Regulatory Credibility and Authority through Inclusiveness: Standardization Organizations in Cases of Eco-Labelling

Abstract

This paper deals with the challenging task of permanently organizing projects that include a broad range of actors: enterprises, social movement organizations and state actors. It focuses on a special type of standardization activity, namely eco-labelling, and is based on case studies of two Swedish projects/organizations: labelling of organic food and sustainable forestry. In this paper, I theorize about the concept of inclusiveness, which is seen as being instrumental for the creation of regulatory credibility and authority and argue that different types of members/participants have different types of power resources, which the standardization organization (SO) seeks to mobilize and control. The combination of these individual power resources brings action capacity and symbolic resources to the SO, including an image of independence. Moreover, the SO provides an organizational setting that, inter alias, helps interdependent actors to maintain a hold on each other, and forces them to engage in a dialogue and repeated interaction over time. This interaction can, in turn, result in common expectations and understandings that are essential for the operations of non-state governance. However, the case studies also indicate difficulties in organizing such complex networks. It can, above all, be difficult to prevent a power shift in favour of organizations with large power resources.