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Foucault in the forestsA review of the use of Foucauldian concepts in forestpolicy analysis

Georg Winkel

Institute of Forest and Environmental Policy, University of Freiburg, Tennenbacher Str. 4, 79106 Freiburg, Germany

a b s t r a c ta r t i c l e i n f o

Available online xxxx

Keywords:

Discourse analysis

Governmentality

Foucault

Power-knowledge

Political ecology

Policy analysis

In this paper, a review is conducted on the use of the concepts of Michel Foucault in forest policy analysis. In

doing so, three major questions are posed: (1) how Foucauldian thinking has influenced the analysis of forestpolicy, (2) what hasbeen excluded from theanalysis, and(3) howa Foucauldian perspective contributes to an

enhancement of the theoretical knowledge on forest policy as well as how it may be used in future analyses.Accordingly, in the first section, the Foucauldian concepts that have been the most influential to forest policy

analysis, discourse, knowledge, and power as well as governmentality are introduced and summarized in atable aiming to outline a Foucauldian perspective. Subsequently, thirty-nine papers on forest policy thatdraw on Foucauldian concepts are analyzed with regard to the following dimensions: author, academic

background, research motivation, regional focuses, topics and time span covered by the analysis, disciplinary

approach, frameworks, theoretical approach and Foucauldian concepts used, methods, main findings, and theconclusions drawn by the scholars about the value of using Foucault for their research. Additionally, thedevelopment of the studies over time is analyzed.

It can be shown that Foucauldian thoughts have inspired the analysis of forest policy in two major ways: first,

via post-structural political ecology studies and, second, via post-positivist discourse analysis. While nearlyallof the papers were written by geographers, anthropologists, and policy analysts affiliated with European orNorth American universities, most of the studies analyzed forest policies in developing countries. Less

frequently, conflicts about boreal forests were addressed. Consequently, two commonly found patterns were:

an extension of the suppressive effects of colonial forest governmentalities into modern forest policies anddiscursive struggles about the use of forests. All of the papers shared some common elements, such as: askeptical attitude towards claims of a single rationality and an objective truth and, in particular, towardcentral state andcapitalist discourses; an interest in the suppressive effects of dominant types of language and

knowledge; an understanding that language andknowledge need to be addressed as aspects of power; andan

emancipatory motive and interest in broadening the available knowledge base and democratizing policymaking. Finally, the results are discussed, and the initially posed questions are again addressed. It isrecommended that the Foucauldian analysis of forest policy should literally escape from its own main

discourse and address topics that were largely neglected until now.

2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction: how Foucault went into the forest

To be honest, I could find nothing within the rich literature on orby French philosopher Michel Foucault about how he regarded forestsor how oftenif everhe spent time in forests. Considering hispersonal vita largely represents the stereotype of a highly urbanized

intellectual and a member of the big cities philosophical intelligentsia,and that his main emphasis is on societal and basic human issues, onemay even doubt if Foucault had anything that could be called a

relationship with forests and issues concerning their use. This,however, is beyond my knowledge. What can be said is that Foucault's

thoughts were influential on the manner in which many forest policyanalyses were made. One might consider it somehow curious to

devote an entire article about one specific thinker to this special issue,particularly one that cannot be considered a political or forest sciencescholar. An even greater paradox is perhaps to do this despite Foucaulthimself tending to devalue the importance of individual thinkers in

discourse. Yet, hisconcepts of truth,knowledge, power,and discourse,are increasingly being taken up by scholars analyzing forest policyissues. This was the motivation for compiling this paper.

There have beendifferent ways in which Foucault andhis thoughtshave entered both forest and forest policy analysis. This includes, as Iwill illustrate, approaches such as discursive policy analysis, politicalecology, andanthropological studies. In this paper, I will analyze these

ways by posing the following questions: (1) how Foucauldianthinking has influenced the analysis of forest policy; (2) what has

Forest Policy and Economics xxx (2011) xxxxxx

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E-mail address: [email protected].

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FORPOL-00744; No of Pages 12

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doi:10.1016/j.forpol.2010.11.009

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Forest Policy and Economics

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Please cite this article as: Winkel, G., Foucault in the forestsA review of the use of Foucauldian concepts in forest policy analysis, ForestPolicy and Economics (2011), doi:10.1016/j.forpol.2010.11.009
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2010.11.009http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2010.11.009http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2010.11.009mailto:[email protected]://portal.uni-freiburg.de/ifphttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2010.11.009http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/13899341http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2010.11.009http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2010.11.009http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/13899341http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2010.11.009http://portal.uni-freiburg.de/ifpmailto:[email protected]://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2010.11.009

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been excluded from the analysis; and (3) how Foucauldian perspec-tives can enhance the theoretical knowledge of forest policy analysisas well as how it may be used in future studies. Hence, the paper isstructured as follows: First, some of Foucault's concepts that turned

out to be the most relevant to this paper will be introduced andsummarized in a table that aims to outline a Foucauldian perspective.Afterwards, an extensive review of the use of Foucauldian concepts in

forest policy analysis is presented with regardto different dimensions,

e.g. the theoretical and methodical approaches of the studies. Finally,after addressing the three aforementioned research questions, thefuture potential of Foucauldian concepts in forest policy analysis is

discussed.

2. Foucauldian thinking and policy analysis

As was pointed out in the beginning of this article, Foucault's ideas

have influenced environmental policy analysis throughout the lastdecade. However, as Keller (2007) sardonically points out, theFoucauldian (discourse) analysis as such does not exist, as concreteinstructions on howto empirically apply hisconcepts to policyproblems

were hardly provided by Foucault himself. Moreover, his centralconcepts are difficult to operationalize and are sometimes used in aconfusing or even contradictory manner. Concerning Foucauldianliterary language, even key concepts are used differently (Reisigl,

2006). Obviously, this presents a notable challenge when striving foran outline of Foucauldian thinking. In the following, however, theFoucauldian thoughts andconcepts that have emergedas being the mostinfluential for forest policy analysis over the course of this review are

introduced, taking the limitations mentioned previously into account.

2.1. Discourse, knowledge, and power

The Foucauldian concept ofdiscourse is, first of all, rather indistinct(Reisigl, 2006). Foucault might have described discourse as being alarge stream of spoken or written language that provides meaning for

the interpretation of social or physical events. For him, discourse is anominous power that is expressed by the huge amount of words that

are spoken as well as through other discursive practices. This powercreates and destroys, as well as constructs, time and location-bound

rationalities; it determines the ways we perceive reality (Foucault,2003). Literally, Foucauldian discourse can be understood as a wildstream of language and other discursive practices that threatens thesettlements and well-ordered areas at its banks and that is always

prepared to change its flow and break away from its well maintainedpath. As discourse gives meaning to social and physical events, it alsoenables thinking and legitimizes the actions of individuals. In doingso, however, discourse automatically excludes other potentials to

speak, think, and act (Landwehr, 2006, p. 109), leading to a shortage ofacceptable statements about reality. That is, discourse both enablesand restricts thinking at the same time ( Joutsenvirta, 2009, p. 242).This ambivalence complies with the productive function of

Foucauldian discourse (in other words, its empowering effects): Bydelineating legitimate forms of truth production from illegitimateones, a discursive formation includes the establishment of the termsof its reproduction and the allocation of empowering and disempow-

ering subject positions (Feindt and Oels, 2005, p. 164).Consequently, discourse automatically creates power structures

that are relevant for the freedom of social and political actors' actions.Power is thereby understood as a power of definition which excludes

alternative realities and is based on different resources, i.e. the socialstructuring of what we perceive to be real (Keller, 2006, p. 127,translated by the author). Power is omnipresent in all social actionsand, therefore, cannot simply be located within a society. Thus,

