Policy change through the lens of private forest owners’ business cooperation : a case study of Slovenia and Slovakia

Uhan, Zala (author), Dobsinská, Zuzana (author), Báliková, Klára (author), Pezdevšek Malovrh, Špela (author)

The transition to a market economy in some former socialist countries such as Slovenia and Slovakia have led to a remarkable change in private forest ownership, more specifically to the emergence of a large number of private forest owners (PFOs) with limited knowledge and experience in forest management. Since then, PFOs have posed a challenge for implementing EU and national forest policy goals. To support efficient private forest management and policy implementation, governments have responded by proposing various policy instruments, including PFOs business cooperation. Therefore, the aim of this study is to analyse and compare a PFOs business cooperation as a policy instrument and the role that external events have on forest policy change related PFOs cooperation. Implementing the Advocacy Coalition Framework this study is based on a longitudinal analysis of forest-related policy documents (1993–2024) at three points in time. The results confirm that normative policy core beliefs remain stable over time, while external events such as the restitution process, EU accession and changed socio-economic conditions (e.g., GDP growth, decline in rural population and lower dependence of PFOs on income from agriculture and forestry) have caused changes in secondary beliefs. Financial support from the state budget and EU funds has been provided to encourage PFO business cooperation, but the interest of PFOs to join such cooperation has been limited. While economic support is crucial, it alone is not sufficient to increase the willingness of PFOs to engage in business cooperation. Greater use of informational policy instruments is needed to motivate PFOs to engage.

• Language: English
• Keywords: longitudinal policy analysis, advocacy coalition framework, secondary beliefs, small-scale private forest owners, business cooperation
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: BF - Biotechnical Faculty
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2025
• Number of pages: Str. 307–322
• Numbering: Vol. 71, iss. 4
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-176698
• UDC: 630*93
• ISSN on article: 2454-0358
• DOI: 10.2478/forj-2025-0009
• COBISS.SI-ID: 237289987
• Publication date in RUL: 09.12.2025

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Central European Forestry Journal
• Shortened title: Cent. Eur. For. J.
• Publisher: National Forest Centre and Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague, Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences
• ISSN: 2454-0358
• COBISS.SI-ID: 2910089

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: longitudinalna analiza politik, koncept zagovorniških koalicij, sekundarne vrednote, zasebni lastniki gozdov, poslovno organiziranje

Projects

• Funder: Other - Other funder or multiple funders
• Funding programme: Slovak Research and Development Agency
• Project number: APVV-20-0429
• Name: Efektívna štátna správa lesného hospodárstva
• Acronym: EFEKTLES

• Funder: Other - Other funder or multiple funders
• Funding programme: National Agency for Agricultural Research
• Project number: QK23020008
• Name: Payments for ecosystem services of forest and forestry
• Acronym: NAZV ZEMĚ