forest in Central Africa (COMIFAC) or regional forest administration. The latter were identified through snowball sampling (e.g. Rea and Parker, 1997). Semi-structured interviews were suitable for gathering qualitative information, i.e. especially stakeholders' perspectives on the process (Kvale, 2008; Mikkelsen, 2005). The questions were mainly openended. Each of the 27 face-to-face interviews lasted for about one hour. There were two skype interviews and one interview via e-mail.

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As a guide for the semi structured interviews, the first author developed six mind maps. The interviews were about how the respondents were invited to and informed about the process, how they had participated, who the actors were, and their views on the VPA. The researcher asked the final three questions to all respondents in the same wording. These questions were about the funding of the process, Cameroon's reason to enter the negotiations, and the current challenges in the forestry sector in Cameroon. Before starting the interviews, the researcher conducted two pilot interviews with two respondents from local NGOs. Subsequently, these interviews were included in the data analysis, as there were no changes to the interview questions. In addition to the interviews, our data derives from academic articles, web-links and documents provided by the respondents, and from participation in three FLEGT information meetings and workshops. All the primary data was organised and analysed using deductive thematic codification (Charmaz, 2006) based on the two main questions: Which model did the negotiation process in Cameroon follow? How did the stakeholders perceive of the process? 4. Results and discussion: which model did the VPA negotiation process in Cameroon follow? In this section, we will describe the VPA negotiation process in Cameroon by comparing it with the three ideal models of participatory policy-making processes summed up and compared in Table 1. We will do so by asking the same sub-questions to the specific process in Cameroon as we did to each of the three theoretical models in Table 1. 4.1. Who defined the problems and issues prior to the VPA process in Cameroon? The problem of illegal logging has come high on the international agenda after a long process driven particularly by the global North (Guldbrandsen and Humphreys, 2006). In 2003, building on the Ministerial Declaration on Forest Law Enforcement and Governance (FLEG) from Bali (World Bank, 2001), the EU realised that a binding global agreement on forestry still had a long way to go, and therefore decided to proceed on its own by developing the FLEGT action plan and related regulations (EFI, 2009). In this sense, the problem addressed by the VPA negotiations was defined by international scholars and organisations long time before the negotiations in Cameroon were initiated (e.g. Brack, 2003; Cerutti and Fomété, 2009; Marmon, 2009; Ravenel et al., 2004; Speechly, 2003; Tacconi, 2007). The Government of Cameroon expressed its wish to engage in the VPA negotiations to the EU in 2004, and the formal negotiations began in November 2007 (MINFOF, 2009). The negotiation phase ended in May 2010 (LoggingOff, 2010). Seventeen (59%) of our respondents, representing the administration, civil society, private sector and EU, were of the opinion that the VPA process was the result of indirect diplomatic pressure from the EU rather than a voluntary request from the Government of Cameroon. The same respondents interpreted the Government's decision to enter into the negotiations in the light of Cameroon's dependency on continued access to the EU timber market. As expressed by one respondent representing the EU, ‘The VPA has been signed by Cameroon to secure its markets’. None of our respondents had the impression that the stakeholders, except for the administration, had been consulted prior to the Government's decision to enter into the VPA process. The prenegotiations, however, included informal stakeholder consultations on how to define legality, traceability and control systems (LoggingOff, 2010). Local communities, indigenous peoples, individual or smallscale chainsaw operators and traders did not participate in the meetings, despite being important in relation to the topic of legality in Cameroon's forestry sector (Cerutti et al., 2013; Foundjem-Tita et al., 2013; House, 2015; LoggingOff, 2010).