Foucault virtually cuts off the king's head in political theory(Biebricher, 2007, p. 227) in his aim to shift attention away from

the formal centers of power and towards the misty power of

discourse. In doing so, power becomes as ambivalent as the conceptof discourse itself because it is not only seen as being oppressive, butalso simultaneously as constitutive and enabling (Darrier, 1999).This concept of power is essential to understanding the contribution

of Foucauldian discourse to policy analysis.All in all, a Foucauldian perspective on discourse is not merely

interested in language, but rather in the functioning of knowledge (cf.Keller, 2004; Feindt and Oels 2005, p. 164). Certain orders of

knowledge determine societaltruth

at a speci

fic time and space andevolve over time. In line with the Foucauldian idea of the ubiquity of

power, power is inevitably bound to all types of knowledge(Biebricher, 2007, p. 225): We should abandon a whole tradition

that allows us to imagine that knowledge can exist only where thepower relations are suspended and that knowledge can develop onlyoutside its injunctions, its demands and its interests []. We shouldabandon the belief that power makes mad and that, by the sametoken, the renunciation of power is one of the conditions of

knowledge. We should admit rather that power produces knowledge[and] that power and knowledge directly imply one another; thatthere is no power relation without the correlative constitution of a

field of knowledge [] (Foucault, 1979, p. 27).

Thereby, societal power/knowledge complexes are produced anddisseminated by institutions with which the scientific disciplines,according to Foucault, can be associated (Fischer, 2003, p. 40; Keller,2006,p.126): Eachsociety hasits regime of truth, its generalpoliticsof

truth: that is,the type of discourse whichit accepts and makes functionas true [] In societies like ours, the political economy of truth ischaracterized by five important traits: Truth is centered on the formofscientific discourse and the institutions,which produceit; it is subject to

constant economic and political incitement []; it is the object, underdiverse forms, of immense diffusion and consumption (circulatingthrough apparatuses of education and information []), it is producedand transmitted under the control, dominant if not exclusive of a few

great political or economic apparatuses (universities, army, writing, andmedia); lastly, it is the issue of a whole political debate and socialconfrontation (ideological struggles) (Foucault, 1999, p. 131 et seq.).

Thus, Foucault does not believe in the Cartesian concept of

continuously increasing rational knowledge. He rejects the idea ofprogressing modernization and rationalization processes, which areseen as parts of a particular Western discourse. He even opposes the

Habermasian utopia of a communicative rationality for, as Rotrytrenchantly points out, being a healing and unifying power which willdo the work once done by God. [] We no longer need [that] (Rorty,1989, p. 68). In contrast, Foucault is in favor of a context-based

conception of rationality (Love, 1989, p. 274) with a focused analyticalinterest in processes of knowledge change. This conception enablesdiscourses to be interpreted as strategic situations: At any moment intime, a multiplicity of discursive elements is arranged in various

strategies of power (Feindt and Oels 2005, p. 165). Foucault is interestedin the reconstruction of this distribution of discourses, the mechanismsimplied, effects produced, and the changes therein over time.

Hence, Foucault's genealogical interest is oriented towards thehistory of discourse. Genealogy examines practices, events, and historiesaround which knowledge is constructed as being normal or unaccept-able. Knowledge production is thereby marked by moments ofproblematization and crises during which conflicts and new epistemes

arise (Wong et al., 2007, p. 644, based on Foucault, 1979, 1980).In other words, as Landwehr (2001) points out, Foucault analyses

the history of knowledge, reality, and truth. Consequently, in theFoucauldian world, these assumed eternal abstracta become bound to

time and space (cf. Rabinov, 1984, p. 4).

2.2. The role of the subject and discursive strategies

A crucial aspect for the interpretation of Foucault's concept of

discourse is the relationshipbetween individuals and the discourse. In

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hisearlywork, thediscourse itself is conceptualized as a powerful unit ofsocial stability and change. This becomes obvious when looking at hisconception of the author: It is not the individual's contribution to thediscourse through his creativity, ideas, or interests that take center

stage, but his function as an instrument of the discourse (Foucault,1969). Thus, the individuality of the author becomes exchangeable(death of author, Barthes, 1984). Metaphorically speaking, he

becomes a smallfish in the powerful streamof the discourse. Foucault's

analytical interest, accordingly, was not focused on the role of theindividual actor, but concentrated instead on the evolvement of thediscourse, depending on time and space. Hence, as Diaz-Bone (2006, p.

76) pointsout, conclusions about theinterests or cognitionsof actors areignored by the interpretative analytics from Foucault.

In his later work, Foucault began to take a greater interest in thediscursive strategies and practices between individuals and thediscourse. His concept of subjects points at the same time to an

actor capable of initiating action and to a being subjected by power, sothat actors are never fully determined by a strategic situation (Feindtand Oels, 2005, p. 164 drawing on Foucault, 1982, p. 212). In thiscontext, subject positions are contingent and strategic locations

within a specific discursive domain (Gottweis, 2003, p. 253) while

actors do not have stable subjects but constantly develop theirsubjectivity in a discursive exchange (Gottweis, 2003, p. 253, relyingon Hajer, 1994, p. 5, and Laclau and Mouffe, 1985, p. 115).

According to Foucault, a large share of all human activities is

invested in controlling the discourse. Society aims to control, select,organize, and canalize the discourse (Foucault, 2003, p. 11). Thus,Foucault (2003, pp. 10 et seq.) identified different strategies in orderfor this scenario to take place:

Strategies of exclusion ban certain interpretations of reality bydiscrediting them in diverse manners. Such strategies include, forexample, the distinction between truth and falsehood or the

societal differentiation between sanity and insanity (Foucault,2006).They can bereflected in informal as well as formal rules andrespective interdictions on acceptable and unacceptable societalinterpretations and utterances. Foucault identifies the strategies of

exclusion as being external tools that influence the discourse. Internal strategies are instruments that regulate the flow of the

discourse from inside. Foucault (2003, pp. 17 et seq.) describes

three important types of internal strategies: commentary, author,and disciplines. Commentaries are the various recreations of mythsor certain stories that belong to the collection of knowledge in asociety. Commentaries have a paradoxical character: on one hand,

they are strongly connected to a society's earlier texts and storiesand reproduce them to a large extent. On the other hand,commentaries might go a step further and reshape the discourse,but without ever being able to escape it. Next to the commentary,

the Foucauldian interpretation of author is not the creativeindividual, but a function of the discourse itself. What the authorwrites and thereby includes or excludes in the creation of his work

is determined by the discourse of his epoch. Finally, disciplinesdescribe certain rules and customs that order and vest thediscourse in special fields, e.g. medicine or law.

Strategies of limiting access to discourses are obstacles thatutterances have to overcome in order to be able to contribute to

the discourse's evolvement; Foucault (2003, p. 25) cites rituals,discursive clubs, doctrines, and societal adoptions as examples.

Rituals are certain expressions and language-bound restrictionsthat are required in order to be accepted as a meaningful

contributor to the discourse, e.g. technical terms. Discursive clubsare more or less private associations that exclusively practice aselect and restricted discourse. Doctrines are specific elements of adiscourse that circulate among societies and exclude other

possible doctrines, having potentially serious consequences for

individuals not considering them. Lastly, societal adoptions (in the

sense of learning about discourses, e.g. via education) are anotherimportant strategy to limit individuals' access and therefore abilityto actively participating in the development of a discourse.

