Quality certification, regulation and power in fair trade

The political economy of alternative trade: Social and environmental certification in the South African wine industry

“…While fair-trade addresses some of the inequalities of the trading system and the organic movement questions the very nature of an industrial approach to agriculture, both are perceived to be becoming more bureaucratic (Raynolds 2004;Taylor 2005), and there are problems with mainstreaming and convergence around international 38 standards. The FLO"s efforts to enhance compatibility with ISO labelling standards, for example, has led to internal restructuring of its certification activities and financing policies, moves which have elicited complaints of increased distance from producer participants (Renard, 2005). As Ponte (2006: 49) argues, "this has happened in parallel to a general move from a holistic and hands-on engagement with suppliers and towards more hands-off, auditable, systemic and managerial approaches to sustainability".…”

Marking Their Own Homework: The Pragmatic and Moral Legitimacy of Industry Self-Regulation

“…A more critical perspective asks how ISR regimes gain the authority to govern particular social issues (Cashore 2002), highlighting the importance of high-status political actors in encouraging others to participate (Levy and Egan 2003). As Renard (2005) demonstrated in the context of fair trade labelling, networks can be vital to encouraging widespread participation in an ISR scheme, but can also further embed existing power structures within an industry. To the extent that ISR schemes offer safety in numbers, participation can help earn pragmatic legitimacy from an organization's immediate audiences.…”

“…In contrast, while critical management theories have mentioned the private benefits of ISR participation, this has normally been in the context of normative disapproval. ISR participation may secure control over rhetoric and resources (Raynolds et al 2007;Gereffi et al 2001) or reinforce the authority of high-status actors to set norms (Renard 2005). However, while ISR schemes may offer private benefits and pragmatic legitimacy from the organization's most proximate audiences, schemes may still not be in the overall public interest (Vogel 2008).…”

“…In contrast, institutional perspectives consider not only behaviour changes by individual social actors within a field (Terlaak 2007), but also the longer-term field reconfiguration as an ISR scheme becomes institutionalized (Hofman 1999;Haack et al 2012). Critical perspectives examine longer-term and diffuse effects of ISR schemes, including how ISR alters symbolic representations of reality (Boiral 2013) and the overall governance within a policy domain (Renard 2005). Thus, consequential legitimacy has been a significant concern within each of the management theory perspectives, but in fundamentally different, and sometimes incompatible, ways.…”

Is Fair Trade Really a Solution to Create Fairness in Agricultural Trade? — Case in Indonesia

“…What"s interesting is the role of the distributor and the government in all this. Just like mentioned before [2], distributors and industrialists seek the advantages of fair trade without taking on all its costs and obligations, and they attempt to avoid supervision by and negotiation with fair trade organizations. And as for the government, its job is focused mainly to build and legislate new food protections against the wishes of powerful actors in the market.…”