Local quality and certification schemes as new forms of governance in sustainability transitions - Transition Pathways towards Sustainability in Agriculture: Case Studies from Europe - page 157

Chapter 11

Local quality and certification schemes as new
forms of governance in sustainability
transitions

M. Lošťák 1 , P. Karanikolas 2 , M. Draganova 3 , L. Zagata 1

1 Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague ([e-mail]); 2 Agricultural University of
Athens; 3 Institute for the Study of Societies and Knowledge, Sofia

Introduction

Each of the 21 case studies discussed in this topic highlights, to a greater or lesser extent,
the issue of governance, referring primarily to the practices of a 'governing body' or
'governing principles'. The interactions between emerging niche innovations and
governance arrangements are demonstrated within the case studies. These include the
impacts of niche anchoring on governance (for example the establishment of new
regulatory mechanisms and subsidies for renewable energy production, Sutherland et al. ,
this volume) and the influence of regime/landscape governance arrangements on the niche
(such as in the case of lifestyle land management, Pinto-Correia et al .a, this volume). In this
chapter, the changes to governance practices are the primary focus of the analysis. We
demonstrate how governance arrangements are constructed by niche actors, in order to
achieve goals such as the sustainability of agriculture, or rural development, utilizing local
quality and certification schemes.
In this chapter, governance structures are defined as rules for organizing activities in a
certain context (Swedberg, 2003). Changes to governance structures result from the
reciprocal interactions of actors, agencies and structures. This is not a new principle in
understanding transition processes (Kabele, 2005) or indeed social processes more
generally, but the emphasis here is on how these changes occur on multiple levels. The
multi-level perspective (MLP) underpinning the research in this topic, offers the
opportunity to assess agent-structure relationships at micro-, meso- and macro-scales, from
local to global social processes. We focus, particularly, on the interactions between new
forms of horizontal governance emerging in local quality and certification 'niches', and the
vertical forms of governance characterizing the agriculture and tourism or environmental
protection regimes in which these niches develop.