2.3. The art of governance: governmentality

In his later work, Foucault became increasingly interested inmacro-level aspects of societies and in the big questions of societal

and political governance, but never lost sight of the subject'sperspective and the powers affecting it. In this regard, the conceptofgovernmentality became influential for policy analysis (cf. Table 1).Governmentality draws on the Foucauldian concept of decentralized,omnipresent power. Thus, it can no longer be assumed that the

location of power rests with the sovereign, but instead one needs toinvestigate the many technologies and practices, fields of knowledge,

fields of visibility and forms of identity that constitute a ruler withcertain powers. [] This implies that government is not limited to the

state but can be exercised at all levels of society, namely asgovernment of the self, government of the family and governmentof the state (Oels, 2005, p. 188). Foucault thereby named differentepochs with changing techniques of government, e.g. Europe's

sovereign power in the middle ages, disciplinary power in the 15th

and 16th centuries, and bio-power in the 19th century.As for the last concept, biopower and biopolitics particularly

highlight the government's exploration of the individual, physical

needs (e.g. food), and sexuality (Foucault, 1999, p. 176). That is,biopower brought the former dichotomy to an end, which wasdistinguishing outside history, in its biotechnical environment, and

inside human historicity, penetrated the latter's techniques ofknowledge and power (Foucault, 1976, p. 146).

2.4. Summary

Table 2 recapitulates the main concepts and elements of Foucaul-dian thinking in a more consistent Foucauldian perspective.

3. Foucault in the forest

In the following section, the influence of Foucauldian thinking inthe analysis of forest policy is systematically explored. Accordingly, a

literature review was conducted in 2009, using Scirus, Sage, andGoogle Scholar. The combinations Foucault and forest policy aswell as Foucault and forests were applied. The literature wasexamined on the basis of its relevance. As a rule, only papers

published in peer reviewed journals were incorporated. That is,monographs or conference papers were not analyzed, with the

Table 1

Analytical framework for the study of governmentality (Oels, 2005, p. 189, based on

Dean, 1999, pp. 3033).

Analytical category Questions Examples

Fields of visibility What is illuminated,

what obscured?

What problems are

to be solved?

A map of biodiversity

with or without native

population included.

Technical aspect What instruments,

procedures and

technologies are used

to enforce authority?

Remote sensing of the

global environment

(via satellites)

Forms of knowledge Which forms of thought

arise from and inform

the activity of governing?

Program rationalities

(lean management)

Formation of identities What forms of self are

presupposed by practices

of government? Which

transformations are

sought?

The active job seeker

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exemption of few, particularly relevant book chapters. Ultimately,thirty-nine papers were selected for in-depth analysis.

For the analysis of the papers, the following dimensions wereselected: author, academic background, research motivation, regionalfocuses, topics and time span covered by analysis, disciplinaryapproach, frameworks, theoretical approach and Foucauldian con-

cepts used, methods, mainfi

ndings, and the conclusions drawn by thescholars on the value of using Foucault for their research.Additionally,the development of the studies over time was analyzed. In thefollowing, these categories are used for presenting the results.

3.1. Authors, academic background, and research motivations

Generally, authors that elaborate on Foucauldian ideas within thecontext of forest policy analysis have diverse academic backgroundsand publish in a wide range of journals. As the authors are

predominantly anthropologists, geographers, policy analysts, andplanning scientists, their studies were published mainly outside ofestablished forest science journals.

As for the research motivations, it is notable thatbesides a purely

analytical interestmany scholars adopt a critical attitude towardswhat they consider to be mainstream knowledge as well as towardshegemonic institutional powers. As a rule, state and capitalistinstitutions are approached with suspicion. For instance, Baldwin

(2003, p. 420) distrustfully notes that contemporary environmentaldiscourses are so attractive that they are being consciously appropri-ated by certain actors (states and capitalists) and used to advanceprivate interests above those of common concern. Hence, a notable

part of the authors' motivations for drawing on Foucauldian thought isthe aim to achieve goals beyond a purely analytical analysis, therebystriving to change political or scientific perspectives. For instance, inher analysis on prevailing colonial practices in current Australian

forest planning, Porter (2007) calls for a decolonizing of forestplanning in Australia; Leach (2008, p. 1793) further points out the

key role that researchers might play in generating a counterpolitics

that help to bring about the required changes. In most cases,however, Foucauldian scholars are hesitant to develop anything like a

solution strategy or a policy concept. Rather, the desire seems to be

to appeal to stakeholders and scientists so they will broaden theirviews and take the critical issues that arose from the scholar's analysisinto consideration. For instance, Peluso and Vandergeest's (2001,p. 766) analysis on the political construction of the colonial forest

states that [] we need to de-forest our minds to recognize thecontours of what politicalforests [] have caused history to forget. Inthis manner, scholars are often consistent with what has been saidabout Michel Foucault himself in terms of his social and political

engagement (cf. Table 2).

3.2. Regional focus

There are interesting regional preferences among the scholars thatapply Foucauldian thinking in forest policy analysis (Table 3). Whilenearly all of the papers were published by scientists employed byEuropean and North American universities, the majority of scholarsconducted their research in developing countries,1 looking at tropicalforests. As for the work carried out in developed countries, the well

known forest policy conflicts between the forest sector (including theforestry industry) and environmental groups in the Scandinavianboreal forests and Canada were addressed in seven studies. Australiaand New Zealand were the focus of research dealing with indigenous

participation (and exclusion) in four studies. In one of these papers(Ranganand Lane, 2001), an Australian and an Indian case study werecompared (this paper has therefore been counted as a half in Table 3and in the following tables). Finally, the global forest discourse wasanalyzed in two papers (Humphreys, 2009; Arts and Buizer, 2009).

3.3. Development over time

There has been a recent boom in the number of publications usingFoucauldian thoughts to analyze forest policy (Table 4). While no suchpublications could be identified prior to 1995, more than twenty-five

papers were identified from the lastfive years as havingused Foucaultwithin the context of forest policy, many of which were published inthe last two years. Despite a possible methodological bias in this

review due to the use of electronic search machines and the resultantpotentialunder-representationof earlier works, one can still note thatthe use of Foucauldian thoughts in the forests has become en voguewithin the last years.

3.4. Disciplinary approaches

There are two major disciplinary-theoretical paths that Foucault

went into the forest.

Table 2

Dimensions of a Foucauldian perspective

Foucauldian perspective

Epistemological

Rationality There's no eternal truth, only a variety of conflicting

rationalities aiming to order the stream of events.

Against nihilism and relativism therefore only the

socially and historically conditioned context []

constitutes the most effective bulwark (Flyvbjerg,

2000, p. 10).Sociological

Society Society with ongoing conflicts about truth

Idea of mankind Human interaction is characterized by the rhetoricaluse of language and the maintenance of interests.

Greatest fear Disciplinary society with an inviolable system of truth.

Powe r Power is amorph ous, ye t omnipre se nt in discourse;

it restricts and enables actions. Historically, varying

rationalities govern the state and, therefore, society.

Discourse All-embracing concept: Discourse as an omnipresent

wild stream of language and discursive practices that

gives meaning to social events.

Empirical applicability Problems of operationalization;

Clear methodology is lacking;Conjunction between discourse and individual actors

is rather ambiguous.

Political aspiration Strategic knowledge for oppressed people:

Activating actors by providing enlighteninggenealogies: To criticize the working of institutions

[] in such a manner that the political violence

which has always exercised itself obscurely through

them will be unmasked, so that one can fight them

(Foucault in Chomsky and Foucault, 1974, p. 171).

Critical labelling cynic and relativist (Habermas, 1987, p. 253, 294,

cit. in Flyvbjerg, 1998, p. 224)

Table 3

Regional focus of Foucauldian forest policy studies.

Scope of studies Number

Developing tropical countries 22,5

Developed countrie s (all), of these 14,5

Scandinavia/Canada 7

Australia/NZ 3,5

Others (developed) 4 (2 UK, Belgium, Poland)

Global 2

Sum 39

1 In the following, I am using categorizations such as developed and developing

countries in order to present my findings in a digestible manner. I am fully aware of

the discursive character and potential biases these categories entail. I have tried toreflect on the consequences where I could, but it is ultimately up to the reader to

deconstruct the suppressive or enabling effects of my own analytical discourse in this

paper.