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The Government of Cameroon took the decision to enter into the VPA negotiations as a response to a pre-defined and pre-described problem of illegal logging and corruption. The government did not consult the stakeholders about whether or not to join the negotiations, but they did consult them about different other issues during the prenegotiation phase. We therefore conclude that in relation to defining the problem, the Cameroonian case comes closest to the rationalist model with limited elements of the mixed model. 4.2. Was the VPA negotiations a linear sequence of procedural steps, or was it an incremental process? Fig. 1 depicts the format for the VPA process as linear and lists a number of tasks associated with the formal negotiation process including negotiations with the EC on the VPA annexes and agreement texts, negotiations among stakeholder groups, and negotiations within stakeholder groups. During the negotiation phase in Cameroon there were thirteen bilateral technical meetings held as video conferences between the representative from the EU and the representative of the Technical Commission. The General Secretary of the Forest Ministry was Cameroon's representative in the bilateral meetings. The last official negotiations took place in 2009, and after almost one year, the Cameroonian government signed the VPA in Yaoundé on 6 May 2010. Each meeting was prepared by MINFOF who set the agenda of the day and invited stakeholders to the meetings (CTFC, 2011). The VPA negotiation process in Cameroon, thus, was a linear sequence of steps with a clearly defined beginning and end. This is characteristic for both the rationalist and the mixed model. However, as there was no formal linear process at the regional level feeding into the processes at the national level (Carodenuto and Ramcilovic-Suominen, 2014; LoggingOff, 2010), the process comes closest to the rationalist model with mixed model elements in the form of the NGO platform process. 4.3. Which phases in the negotiation process involved public participation? As already mentioned, there were two parallel VPA negotiation processes going on. One was the formal process defined by the meetings in the Technical Commission, the other was the more informal negotiations defined by the NGO platform. When looking at the formal process in the Technical Commission, a variety of stakeholders participated in each step of the negotiations, formally as well as informally. This was not just an “add on” to the negotiations but a genuinely integrated part of each linear step in the formal process. In addition, the members were supposed to represent a broad range of stakeholders in Cameroon (LoggingOff, 2010). It has also been observed that before the VPA process, it had not been common to involve stakeholders outside the administration directly in forest governance discussions in Cameroon (EFI, 2015). In this sense, the Cameroonian VPA process comes closest to the mixed model. However, it is important to recognise that certain stakeholders felt they did not have direct access to the negotiations; first and foremost local communities, indigenous peoples, and chainsaw loggers and traders (Carodenuto and Cerutti, 2014; Carodenuto and Ramcilovic-Suominen, 2014; LoggingOff, 2010). Some private companies, especially those located geographically far from the negotiations, and some NGOs that were not part of the NGO platform expressed during the interviews that they felt excluded. From the point of view of these stakeholders, the process reflects stronger elements of the rationalist model. Stakeholders participated in the formal as well as the informal process in ways that were largely determined by the EC requirements and a roadmap elaborated before the process. The dominating form of participation in the formal negotiation process was consultation, and hence not as many steps up Arnstein (1969) ladder as it could have

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been. In conclusion, with regard to the phases involving participation, the process had strong elements both of the rationalist and the mixed model. 4.4. What was the role of the public authorities in relation to decisionmaking? The public authorities, in particular MINFOF, took a pro-active role in relation to organising the process, and the administration controlled the process, as the General Secretary of MINFOF was the appointed national negotiator. Some stakeholders did not feel sufficiently informed about the process in advance, and expressed during the interviews that this constrained their active participation. Other stakeholders expressed that they felt excluded by the public authorities who did not provide timely meeting notifications. This means that the public authorities played an important role in the process as facilitators and ‘gatekeepers’ of the meetings, and the fact that the administration put together the Technical Commission gave the administration the responsibility to include and invite the relevant stakeholders. During the process, the administration consulted those stakeholders who were part of the Technical Commission. In this sense, the process had strong elements of the rationalist model and elements of the mixed model. 4.5. What was the balance between a bottom-up and a top-down process? The EU identified the problem of illegal logging and initiated the process, and the Forest Director and the General Secretary of MINFOF appointed the 19 members of the Technical Commission. This indicates that the process was top-down rather than bottom-up. However, the Technical Commission had members from other stakeholder groups than the administration, which could indicate that the Cameroonian government was open to having a multi-stakeholder process (CTFC, 2011). Just because there were NGO members in the Technical Commission, this does not mean they represented all the Cameroonian NGOs (Dkamela, 2011). From our interview with the NGO member, we understood that there had been a power struggle internally in the NGO Forum and that some NGOs had therefore left the forum. In general, the interviewed NGOs felt they had had some influence (see Section 5) indicating that the process had some limited “bottom-up” elements. In this regard, the process came close to a rationalist model with some elements of the mixed model. Table 2 The relevance of the three ideal models to the VPA negotiation process in Cameroon. The Cameroonian case

1. Who defined the problems and issues prior to the process? 2. Could the process best be described as linear or cyclical? 3. In which phases and to what extent did the process involve public participation? 4. What was the role of the public authorities in decision-making? 5. What was the balance between a bottom-up and top-down process? 6. What model did the VPA negotiation process come closest to?

