181
Community-based utilization of Jatropha in Indonesia, described in Sect. 2.2.2.,
is another interesting case of collaborative strategy building. The traditional
top- down approach by the central Indonesian government to propagate the Jatropha
production across the country has obviously failed few years after its inception in
the early 2000s. The authors of the case study suggest an alternative that looks at the
common interests of the local stakeholders who need basic fuel sources for cooking
and other household jobs. Thus they suggest the use of Jatropha at the community
scale. This community-based strategy might seem to have miniscule impacts compared to the national strategy. But the readers should be aware that the national
strategy simply failed because it didn’t address the interests of the stakeholders at
the local level. The size of resources wasted in the national effort should not be left
unnoticed. While the proposal for community-based Jatropha utilization might be a
small contribution to the biofuel strategy in terms of the size, it is much less likely
to produce the negative effect that the national program had in the past.
At the international level, RSPO, RSB, GBEP, and other organizations’ effort for
sustainability standard setting and other kinds of activities for improving the sustainability of biofuels are typical examples of mutual-gains approach. As mentioned
in Sect. 1.2., these organizations explicitly cares about the attention to the full range
of stakeholders related to the sustainability of biofuels. While they vary in terms of
the scope of the issues and the approach to sustainability, their strategy seem robust
in principle from the standpoint of mutual-gains approach. One concern would be,
however, the involvement of full range of stakeholders and political processes
within each organization. Operation of these organizations should be studied in
details from the stakeholder perspectives further in the future.
11.2 Deliberative Policy Formulation for an Improved
Sustainability
11.2.1 Concerns About Conventional Neoliberal Approaches
While mutual-gains approach to policy formulation seems to have an advantage
over the traditional command and control approaches regarding the stability and
predictability of implementation because of stakeholder supports, there have been a
few sharp critiques on the way it has been manipulated by certain categories of
stakeholders who has the power. In particular, mutual-gains approach assumes that
a theme of the policy discussion is given by the stakeholder, or convenor, who initiates the policy-making effort. Those who have the power and resources to design
the policy formulation process can manipulate the process quite easily in the name
of public participation. For those who are concerned about the democratic nature of
public policy processes, mutual-gains approach might not be paying enough attention to the power imbalance in the phase of agenda setting (Kingdon 1998).
The most common critique would be about the validity of stakeholder representatives in the forum of discussion. For instance, can we discuss sustainable biofuel
utilization without involving the representatives of indigenous people who lives in
11 Roadmap for Building Sustainable Strategy Options
Community-based utilization of Jatropha in Indonesia, described in Sect. 2.2.2.,
is another interesting case of collaborative strategy building. The traditional
top- down approach by the central Indonesian government to propagate the Jatropha
production across the country has obviously failed few years after its inception in
the early 2000s. The authors of the case study suggest an alternative that looks at the
common interests of the local stakeholders who need basic fuel sources for cooking
and other household jobs. Thus they suggest the use of Jatropha at the community
scale. This community-based strategy might seem to have miniscule impacts compared to the national strategy. But the readers should be aware that the national
strategy simply failed because it didn’t address the interests of the stakeholders at
the local level. The size of resources wasted in the national effort should not be left
unnoticed. While the proposal for community-based Jatropha utilization might be a
small contribution to the biofuel strategy in terms of the size, it is much less likely
to produce the negative effect that the national program had in the past.
At the international level, RSPO, RSB, GBEP, and other organizations’ effort for
sustainability standard setting and other kinds of activities for improving the sustainability of biofuels are typical examples of mutual-gains approach. As mentioned
in Sect. 1.2., these organizations explicitly cares about the attention to the full range
of stakeholders related to the sustainability of biofuels. While they vary in terms of
the scope of the issues and the approach to sustainability, their strategy seem robust
in principle from the standpoint of mutual-gains approach. One concern would be,
however, the involvement of full range of stakeholders and political processes
within each organization. Operation of these organizations should be studied in
details from the stakeholder perspectives further in the future.
11.2 Deliberative Policy Formulation for an Improved
Sustainability
11.2.1 Concerns About Conventional Neoliberal Approaches
While mutual-gains approach to policy formulation seems to have an advantage
over the traditional command and control approaches regarding the stability and
predictability of implementation because of stakeholder supports, there have been a
few sharp critiques on the way it has been manipulated by certain categories of
stakeholders who has the power. In particular, mutual-gains approach assumes that
a theme of the policy discussion is given by the stakeholder, or convenor, who initiates the policy-making effort. Those who have the power and resources to design
the policy formulation process can manipulate the process quite easily in the name
of public participation. For those who are concerned about the democratic nature of
public policy processes, mutual-gains approach might not be paying enough attention to the power imbalance in the phase of agenda setting (Kingdon 1998).
The most common critique would be about the validity of stakeholder representatives in the forum of discussion. For instance, can we discuss sustainable biofuel
utilization without involving the representatives of indigenous people who lives in
11 Roadmap for Building Sustainable Strategy Options