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On one hand, Foucault's ideas have influenced the broad category

of literature that can be subsumed under the concept of post-structural political ecology. As Bryant (1998) shows in his reviewpaper, post-structural political ecology was established from mid-1990 onwardas the wayout of a certain paradigmatic crisis of political

ecology. Political ecology, according to Bryant, had its roots in neo-Marxist theories and went through a phase during the politicaldecline of Marxism in the late 1980 s and the following years that was

characterized by an eclectic range of theoretical sources. In thisregard, Foucault's ideas were part of the answer to the call for a turnto discourse by Peets and Watts in 1996: Post structural politicalecology borrows heavily from Foucauldian methodology to revealhow natures and bodily behaviors are drawn into existence through

the generation of knowledge, and why such practices should betheorized as exercises of power Baldwin (2003, p. 417).

On the other hand, Foucauldian perspectives have entered the

analysis of forest policy via the discursive turn in policy analysis(Fischer and Forester, 1993; Hajer, 1993, 1997), aiming at problem-atizing what conventional policy analysts take for granted: thelinguistic, identity, and knowledge base of policy making (Feindt

and Oels, 2005, p. 164). In this regard, it is worth noting that thediscursive turn has been particularly influential in analyses of natural

resource and environmental policy (cf. Oels, 2005; Hajer andVersteeg,2005; Memmler and Winkel, 2007).

Besides these two dominant perspectives, analyses of forest policyissues have been conducted against a disciplinary background thatmight be subsumed under an anthropological research perspective. Tosome degree, those studies are more focusedon the micro-politics or,

said differently, on the constraints of individuals in light of coercive(and enabling) Foucauldian powers.

When interpreting the overview of studies that have been carriedout within these perspectives (see Table 4), one must consider that

the perspectives are closely connected with one another. For instance,a discursive policy analysis approach might be easily combined with apost-structural political ecology analysis; in an analogous manner, ananthropological approach works well with a political ecology

framework. Taking this into account, the overview in Table 4 was

developed by drawing heavily on the self-classifications used by theauthors in their papers in cases when multiple interpretations werepossible.

In the end, it is interesting to have a closer look at the regional

distributions of the two major approaches, namely political ecologyand discourse/policy analysis. While the latter is used in analysescarried out in developing and developed countries and at the globallevel, political ecology approaches have, with one exception, only

been applied in developing countries. More precisely, Franklin's(2002) work on the Bialowieza forest in Poland is the only paperdrawing on Foucauldian thoughts and classifying itself as contributingto the political ecology of forests ona, as the author himself points out,

full European scale (Franklin, 2002, p. 1460).

3.5. Topics and time span

National forest policy andits related discourses andmajor conflictsare the most prominently addressed topics in the Foucauldiananalyses. Ultimately, 23 of the 39 analyzed papers address theseissues. In doing so, there is a striking difference regarding developing

and developed countries: In the latter, the main focus is on theanalysis of current national forest policy discourses and conflicts. Forthe developing countries, however, past forest policy is much more ofa central interest. This finding is related to the amount of studies that

are analyzing colonial forest policy.Several studies can be cited in this regard including, for instance,

the work ofPeluso (1995), Peluso and Vandergeest (2001) in SouthEast Asia, Sivaramakrishnan (1995) in India, Ambrose-Oji et al. (2002)in Cameroon, Sioh (2004) in Malaysia, Grainger and Konteh (2007) in

Sierra Leone, and Porter (2007) in Australia. Porter is a remarkableexception as she is doing her research in Australia, a developedcountry (although it does have a colonial history). There is, however,a specific problem in terms of distinguishing between the studies

focusing more on current topics and those concentrating on pastforest policies due to the strong link often found between colonialforest policy and actual forest policy practices. In this sense, manycolonial forest policy analyses carried out in developing countries also

emphasize the continuing prevalence of colonial practices in thepostcolonial areas, an aspect that must be taken into account wheninterpreting the overview in Table 4 (cf. also Section 3.8).

Similarly, the analyses of present forest policies drawing onFoucault also frequently incorporate a genealogic view of the past. Forinstance, both Van Herzele's (2006) genealogy of Flemish forest policyand Berglund's (2001) paper on Finland analyze recent conflicts by

embedding them in a systematic analysis of the developments overthe past decades. However, the time span covered in these papers ismostly post-WWII, which is opposite of the colonial papers.

Regional forest management, community forestry, and forest

planning are other topics that seem to attract Foucauldian scholarsin forest policy analyses. Again, distinguishing these studies fromthose within other scopes is challenging due to the use, in some

papers, of local cases to illustrate a broader national or eveninternational forest policy development (e.g., Rangan and Lane,2001; Sowerwine, 2004; and Li, 2007).

The topics selected for research are mirrored in the time spanscovered by the studies. The studies in developing countries are

generally given a broader time frame as compared to those comingfrom the developed world.

3.6. Frameworks, theoretical approaches, and Foucauldian concepts used

Regarding the theoretical frameworks and approaches, the analyzedstudies can be grouped as follows:

A first, large group of papers draws solely on Foucauldian concepts

such as governmentality in its analyses.

Table 4

Foucauldian forest policy studies I: Amount of publications/time, disciplinary

approaches, main topics, and time scope.

Number of studies conducted in

developing

countries

developed

countries

Sum

Publications/time

Before 1995

19951999 3 1 4

20002004 5,5 4,5 10

20052009 14 9 (2 global) 25

Disciplinary approach

Political ecology 9 1 10Anthropological/eth nographic 5 2 7

Policy analysis/discourse analysis 6,5 8,5 (2 global) 17

Others/Unclear 2 3 5

Main topics

International forest policy discourse 2

(Mostly) present national forest policy

conflicts/discourses

5 9 14

(Mostly) Past (colonial) forest policy 9 9

Regional forest management/community

forestry conflicts

7,5 2,5 10

Forest planning 1 3 4

Time scope

Present situation (less than a decade) 2,5 4,5 7

Most recent decades to present (e.g.,19902008)

6 6 (and 2global)

14

Several past decades/centuries and

recent times to present (e.g., 18502008)

12 4 16

Specific historical period (e.g., 18501920) 2 2

Sum 22,5 14,5 39



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A second group combines Foucauldian ideas with other approachesand frameworks.

A third group does not use an explicit theoretical framework, butinstead uses Foucauldian thoughts in a mannerguiding a descriptive

analysis.

While all of the papers that have been analyzed in this article areobviously inspired by and reliant on the work of Foucault, some ofthem do not use his thoughts in an elaborate way. A few papers, for

instance, rely on the Foucauldian idea of discourse and knowledge/power relation, but do not make use of Foucault's specific discourseterminology (as introduced in the beginning of this article). Otherpapers, however, explicitly draw on Foucauldian terminology. Table 5provides an overview of the use of Foucauldian concepts in all of the

analyzed papers.It has to again be pointed out that these categories are not easily

distinguishable as they are already closely related to one another inFoucault's writing; furthermore, some of the papers combine differentconcepts in their analyses. For the purpose of lucidity in this paper,

however, only the concept that was most intensively referred to hasbeen considered in Table 5.

During this process, one interesting difference occurred regardingthe regional distribution of the cases: Foucault's concept of govern-

mentality is much more frequently used when analyzing forest policyin developing countries. At the same time, policy discourse analysisseems to be more attractive for the analysis of forest policy issues indeveloped countries.

Finally, when regarding the group of papers combining Foucault'sconcepts with another theoretical approach, an elusive variety of thelatter can be distinguished. For instance, Foucault's concepts arecombined with, operationalized, and compared to:

the Habermasian concept of communicative rationality (Aasetre,

2006);

different concepts of political ecology, such as the Gramscianconcept of hegemony (Asher and Ojeda, 2009) or, simply put, in a

political ecology context;

concepts of other French philosophers, such as Latour (Berglund,

2001); the complexity theory approach of Deleuze and Guattari (Bonta,

2005);

a Lacanian psychoanalysis (Sletto, 2008);

modern governance approaches (Stanley et al., 2005); and

other discourse approaches, such as those of Hajer and Potter (VanHerzele, 2006; Joutsenvirta, 2009).