What kind of process was the VPA process?

Problems were defined by the Rationalist EU and formulated through the national forest administration A linear sequence of rational Rationalist model steps at the national level Involvement of representative stakeholders at many sequential steps in the process, but only at one level Contributor, consultation with stakeholders, limited role as conciliator if any Top-town with some elements of bottom-up

Elements of rationalist and mixed model

Rationalist with strong elements of the mixed model Rationalist with some elements of the mixed model Rationalist with some mixed model elements

4.6. Did the VPA negotiation process in Cameroon follow the rationalist, incremental or mixed model? The conclusions from Sections 4.1–4.5 are summarised in Table 2. In short, the EU and to some limited extent the national forest administration defined the problems and issues to become negotiated without consulting all the stakeholders, which is in line with the rationalist model. At least formally, the process resembled the rationalist model in including a rational sequence of decision-making steps. However, each of the steps in the process had participation by many stakeholders. This brings the process closer to the mixed model. Throughout the process, discussions took place in an appointed committee, which included civil society members. The respondents described the Technical Commission's decisions as consensus-based, which points to the incremental model. The fact that the public authorities often took decisions independently of the Technical Commission, and the fact that the committee was composed to allow the public authorities a major say and did not include all relevant stakeholders make the process resemble both the rationalist and mixed models. Finally, the process was top-down with some bottom-up elements, and can therefore best be characterised as following a rationalist model with mixed model elements. Based on this analysis, we would expect the process to have had a positive but limited impact in terms of creating input and output legitimacy. In the following, we will look at how the stakeholders themselves perceived the process.

5. How did the stakeholders perceive of the process? Did the process produce input and output legitimacy? When asked to explain the points of disagreements during the negotiations, stakeholders representing all of the different groups stated that they viewed the process as participative and that even though there had been many discussions along the way, they actually reached a consensus in the end. The respondents who were members of the Technical Commission seemed to be particularly satisfied with the VPA decisionmaking process, and many stakeholders on their own initiative stated that the process was participatory. A respondent from a Cameroon based international NGO represented in the negotiations through the NGO platform said ‘All civil society actors were heard. Maybe some felt that they were not listened to, but it is impossible to discuss with 50 people at the same time, so a leader was needed’. A private sector respondent, represented in the VPA negotiations by the union, felt disappointed with the lack of influence of the private sector. Another respondent from a private forest enterprise was not aware that a VPA had been signed recently, nor was he aware of FLEGT or the changes it might bring to the forestry sector in the future (see also Carodenuto and Ramcilovic-Suominen, 2014). A former employee of the German Development agency GIZ, saw it as a problem that the labour unions represented the private sector and observed that: “actors from the private sector are rarely willing to spend time on long multistakeholder decision-making processes”. A forest industry respondent mentioned the problem that the geographical distances in Cameroon constrained the industry in many parts of the country from participating in meetings in the capital (Yaoundé) unless represented by existing unions, which was not so common. Three Cameroonian NGO members were dissatisfied with the process. They concurred that their voices had not been heard, that they had not been invited to the information meetings, and had not received any information from the administration during the process. However, one of these respondents said that as she did receive invitations for meetings and workshops, but only a few days in advance, so she did not have the time to inform other NGOs or to travel to the capital herself. In general however, the NGO respondents expressed that the process was good, and that the extent to which they had been included was unprecedented (LoggingOff, 2015). In other words, some

