56
3 Governance: Solving or Reproducing Inequalities
energy or agri-food governance—equity concerns go far beyond the establishment
of access rules or allocating responsibilities for resource maintenance.
In production sectors, a purely transactional view of allocation and of “who
gets what” would be too narrow and arguably insufficient to analyze the structural causes of poverty and inequality. Allocation may also be about “who owns
what”, i.e., the allocation of property and control rights, and of “who does what”
in organizational settings or production chains, as functions or roles might be allocated in ways that benefit certain actors more than others (Bernstein 2010; UNRISD
2010; Helmsing and Vellema 2011). These discussions are present, for instance, in
energy studies in assessments of how the transformation of consumers into renewable
energy producers—“prosumers”—changes power relations and equity (see Gailing
2016). Questions on how production processes are organized have long been present
in agrarian political economy concerning agricultural production. They arguably
become all the more relevant in its restructuring now to accommodate for an emerging
bioeconomy.
Bernstein (2010), condensing this perspective, proposes four leading questions
to understand social equity in a given setup, which can be translated into analytical
problems using the language of allocation.
• Who owns what? (Allocation of rights, encompassing not only ownership but also
usufruct rights derived from leasing and other forms of control)
• Who does what? (Allocation of roles, particularly in terms of positions in biobased production chains and participation—or not—in policy- and decisionmaking)
• Who gets what? (Allocation of benefits and burdens, both directly from the policies
and from biofuel production systems)
• What do they do with it? (Not related to a specific form of allocation, but it can
shed light on some of the broader societal and political implications of resource
ownership and control patterns)
Analyzing equity in bioeconomy governance presents an additional challenge
because it affects not only one but several resources. Analyses on access or allocation usually are centered on a single or primary resource (Gupta and Lebel 2010).
However, even to consider the impacts of biofuel production (an energy resource),
one must examine how it affects not just energy itself but also other vital resources
such as land, water, and food. Both land and water have other uses with which
biofuel production competes. Meanwhile, access to food can be positively or negatively impacted due to crop substitution, diversion from food to fuel, rising prices,
or by providing farmers with additional incomes that help improve their purchasing
power. Such a multiplicity of foci is an inherent challenge to adequately examine
equity in the bioeconomy or other produced resources’ governance.
3 Governance: Solving or Reproducing Inequalities
energy or agri-food governance—equity concerns go far beyond the establishment
of access rules or allocating responsibilities for resource maintenance.
In production sectors, a purely transactional view of allocation and of “who
gets what” would be too narrow and arguably insufficient to analyze the structural causes of poverty and inequality. Allocation may also be about “who owns
what”, i.e., the allocation of property and control rights, and of “who does what”
in organizational settings or production chains, as functions or roles might be allocated in ways that benefit certain actors more than others (Bernstein 2010; UNRISD
2010; Helmsing and Vellema 2011). These discussions are present, for instance, in
energy studies in assessments of how the transformation of consumers into renewable
energy producers—“prosumers”—changes power relations and equity (see Gailing
2016). Questions on how production processes are organized have long been present
in agrarian political economy concerning agricultural production. They arguably
become all the more relevant in its restructuring now to accommodate for an emerging
bioeconomy.
Bernstein (2010), condensing this perspective, proposes four leading questions
to understand social equity in a given setup, which can be translated into analytical
problems using the language of allocation.
• Who owns what? (Allocation of rights, encompassing not only ownership but also
usufruct rights derived from leasing and other forms of control)
• Who does what? (Allocation of roles, particularly in terms of positions in biobased production chains and participation—or not—in policy- and decisionmaking)
• Who gets what? (Allocation of benefits and burdens, both directly from the policies
and from biofuel production systems)
• What do they do with it? (Not related to a specific form of allocation, but it can
shed light on some of the broader societal and political implications of resource
ownership and control patterns)
Analyzing equity in bioeconomy governance presents an additional challenge
because it affects not only one but several resources. Analyses on access or allocation usually are centered on a single or primary resource (Gupta and Lebel 2010).
However, even to consider the impacts of biofuel production (an energy resource),
one must examine how it affects not just energy itself but also other vital resources
such as land, water, and food. Both land and water have other uses with which
biofuel production competes. Meanwhile, access to food can be positively or negatively impacted due to crop substitution, diversion from food to fuel, rising prices,
or by providing farmers with additional incomes that help improve their purchasing
power. Such a multiplicity of foci is an inherent challenge to adequately examine
equity in the bioeconomy or other produced resources’ governance.