Even as regards the post-structural placing of Foucault's concepts,Franklin (2002, p. 1463) argues quite frankly in his unusual politicalecology paper (cf. Section 3.4) for combining Foucault's concept of

power and discourse with a critical realist research approach.

3.7. Methods

Taking the variety of theoretical approaches applied in theFoucauldian forest policy papers into consideration, it comes as nosurprise that there are also different methodological approaches usedin the analyzed papers (cf. overview in Table 5).

As a general rule and following a post-structural interpretativeparadigm going along with using Foucault, qualitative methods ofsocial empirical research have been applied. Again, a notable

difference can be made out with regards to the region in which thestudies are conducted: While most Foucault forest papers indeveloped countries are based on one single method (mostlyqualitative interviews or text analysis), the majority of studies

conducted in the developing world were done using a mix of differentmethods. It can only be speculated to which degree this choice ofmethods relates to the importance of post-structural political ecologyapproaches for research in those countries or, alternatively, todifficulties in gathering data in the developing world, particularly in

the case of local level research.

3.8. Main findings: discourses and governmentality

In this chapter, an overview is given of the main results found inthe Foucauldian forest policy papers. As it is not possible tosummarize each paper given the limits of this article, the idea is to

elaborate on some basic findings that cut across several papers inorder to identify certain common patternsin other words, to outlinethe Foucauldian forest policy analysis research findings discourse.

Table 5

Foucauldian forest policy studies II: Foucauldian concepts and methods used.

Number of studies conducted in

developing countries developed countries Sum

Foucauldian concepts used

(Just) Knowledge/power idea 2 3 5

Governmentality 10,5 2,5 13

Discourse (actual) 3 5 (2 global) 10

Discourse/Genealogy 4 3 7

Subjectivation/mircro power 2 2Other (superficial) notions 1 1 2Methods used

Qualitative interviews 9 5 14

Text analysis 8 5 13

(Participant) Observation 3 2 5

Essayistic-describing 2 4 (1 global) 7

Literature analysis 3 (1 global) 4

Others 3 (1 discussion, 1 oral history,

1 survey, also employing

unusual techniques such as

mapping and walks in theforests) (1 comp. institutional

analysis)

1 (1 discussion) (I comp.

institutional analysis)

5

Unclear 5 2 7Total: method mix 11 2 13

Total: single method 6,5 10,5 (2 global) 19

Sum (including unclear papers) 22,5 14,5 39



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From persistent power effects of (tropical) colonial forestryAs was previously mentioned, Foucauldian thinking has become

very influential in the analysis of colonial forest policies. Thus, analysesfocus on how the colonialstates constructed their forests and forestryina way that legitimized the exploitation of resources and tended toneglect the demands of local people. Colonial powers literally created

the forest by applying western sciences, mapping and zoning, includingthe designation of reserves (Cleary, 2005; Sivaramakrishnan, 1995),

controlling historical forest uses (shifting cultivation), and reducingforest diversity for biomass production purposes (Cleary, 2005).

For instance, Peluso and Vandergeest (2001) developed a genealogyofpolitical forests and customary rights in Southeast Asia. They pointout how the colonial forest administration seized the political forestswith the help of demarcation and forest laws. By declaring (race-based)

legal customary rights for the indigenous population, theycanalized thetraditional implicit usage rights according to their interests and wereable to install control mechanisms.

Sioh (2004) describes how the Malayan rainforest was constructed

as a space of fear and violence in opposition to the orderly rule of thestate by the British colonial authorities during the Malayan Emergencyin the decade prior to the country's political independence in 1957: Incontrast to the estates and towns, the forest was the antonym to the

controlled domain of the colony;a marginal space inhabited by those onthe margins of colonial society such as landless or unemployedimmigrants (Sioh, 2004, p. 732). Thus, achieving control over the

rainforestwas a central desire of thecolonial power inorder to suppresscommunist agitation.

In colonial forest policy, the hegemonic discourses for governingthe forests were based on a European cultural background. Porter

(2007), for instance, identifies two discourses that were competingwith each other in Australia's colonial forest historyconservationrooted in European romanticism and utility rooted in capitalism.

Hence, it is a common idea in many papers to demonstrate how, to

this day, discourses and forest use systems established by the colonialpowers have affected the forest policies from the former colonies.Therefore, explaining contemporary patterns of forest policy indeveloping countries almost inevitably requires a historical perspec-

tive. The intervention of the European and American colonial powers inthe third-world is especially crucial to understanding contemporarypatterns of human-environmental interaction and associated powerrelations (Bryant, 1998, p. 85). Colonial forest policy promoted

modern and rational forest management in a discourse of progress,a picturethat prevailed after thecolonial period andlegitimized the newnational state interventions, e.g. exploitative and centralized forestmanagement regimes (Scott, 1990; Bryant, 1996; Ambrose-Oji et al.,

2002). Within this context, the prevailing state ownership of forests inmost tropical countries provides evidence for the prolongation ofcolonial states power techniques (Kubo, 2008).

Even for a developed country such as Australia, Porter (2007)

illustrates how modern forest planning prolongs colonial mecha-nisms of forest policy, e.g. the production of space through its

definition and the classification of forests, the production of specificknowledge about it, and the production of appropriate and

meaningful action. These radical limitations of modern planningpractice are seen as being deeply oppressive [] for certain socialand cultural groups (Porter, 2007, p. 467), particularly as theyexclude native Australians.

Moreover, even modern forest management and conservationdebates at the global level can be interpreted as a prolongation ofcolonial discourses: The parallels between the debates in forest

circles in the 1930 s and those of the present-day are striking. It can beargued that the policies and discourses articulated here prefigured inmany ways contemporary debates about managing the tropical forestenvironment (see eg. Bryant, 1993; Thomas, 1998). [] Contempo-

rary post-Rio debates about the tropical forest can be viewed as

reflecting a growing conflict between hegemonic western concep-

tions of forest use and the role of local, indigenous knowledge which,as we have suggested, was all but eliminated as part of the colonialscientific project (Cleary, 2005, p. 281).

..and recent boreal forest wars

A second issue that has attracted the interest of Foucauldian forestpolicy analysts is the political battles between different groups,particularly environmentalists and the forestry industry, in boreal

forests (Berglund, 2001; Baldwin, 2003; Purdon, 2003; Stoddart,2007; Joutsenvirta, 2009). For instance, drawing on the Foucauldian

knowledge-power notion, Berglund (2001) presented an intriguinganalysis of the conflicts between conservationists and foresters inFinland. These groups fought the Finnish forest war over the propermanagement of the forests. As Berglund points out, the forest war

gradually turned into [a] rather staid competition over facts(Berglund, 2001, p. 833), thereby inevitably intertwining knowledgeand truth-construction with political power. Official Finnish forestpolicy constructed a picture of well managed Finnish forests as a

symbol of the nation and as a self-made resource to be proud of anduse properly: Through the 1990 s, state and industry rhetoricemphasized that if the timber was not harvested, all the hard work[to build up the Finnish forest with forest management] would go to

waste, or, to paraphrase the chair of the legislative committeedrawing up the Forest Act, timber would be left to rot in the forests(ibid., p. 839). On the other side of the battle, conservationistschallenged this perspective by highlighting the ecological functions of

the forest as a habitat or place of undisturbed wilderness that wasbeing endangered by intensive timber production. Scientific knowl-edge production and the disciplinary perspective of forest planningcontributed to the construction of the well managed Finnish forests:

Forestry's position was also strengthened by the avalanche of mapsand graphs produced for public consumption (ibid., p. 839).Interestingly, this strategy was adopted by the conservationists, too:

Like the forestry profession before them, the critics engaged in

extensive mapping exercises of the landscape, only this time puttingthe emphasis on species and landscape features long ignored by

industry

(ibid., p. 841). Thus, in the study by Berglund, theimportance of scientifically supported knowledge as an instrumentof power in forest policy conflicts became very obvious (cf. to bediscussed in the later part).

to general patterns of analysis

Beside the stories about colonial forestry and recent boreal forestconflicts, there are further interesting patterns in the Foucauldianforest policy studies that are described in this section.