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participants approved of the process, some did not, and yet others were not even aware of it. Different respondents had different views on the effectiveness and comprehensiveness of representation in the process. The government authorised three unions, GFBC,3 STIEPF,4 and AJEN,5 to “represent” “private sector” or forest “industry” stakeholders in the Technical Committee. Yet, the members from these unions were all from large- to medium-scale logging companies. There was no genuine representation of the thousands of individual, small-scale forest operators, who are also part of the forestry sector in Cameroon. A similar argument applies to the question about how representative the five civil society and NGO members were. During our interviews, some industry members expressed that they felt excluded from the decisions. Other respondents found that the industry was well represented by the unions. Similarly, some interviewed NGOs said that they were not sufficiently included, while the EC and members from the government argued that the NGOs had a lot of influence. Three respondents mentioned that the Ministry of Social Affairs, the Ministry of Employment,6 and indigenous peoples ought to have been included in the process as well. While direct participation of indigenous people and local communities lacked, some argued that the NGOs were expected to consult and represent these groups of stakeholders (LoggingOff, 2015; see also Nathan et al., 2014; Overdevest, 2014; Springate-Baginski, 2014). Government respondents found that the civil society had received much assistance both from MINFOF and from the EU. Hereby, the government clearly underestimated the actual efforts needed for effective organisation and representation of civil society. In fact, only one person “represented” the civil society and thus the local communities and indigenous peoples in the Technical Commission. Nevertheless, a majority of external observers and respondents from the private sector found that the civil society played a remarkably strong role in the Technical Commission, that the NGOs had done a good job in organising themselves and that this had happened to an extent that had not previously been seen in Cameroon (LoggingOff, 2010). Most of the NGO respondents (6 out of 8) considered it natural that the Centre for Environment and Development, CED, had become the leader of the NGO platform (see Section 3.1), since CED already had experience in training and gathering NGOs. They complimented CED for having done a good job. There were also some critical voices, however. Three NGO respondents found that the process of appointing CED the leader had not been transparent, and saw CED as a self-appointed leader. The same group of respondents argued that the NGOs did not have sufficient representation since the CED did not represent them. Respondents from the private sector and the international NGO “Independent Forest Monitor” agreed that CED had done a good job, but also mentioned that international NGOs had tended to take more space during the negotiations than the national ones. A large majority of respondents (25 out of 29) stated that the Ministries and in particular MINFOF were very influential during all steps of the negotiations. They pointed to the fact that MINFOF decided who should be the members in the Technical Commission, that the Ministries had more members than any other stakeholder group, and that MINFOF formulated the final text of the VPA. Other stakeholders felt that EU was most influential in having initiated the negotiations in the first place, in that EU's rules determined the organisation of the process, and since the EU had set specific goals for the process (EFI, 2009). One of our respondents from the EU said that the civil society was very influential because CED was “such a strong representative of the

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Groupement de la Filière du Bois Cameroun. Le Syndicat des Transformateurs Industriels et Exportateurs des Produits Forestiers Spéciaux. 5 L'Association des Jeunes Exploitations Nationaux. 6 None of the stakeholders mentioned the fact that the Ministry of Environment was not a member of the Commission. 4

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civil society”. Likewise, LoggingOff (2015) states that the civil society had been able to influence the final version of the VPA. This point of view is to a high extent supported by the fact that the final VPA includes points we assume important for the civil society. Thus, the VPA mentions the involvement of the civil society in monitoring the implementation of the VPA (EU/Cameroon, 2011). The VPA, on the other hand, has no specific focus on local communities' development and indigenous peoples' needs. We conclude that many but not all stakeholders were happy with the process. 6. Discussion and conclusion: what are the lessons learnt from Cameroon with regard to participation, public policy-making and legitimacy? With the VPA negotiation process, the civil society in Cameroon experienced a positive change towards improved participation. Many other stakeholders, even those not directly involved, also appreciated that the VPA negotiation process were much more participatory than ever before in Cameroon (LoggingOff, 2015). Assembe-Mvondo et al. (2014), have rightly said that from a legal perspective the capacity of the Cameroonian Public to confront the State is relatively limited. In this sense, stakeholder participation was a huge improvement, and many perceived it as a step in the right direction. It is true, that some stakeholders criticised the process for being “long and delayed”. Many of them also acknowledged, however, this was the price to pay for the genuine attempt of involving civil society, and for aiming at some form of consensus. Thus, according to some, the duration of the process was an indication that it actually brought many issues on the table, which the participants debated and took into account during the negotiations. The perceptions of a ‘step in the right direction’ seem corroborated by the fact that, several other processes that have featured eminently on the political agenda over the last five years, have explicitly referred to the VPA process when emphasising the importance of participation and representation. These include the ongoing collaboration between the MINFOF and local NGOs on the fight against corruption within the forest administration; the national discussions about the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) process and the current land reform processes, which have notably seen a very active engagement by the same network that was also engaged in the VPA process (e.g. FCPF and UN-REDD, 2012). Now, five years after Cameroon signed and ratified the VPA, the country still lacks legal framework reforms promised in the VPA, and the comprehensive timber traceability system that is a key to the legality assurance system (EFI, 2015). Since the negotiations closed, it has also been difficult for stakeholders external to the MINFOF to have a say on the policy-making processes relevant to these particular issues (own observations). In that sense, the impact of the VPA process on the other policy domains appears more significant than its direct impact on illegal logging. Different factors are likely to have contributed to push the VPA down the political agenda. These include the recent shift in Cameroon's political priorities towards the development of large-scale agriculture and mining (Republic of Cameroon, 2009) and the decreasing importance of the EU timber market and a growing trade with Asia (ITTO, 2015). There are also elements in the negotiation process that, despite all the enthusiasm, may have resulted in a deficit of input as well as output legitimacy. Thus, some conceived the VPA process as result of an indirect diplomatic pressure from the EU, and of the Government's decision to enter into the negotiations as motivated by its wish to ensure continued access to the EU timber market. This could indicate that the Government did not feel sufficiently strong ownership to the agreement after the end of the negotiations, especially as it realised the decreasing importance of the EU timber market. Furthermore, the public authorities in Cameroon set the rules for the internal negotiations and decided who