In some studies, organizations and their specific interests and

strategies for influencing the discourse are put at the center of theanalysis when portraying the evolvement of discourses and competingdiscursive constructions of forests and forest policies over time.Schiellerup (2008) and Van Herzele (2006), for instance, focus on the

positioning of forest services in forest policy discourses. In the latterstudy, the story line of theurban forest was developed by the Flemishforest service and can be understood against the background of theFlemish forestry discourse as a tool to put the forest service in a more

comfortable political position. Schiellerup (2008) analyses how theBritishForestry Commission soughtto reinvent itself inrecentdecades(from hierarchical, ruralproduction forestrytoward a democratic, urbanamenity forestry) when core parts of its identity were challenged.

Other studies use the Foucauldian idea of governmentality toanalyze forest policy systems (cf. Tables 1 and 5). As a general rule,forest governmentality is analyzed with a particular focus on theexertion of power on different social groups, often taking develop-

ments over time into consideration. For instance, Ambrose-Oji et al.(2002) analyses how a biopower governmentality was first intro-

duced by the colonial power in Cameroon and was then, in the



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postcolonial area, taken up by the national state to control and exploitthe forests. Hence, a switch from the control of the territory as landtothe control of the territory as people (ibid., p. 151) occurred:

Authoritative dominance was consolidated through the application

of rational knowledge and systems of bioscience: These explored,charted, measured, and inventoried the forest [and] the forest'shuman populations were mapped, subjected to anthropological

classification and incorporated in administrative management

through the reinterpretation of social tradition and the invention ofchieftaincy (ibid., p. 153).In this context, it is interesting to observe the tensions andfrictions

that occur between different levels of governmentality and forestpolicy discourses. Some scholars demonstrate how global discoursesregarding sustainable forest management and environmental degra-dation are used to legitimize state intervention in forest policy andmanagement or to prevent local forest inhabitants from successfully

becoming empowered (Brosius, 1999; Asher and Ojeda, 2009; Medinaet al., 2009). Thus, the environmental state has adopted andnormalized this discourse (on participation, the author), and used itto legitimize the contradictory functions of forest protection and

exploitation demanded by local and global interests (Ambrose-Ojiet al., 2002, p. 159).

Ambrose-Oji et al. (2002) even point out the development of acomplex system of governmentality in recent decades, responding toboth global environmental and development discourses and the profit

interests of multinational companies. Yet, encouraging techniquessuchas community forestry andthe developed world's conservation-through-participation (ibid., p. 159) fundamentally serve thepurpose of surveillance (a Foucauldian panoptican) in anoppressive

manner: The environmental state constructs, through the discourseof participation, a lookout from which it can extends its gaze over theforests and its natural resources and into the life world of forest andforest margin communities (ibid., p. 158). Other scholars provide

similar interpretations of modern governance approaches that areactually meant to encourage civil society's participation, such as co-management, joint management, and participatory planning. They aredescribed as sagacious techniques to (re)invent the power of states

being confronted with a lack of resources and access to marginal land(Baviskar, 2001; Kubo, 2008). Moreover, the overextension of post-modern ideas [] could also be characterized as a kind of

cryptocolonial discourse effectively masking the commercial exploi-tation of knowledge, culture and biological resources (Gandy, 1996,p. 34, quoted from Ambrose-Oji et al., 2002, p. 165).

Following the dialectic notion of the Foucauldian power concept,

however, those developments also give new chances to local actorsand marginalized groups to resist and develop their own discursivestrategies by adopting and transforming the hegemonic macro-discourses at the micro-level. For instance, Pulhin and Dressler

(2009) show how local communities can, given certain conditions,be effective in negotiating or even be resistant to a state policy aimingat centralizing power under a mask of decentralization, thus con-

trolling their own timber resources.

and discursive strategies

There are many discursive strategies analyzed by scholars withinthe reviewed literature. These strategies are summarized in thefollowing section.

A prominent pattern found in many studies is the crucial role of

modern forest sciences in exerting control and power on forests andtheir people. Following Scott's notion of how the state sees theforest (1998), modern forest sciences were developed in Germanyin the late 1700 s to simplify the complex biological dynamics of

forests in order to set up and manage forests stands for extraction andproduction. During colonization, this European idea of modern

(Cleary, 2005) forestry was spread all over the world and served as an

essential discourse for colonial powers: The introduction ofscientificforestry in colonial Asia illustrates this point nicely.[] The mainpurpose of scientific forestry was the promotion of long-term com-mercial timber production [] central to the imperial economies. But

for this system to succeed, a major transformation in local social andecological conditions was required (Bryant, 1996, p. 87). In doing so,

a discourse of forestry as progress was [] developed in which

appropriate forest use was defined largely in terms of a commercial

timber extraction, which was asserted to be both ecologically soundand financially remunerative to the state, while other local activitieswere denigrated (the destructive shifting cultivator), marginalized(i.e., minor forest products) and even criminalized (ibid., p. 87).

As has already been pointed out, colonial discourses continue to beinfluential for current forest policies as does the exclusionary functionof modern, scientific forest management. As Leach (2008, p. 1785)

puts it, scientific forestry and scientific conservation include thenotion of human action only as disturbance to this forest nature, andthey include particular conceptions of scientific forestry or scientificbiodiversity that define what good forest should be, and which aim topreserve or reconstitute this. Such ideas often originated with the

scientific theories that circulated amongst networks of imperial andcolonial scientists. They became institutionalized within the routinesof forest bureaucracies, and, in many cases, important to theirrevenue-generating capacities. As a consequence, modern forest

and biodiversity science entails a particular notion of sustainability,what is claimed as universal. [] Other Sustainabilities are framed outof this dominant picture (Leach, 2008, p. 1791).

Within this context, forest science is frequently described as beingeconomically biased against its ontological starting point: This link

between forest science and economic interest, however, is not to beunderstood as departmentalcooptionby industrybut,instead, as a sign ofideological alignment. Forestry is an applied natural science, positivisticin nature with a strong adherence to measurable and quantifiable

evidence. Claims by forestry to objectivity and truth translate intoscientific determinism and result in the discrediting of any counter-sciences (after Paehlke, 1989), a stance typical of economic rationalism(Brueckner, 2007, p. 151). In his Australian case study, science was

purported to be the backbone of the analyzed planning processes andto replace emotional argumentswith facts (ibid., p. 153). This,accordingto Brueckner, eventually turned out to be a crucial weakness regarding

the political acceptance of the whole process.Another influential discursive strategy that is closely related to the

role of science is the importance of classifications, categories, and

mapping. As Sowerwine (2004, p. 105) puts it, apparently mundane

land use classifications are in fact powerful mechanisms for statecontrol. In this sense, many scholars point at the importance of forestclassification systems and mapping (Peluso, 1995; Berglund, 2001;Sioh, 2004; Sowerwine, 2004; Wong et al., 2007). Sowerwine (2004),

for instance, describes how Vietnamese forests are made legible byusing various mechanisms to survey, classify, map and register forestland parcels, a set of processes labelled territorialisation. Moreover,

Peluso (1995), while highlighting forest maps as being an instrumentwith which to exert power in Indonesia, describes the success of

counter-mapping by local communities and NGOs as a strategy toact against the centralized state's resource planning in order topreserve their own interests and traditional rights. Counter-mapping,

however, also has consequences for social structures as it freezes thetraditional usage right system andthus abandons its formerflexibility.

Following a Foucauldian notion, disciplines, rituals, and discursiveclubs (Chapter 2) are also referred to as discursive strategies

(Berglund, 2001; Van Herzele, 2006). In the case of the Flemish forestpolicy discourse, Van Herzele (2006, p. 681) points out (quoting VanMiegroet in De Boskrant, July 1989) that the circle of those takingpart in the discourse became extremely limited in the past because

under no circumstances, forest management may be consigned to

persons, [] who are not familiar with the forestry methods and who



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do not know the international forestry world. Thus, to be allowed toput ina word about the forest one ought to be an agricultural engineerin forestry studies and preferably graduated at Ghent University too(Van Herzele 2006, p. 81, quoting Hermy; personal communication,

2004).

3.9. Reflections on Foucauldian thinking and challenges

Ultimately, it is interesting to consider how the Foucauldian ideasand concepts used by the scholars are discussed and reflected in thepapers. When looking at this aspect, it is astonishing that only one of

the 39 analyzed studies critically reflects on a Foucauldian concept itused. In his case study on forestfire policy in Mexico, Mathews (2005)criticizes the Foucauldian governmentality concept for not consider-ing the effects of strategic ignorance. While the official discourse on

fire suppression is shared in this case at both the national and local

policy levels, it turned out to be a public secret that the official firesuppression policy seldom manifests itself in local practices. Evenbeing ineffective on the ground, the dominant fire suppressiondiscourse can serve the forest service by both providing legitimacy

for its existence in influential, urban milieus and by offering apermanently available reservoir of justification and power for stateintervention at the local level. Thus, Mathews eventually points outthat the link between power and knowledge is more ambiguous than

it might seem from a simple interpretation of governmentality.This lack of direct critical reflections on Foucault's concepts is rather

paradoxical when considering the critical aspirations and self-con-ceptualizations of many scholars using a Foucauldian approach. In a

more indirect manner, however, one point seemed to have challengedquite a few of the scholars doing Foucauldiananalysesthe relationshipbetween discourses and social practices. For instance, as Van Herzele(2006,p. 675, quotingHealey, 1999, p. 28) points outin hergenealogyof

the Flemish forest policy discourse, apparently successful efforts in thetransformation of policy rhetoric may fail to transform policy practicesbecause either therhetoric does not reach the routinesof practice or thechanges leave contradictory deeper cultural assumptions in place.

Sletto (2008, p. 1945), in a similar vein as Mathews (2005) and also

in a case study on fire suppression policy, but without explicitlycriticizing Foucault, points out the frictions between discourse andpractices, laconically noting that despite the long presence of the fire

suppression discourse and programs in Venezuela, the indigenousPermon burn as before. Comparable limitations on the effects ofhegemonic discourses are also described by other scholars (Sowerwine,2004; Pulhin and Dressler, 2009). In this sense, lacking material and

administrative state capacities seem to limit the power of hegemonicstate discourses on the ground, thus making discourse analyses at thenational level less conclusive and,consistent withFoucauldian thinking,directing research interests at the level of micro-power and individual

constraints.However, this perspectiveis seldom appliedin a consequentmanner in Foucauldian forest policy papers.

4. Conclusions

What can we learn from this review of Foucauldian studies onforest policy?

Before entering into this discussion, it seemsnecessary to reflectonthecharacter of the sample of papers I incorporated in my analysis in ordertoavoid overly generalized conclusions: Thus, it must be said that it is likelythat not all of the papers that wouldhavepotentially been relevant forthis

article could be identified; furthermore, the selection of papers wascertainly biased in terms of the type of publication (peer reviewed

journals) as wellas thelanguage (English). Hence, theprobably significantbody of non-peer reviewed literature and books that use Foucauldian

concepts and thoughts when analyzing forest policy have been excludedin this analysis. Moreover, focusing on the key word Foucault has

certainly let to a neglect of what one may call Foucault lite approaches

that draw on similar ideas, but do not name or cite Foucault himself.2 Itwould be highly interesting to address these limits by utilizing literaturereview techniques that explicitly aim to find these types of publication(e.g. by using a snowball approach) or new possibilities which arise from

the digital availability of many book publications as well as greyliterature. However: Taking the limitations of the corpus into account,the selected papers are believed to provide an insightful impression of

how Foucauldian thinking has influenced the analysis of forest policy.

Inthisconclusion,the questionof whatwe mayhave learnt from thisreview is addressed by again posing the questions that were raised atthe beginning of this paper: first, how Foucauldian thinking has

influenced the analysis of forest policy and what has been used andanalyzed; second, what has beenexcludedfrom the analysis; and, third,how Foucauldian perspectives can enhance the theoretical knowledgeof forest policy analysis and how it may be used in future analyses.

Concerning the first question, the analysis reveals an impressive

diversity of research areas and topics as wellas disciplinary, theoretical,andmethodic approaches that will notbe summarized again here. Thereare, however, some general patterns concerning almost all of the casesthat can be emphasizedby drawing on a list provided by Feindt andOels

(2005, p. 164) on discourse analysis in environmental policy. Namely,allof the studies have the following features in common:

a skeptical attitude towards claims of a single rationality andobjective truth and particularlytowards central state and capitalist

discourses; an inclination to regard knowledge as contingent and principally

contestable;

an understanding that language and knowledge need to be ad-

dressed as aspects of power; an interest in the suppressive effects of dominant types of

language and knowledge; and

an emancipatory motive and interest in broadening the available

knowledge base and democratizing policy making.

The second question regardingaspects that have been neglected inFoucauldian forest policy studies (which I actually consider to be a

real Foucauldian one) shall be discussed in more detail here.First, on the subject of the regional distribution of case studies thatwere analyzed, I find the focus of governmentality/political ecologystudies on forest policy in developing countries worth reflecting on.

This holds especially true when this finding is compared to theregional distribution of case studies using other approaches in forestpolicy analyses (cf. for the Advocacy Coalition Framework: Sotirovand Memmler in this special issue). Stanley et al. (2005, p. 686), whennoting a similar regional bias with regards to political ecology, point

out that critical studies of the environment and, more specifically,environmental governance have tended to focus on the environmentof developing countries, as issues of environmental conservation and

justice are felt more acutely, so it is argued, in theseareas (Wilson and

Bryant, 1997). Adopting a particular view of forest policy, they arguethat political ecology and similar theories stemming from Marxistapproaches to nature have sought to investigate highly politicisedforestry governance []. In Europe the greatest body of work comesfrom the casestudies in Nordiccountries, whose pre-eminent position

derives undoubtedly from what Rannikko (1999) terms their

particularly abundant forest resources (ibid., p. 686).While this is likely to provide a good explanationfor boththe peak in

developingcountries andthe secondary boreal forest foci, I would liketoeven go one step further in my interpretation. My argument is that itseems as though scholars have something like their own hegemonicdiscourse in which issues and regions are felt to be adequately

2 Having said this, it is important to note that the semi-quantitative approach I havechosen regarding the tables in the results chapter must not be misinterpreted in the

sense of statistical representativity, but instead recognized for their sole aim of

illustrating the findings of the review in a more transparent manner for the reader.


http://-/?-http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2010.11.009http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2010.11.009http://-/?-

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addressed by a Foucauldian forest policy analysis. In other words,colonial forest policies pose a plausible example for problematic andoppressive forest governance and, consequently, serve as a wellaccepted playground for Foucauldian analysts. On the other hand, I

find it striking that I could not find any in-depth Foucauldian studies on,for instance, forest policy in the United States (from recent times or thepast) or in Germany (which is surprising given that the German

approach to scientific forestry is pointed to as being a role model for

colonial forestry in many countries (Scott, 1998)). This is a paradox:While a notable share of scholars is at least associated with Americanuniversities, these individuals are mostly conducting their critical

research in the developing world. Moreover, they are frequentlydeconstructing the oppressive effects of hegemonic Western discoursesin those countries, while being silent about the effects of thosediscourses on the forests and people in the countries in which thosediscourses originated. To me, this regional exclusion of developed

countrieswiththe notable exception of indigenous issues in Australia/New Zealand and the well known boreal forest conflictscounteractsFoucault's interest in the powerful (oppressive and enabling) forces ofthe normal daily life discourses in Western countries.