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should participate. This contributed to excluding important stakeholders from the negotiations. While there was much more participation by NGOs and civil society organisations than ever before, the local communities, indigenous peoples and many operators of the forestry industry were absent from the negotiations. In particular, actors from the private sector felt excluded from the negotiations. MINFOF considered the NGO platform, CED and the two members of parliament representatives for local communities and indigenous people, but these actors did not represent all conflicting interests. Representation of marginalised groups by NGOs has proven difficult in many places, since NGO employment is often seen as a livelihood strategy, which does not necessarily produce the needed motivation to represent and uplift marginalised stakeholders (Dkamela, 2011). Finally, the Ministries and the Parliament had a large majority of 12 out of 19 members in the Technical Commission. Our investigation indicates that the Cameroonian VPA negotiation process was far from meeting the ideals of the incremental model, which we consider has the highest potential for producing input as well as output legitimacy. Although the process contained strong elements of the mixed model, it resembled the rationalist model most. As far as we see, it is hardly realistic to follow an incremental model in a weak civil society context like Cameroon, where participatory processes are still recent. There is no doubt, however, that the Cameroonian process could have included many more elements from the mixed model. We suggest that current political processes in Cameroon, such as the ongoing land reforms, which build on the participatory model initiated by the VPA process, learn from these gaps and make efforts to bridge them (e.g. see FCPF and UN-REDD, 2012). For instance, the land reform process has included traditional chiefs in the early phases (CED et al., 2013). If the final decision on the land reforms does not ensure broad participation of interested and affected parties, obviously within the constraints of limited resources and means, then the legitimacy of the process could be jeopardised with potentially serious consequences to implementation. The mixed model focuses only on the extent to which stakeholders should be involved. We suggest more focus on who should be involved how. Thus, strengthened communication and information flows leading up to the negotiation processes taking into account the historical relations between stakeholder groups, as well as possible cultural differences between them could have made the process more inclusive. In Cameroon, indigenous people could probably have brought important information into the process if they had been consulted in their local areas using local languages, etc. We therefore suggest differentiated ways of including stakeholders. One option could be to work towards some general criteria for who should participate and how to balance participation. Based on a case study in Sierra Leone, LoggingOff (2010), for instance, identify four groups of stakeholders including policy actors, organised groups (NGOs, churches, military), social groups (defined by their level of income, e.g. agrarian poor versus national elites) and ethnic groups, categories they think should be represented in multi-stakeholder policy processes. Grainger and Konteh (2007) divide stakeholders into market-, state-, public-, and private actors. Bodegom et al. (2008), adds that the civil society constitutes an important group of stakeholders, not least in the fight against illegalities and corruption in the forestry sector, as corruption is a social phenomenon and that, since the problems of illegal logging and deforestation affect the society, societal participation is a key point in the fight against corruption in the forest sector. According to Marmon (2009) it is necessary to involve those affected by the policy, those who will be involved in implementation of the policy, and those who have stated objectives giving them a direct interest in the policy. Currently, the EC itself does not elaborate on these issues. Future policy-making processes need to contain many more elements from the mixed model, but this model itself needs to be elaborated to include theoretical considerations on four additional aspects.

First, referring to our discussion about representativeness, there should be more considerations about who should identify the stakeholders, how to identify them and how they should participate. Second, the participatory policy-making process should be adapted to the specific context, e.g. the process should build on already existing stakeholder networks or take into consideration that, e.g., NGOs do not always legitimately represent indigenous peoples or adopt culturally appropriate methods for engaging and supporting stakeholders. Third, it is important to take costs and time into account, especially in countries with limited resources. Fourth, access to and flows of relevant information is paramount for stakeholders to participate and express their opinions (or decide not to). The Cameroonian case lacked the above mentioned four aspects, which is why we suggest them to be taken into account when applying the mixed model on e.g. a VPA negotiation process. This is likely to contribute to increasing the overall legitimacy and support of the VPAs. Acknowledgements We would like to thank CIFOR for supporting and enabling the data collection in Cameroon by lending us their office and establishing contacts with stakeholders in the Cameroonian forest sector. We are grateful to all the respondents who gave us their time and opinions. Thank you also to the Danish Council for Independent Research/Social Sciences (FSE) for funding part of the contribution, and to the Universities of Padova and Copenhagen for academic support and encouragement to write this paper. We would like to express our gratitude for the comments we received from the anonymous reviewers on the paper and, finally, for the comments we received when we presented an early version of the paper at the conference “Illegal logging and legality verification — the FLEGT/VPA as new modes of governance” held December 6–7, 2012 in Copenhagen. References Applestrand, M., 2002. Public participation as an incentive in forest decision making processes. In: Zimmermann, W., Schmithüsen, F. (Eds.), Legal Aspects of National Forest ProgrammesPapers Presented at the Meeting of COST Action 19, “National Forest Programmes in an European Context”. Forest Science Contributions, Aberdeen. Arnstein, S.R., 1969. A ladder of citizen participation. Journal of the American Institute of Planners 35, 216–224. Assembe-Mvondo, S., Colfer, C.J.P., Brockhaus, M., Tsanga, R., 2014. Review of the legal ownership status of national lands in Cameroon: a more nuanced view. Development Studies Research 1, 148–160. Bernstein, S., 2011. Legitimacy in intergovernmental and non-state global governance. Rev. Int. Polit. Econ. 18 (1 February 2011), 17–51. Bernstein, S., Cashore, B., 2007. Can non-state global governance be legitimate? An analytical framework. Regulation & Governance 1 (4), 347–371. Bodegom, A.J.V., Dieuwke, K., van Shouvroeck, F., van der Valk, O., 2008. FLEGT Beyond T. Exploring the Meaning of “Governance” Concepts for the FLEGT Process. Wageningen, Wageningen International, p. 56. Boon, T.E., 1999. Five analytical frameworks for analysing public participation. In: Niskanen, A., Väyrynen, J. (Eds.), Regional Forest Programmes: A Participatory Approach to Support Forest Based Regional Development. European Forest Institute, Proceedings of the Nordic Research Course in Mekrijärvi, Finland, 17–24 June 1999 and the European Summer School in Marybank, Scotland, 15–22 August 1999, pp. 47–62. Boon, T.E., Nathan, I., Lund, D.H., 2008. The Danish National Park Process and the Implementation of the Habitats Directive in Denmark. In: Hogl, K., Nordbeck, R., Nussbaumer, E., Pregernig, M. (Eds.), Deliverable 12: Synthesis Report: New Modes of Governance for Sustainabile foresty in Europe. EU's Sixth Framework Programme/University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna, pp. 28–32. Brack, D., 2003. Illegal logging and the illegal trade in forest and timber products. Int. For. Rev. 5, 195–198. Buttoud, G., 1999. Principles of participatory processes in public decision making. In: Hunter, I., Korhonen, M., Pajari, B. (Eds.), Regional Forest Programmes: A Participatory Approach to Support Forest Based Regional Development European Forest Institute. Joensuu, Finland, pp. 11–28. Buttoud, G., Yunusova, I., 2002. A ‘mixed model’ for the formulation of a multipurpose mountain forest policy: theory vs. practice on the example of Kyrgyzstan. Forest Policy and Economics 4, 149–160. Carodenuto, S., Cerutti, P.O., 2014. Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) in Cameroon: perceived private sector benefits from VPA implementation. Forest Policy and Economics 48 (2014), 55–62.

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