This is not only to say that I would find it challenging to formulateresearch questions as to how current or past forest governmentalities(often also closely related to state and capitalists systems of forest use)

oppress a diversity of forest related societaldemands by maintaining ahegemonic and science-based discourse on sustainable forest manage-

mentin thedeveloped world.In this context,I findthe results ofthe onlystudythatI was ableto locate comparing the forestpolicyof a developedcountry (Australia) and a developing country (India) revealing: Whenanalyzed with regards to language, the role of state, and the

accommodation of indigenous groups, the Australian regional forestassessments turned out to be less encouraging and participatory thanIndia's joint forest management (Rangan and Lane, 2001).

Moreover, Foucauldian forest policy analyses should try to unmask

the subversive and gradual forces of discursive power and the exclusionof those societal groups that have, until now, been neglected by scholars.For instance, I would find it interesting to not only consider thesuppression of local indigenous people in the colonized/developing

world,but also to investigate thediscursive power effects of an urbanizedsociety and a capitalist forest sector discourse on forest owners, workers,and other forest users in the developed world. Furthermore, it may also

be challenging to analyze the suppressive and exclusionary as well asenabling effects of forest governmentalities and discourses which areexplicitly different than the Western state and capitalist discourses, suchas traditional forest use systems all over the world.

In this regard, it seems promisingto practice muchmore comparativeresearch designs involving both developed and developing countries'forest policies.Thus, in contrast to thecurrent situation, even researchersfrom the developing world could be invited to unmask the powerful

effects of Western world forest policy discourse in developed countries.In summary, my claim is that a Foucauldian forest policy analysis

should pay heed to its Foucauldian appeal and thus be eager to escape

a little from large hegemonic narratives on colonial forestry and theboreal forest conflicts. Let me not be mistaken: More than a decade ofgaining Foucauldian insights about forest policies has produced aninvaluable knowledge reservoir. That being said, the time seems rightto more systematically address those regions, topics, and discourses

that have been excluded in the current scholars' discourse.In this regard, another interesting discovery in this review is that a

striking majority of all Foucauldian forest policy analyses wereconducted by scholars associated with research institutions outsideof the forestsector (such as geography and anthropology) and were notpublished in scientific forestry journals (such as Forest Policies andEconomics). It can only be speculated whether this finding is merely afunction of the academic training of the scientific staff in forest schools

or if it points to a conscious reluctanceof forest policy analysts (and the

related funding agencies) with regard to these critical approaches.

This finding leads me, however, to the final question that has beenposed: how Foucauldian perspectives can enhance the theoreticalknowledge of forest policy analysis and how it may be used in futureanalyses. First of all, taking into account the findings of this review, it

has to be said that Foucault's thoughts are more of a philosophical

world view than an applicable theory or framework of analysis. Thus,Foucault offers a challenging meta-theoretical perspective for scho-lars, but the high level of abstraction together with his ambiguous

methodology leaves room for a huge variety of theoretical applica-tions and research practices. As Dean (1999, p. 7) puts it, referring tothe most frequently adopted concept of governmentality, it is amixed substance and one that only works when alloyed with others ;

Stanley et al. (2005, p. 681) even considers governmentality to be a

telos (utopia) of government, while governance theoryand researchwould address the real situation.

In this sense, Foucault offers a thought provoking perspective, butleaves it to the scholar to make use of the perspective by combining it

with or reducing it to an applicable theoretical framework and byoperationalizing it with adequate methods. Having this in mind,neither the diversity of approaches found in this review, nor the lackof concrete criticism towards Foucauldian thoughts is surprising:

Understood as a major theoretical worldview, the Foucauldianconcepts themselves literally escape from the critical view ofFoucauldian analysts (cf. Section 3.9) who, in this sense, inevitablybecome limited and suppressed themselves by the Foucauldian

discourse.How can we avoid this suppressive Foucauldian effect when being

Foucauldian? While the answer also fundamentally depends on thedegree to which one shares the Foucauldian idea of the death of the

author, I consider it worthwhile to have a look at the methodical andtheoretical boundaries that have been established within theFoucauldian perspective on forest policy analysis.

There are methodological and theoretical exclusions to be found.

Concerning the first, the most notable is the avoidance of anyquantitative analytics in all of the studies analyzed. This is, of course,less surprising considering the post-structural appeal of Foucault'sconcepts and their strong interpretative roots. Taking a pragmatic

point of view, however, I find no reason why it should not bepromising to at least integrate quantitative elements such as e.g.counting key statements or references to certain discourses over time,

and combining them with the qualitative set of methods which isalready being used in the studies.

Even more challenging things could be done regarding theories.Two major problems occur in many Foucauldian forest policy studies,

and actually in Foucault's work itself:First,the striking question of thedegree to which discourses and governmentality matter given

findings that they are sometimes contradicted by resistant socialbehaviour or, more broadly, a material reality. Second, there is the

question of the amount of flexibility existing for individual agencywithin the Foucauldian discourse. Concerning the first question, thecombination of research guided by Foucauldian perspectives and

approaches that share a radically distinct theoretical discourse and, assuch, concentrate on, e.g. the analysis of material factors, would bereally interesting; this is in cases in which both perspectives areapplied to the same research problem/forest policy arena.

As for the second issue, I consider it essential for forest policy

analysis to concentrate more on subjects such as discursive elites,marginalized, and mainstream groups, and to focus on the agency ofthe elites, asking how they produce, influence, interact with, and areconstrained by hegemonic or counter-hegemonic knowledge orders.

Eventually, subjects could also be systematized according to thedegree of constraint and individual discursive power. In this sense,combining actor-centered analysis with a Foucauldian concept ofdiscourse might be an interesting path to follow.

Putting all of these ideas together, future Foucauldian studies on

forest policy might consider the following suggestions:



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be flexible in combining different methods and also considerintegrating quantitative elements in the analysis;

use comparative perspectives, particularly involving different cul-tural backgrounds and developing as well as developed countries;

address the big question ofdoes discourse matter? by combininga Foucauldian design with a distinct theoretical discourse in oneresearch consortium, such as rational choice and the analysis of

material goods, and dealing with the same issue;

focus more on the role of subjects in terms of both constrained andmarginalized groups that have been overlooked in existing worksas well as power exerting, discursive elites; and

be an active Foucauldian in the sense that one tries to work at theedge of the Foucauldian forest policy research discursive streamin order to let it flow into regions, topics, and suppressions thathave not yet been addressed and detected.

Finally, having brought Foucault into the forest, one might askwhether there is a way for him to leave. This is difficult to guess. Whilethe current boom of letting Foucault in personam inspire forest policyanalysis will probably abate one day, his main ideas and, more

generally, the post-structural perspective will most likely notdisappear. This paper has shown that there is still so much territoryto be explored by using a Foucauldian discourse, be it with developedcountries, silent marginalized groups and elites, or forest schools. Inthis sense, the Foucauldian exploration of forest policy has just begun.

Acknowledgements

I warmly thank Michael Memmler for his contributions to anearlier version of this paper and Metodi Sotirov for his comments on a

draft version. Furthermore, I would like to thank the policy theoryworking group that compiled this special issue, and DanielaKleinschmit in particular, for the challengingand sometimes evenfundamentaldiscussions on the topic, as well as two anonymous

reviewers for their comments.

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