Trust relationships between fishers and government: New challenges for the co-management arrangements in the Dutch flatfish industry

Abstract

Until the 1990s fisheries were largely managed by the state. Since then, Dutch government and the sector increasingly recognized that a fishing industry cannot be managed effectively without the cooperation and participation of fishers to formulate policy and to implement and enforce laws and regulations. As a result, in the nineties, the existing neo-corporatist arrangement was replaced by a co-management system in the Dutch flatfish fishery. Co-management is often seen as leading to greater procedural legitimacy and subsequently compliance. However, constructing an effective co-management arrangement is not only a matter of building institutions but also a matter of building trust relations between the government and industry. Institutional arrangements such as co-management can contribute to these trust building processes; however, a too strong reliance on institutional arrangements can lead to distrust when new challenges are being faced and institutional arrangements fail to adapt to these changes.

Introduction

Whereas previously, fisheries were largely managed by the state, since the 1990s, governments and the fishing industry have increasingly recognized that the sector cannot be managed effectively without the cooperation and participation of fishermen in different stages of policy making (policy formulation, implementation, and enforcement). Also, the development of fisheries industries and policies in Western states have been confronted with and influenced by a general shift from government to governance. Changes have taken place in the forms and mechanisms of governance, the location of governance, governing capacities, and styles of governance [1], [2]. Traditionally, governance was associated with government, i.e. the formal institutions of the state and its monopoly of legitimate coercive power [3]. Horizontal and vertical processes have resulted in an erosion of the traditional bases of power of the nation states. The former refers to the blurring of the distinctions between state, market, and civil society at the national levels, the latter to a relocation of politics below and beyond the nation state. The shifting locus (multiple actors and levels) and the shifting focus (new rules of the game and steering mechanisms) of governance [4] have resulted in, for example, decentralized, flexible, and consensual styles of governance [5], [6], the development of public–private partnerships [7], [8], [9], and a growing role of international and supra-national institutions [6], [10].

As a result, various policy arrangements have emerged as an expression of the changing relationships between state, market, and civil society [5]. For example, in fisheries policy, co-management systems have been developed as a partnership arrangement using the capacities and interests of the local fishers and communities, complemented by the ability of the government to provide enabling legislation, enforcement and conflict resolution, and other assistance [11]. Proponents of co-management argue that increased stakeholder input can lead to better management. They posit that a process that engages fishers leads to greater procedural legitimacy and enhances the quality of regulations due to better information about the resource and distributional consequences of regulations [12], [13], [14]. In turn, fishers choose to comply with regulations if they perceive the rules or the decision-making process as legitimate [15].

However, many researchers have warned that co-management is not a panacea for problems of legitimacy and regulatory capture [12]. Constructing an effective co-management arrangement is not only a matter of building institutions but also a matter of building trust between the parties and social capital in general. Trust appears to be a determinant of success in many cases of co-management, as a prelude to building a working relationship [7]. It is, however, rarely addressed and elaborated in the literature on fisheries governance.

Trust is an important building block in democracy where absolute control of governments is impossible. When trust relations exist and when policy is perceived as legitimate, the rules are more likely to be complied with. It is further believed that in the case where people trust others to comply they are more likely to comply themselves. Governments may play an important role in this matter. Hardin [16] states the following: “A good government enables its citizens to trust among themselves”. Trust is particularly important in fisheries, as they are characterized by major scientific uncertainties regarding the level of the fish stocks. Furthermore, fishermen and scientists use different parameters as a measure for stock size [17]. This often leads to different perceptions regarding the level of fish stocks and related regulations and compliance: “The gap between the research/statistical-based knowledge and experiential-based knowledge has the potential to undermine the legitimacy of the management system” [18], [19]. A deceptively simply way out of the structural scarcity of trust noticeable in many fishery industries is the reliance on institutional arrangements such as co-management. Institutional rules are being relied upon, in this perspective, as self-reproductive, self-enforcing, path dependent, and self-perpetuating, and no one is expected to distort them or interfere with their expected operation [20], [21]. However, as Offe [20] states, this is a rather naïve point of view, as institutional arrangements are incomplete, ambiguous, and contested.

The aim of this paper is therefore to show, by using the case of co-management in the Netherlands, how trust is built both among fishers, and between fishers and the government, but also how trust can disappear again. The co-management arrangement is a suitable framework for analyzing trust relationships between fishers and the government, as in these participatory arrangements public and private interests meet and interact and jointly define problems and formulate solutions. By describing and analyzing the institutionalization and the shifts from one institutional arrangement to another, it is possible to analyze the role of trust in these different institutional arrangements. It is especially important and valid to study trust in a changing context, as these periods of change are often characterized by high levels of uncertainty. Uncertain situations require trust, and it is in these situations that it becomes apparent whether or not it exists.

For this research, qualitative research methods were applied in a historical case study design. In general case studies are the preferred strategy when ‘how’ or ‘why’ questions are being posed, when the investigator has little control over events, and/or when the focus is on contemporary phenomena within a real life context [22]. The historical perspective applied to the development of the various institutional arrangements that characterized the Dutch flatfish industry from 1975 to 2010 serves to make an analysis of the shift of trust in the course of time and to better understand the processes that contribute to changing trust relationships.

The empirical data were collected during the period 2002–2009. Over thirty interviews (semi-structured) were conducted with flatfish fishers from different regional areas in the Netherlands. In addition, ten interviews were held with fisher representatives of the two national fishery organizations and with governmental officials. Also researchers of the Agricultural and Economics Research Institute (LEI) were interviewed (informally) and secondary material was used (interview reports, scientific literature, and policy documents). The material content was analyzed focusing on the presence of trust. The presence of trust in a relationship cannot be asked directly, but needs to be observed and explored in different ways. As Nooteboom [23] states: ‘a pledge of trustworthiness in mere words is cheap and unreliable’. Nonetheless, a whole pattern of actions, expressions, and relational signaling can give important clues. Such clues include whether actors have positive expectations of one another, if they share sensitive information, are willing to take risks, or demonstrate reciprocity (de Vos and Bush, forthcoming).

The next section starts with an introduction and discussion of the conceptual framework of policy arrangements and trust, followed in Section 3 by an empirical analysis of the shift in arrangements in the Dutch fishing industry and the role of trust in each of them. The final section draws conclusions about the role of trust and legitimacy in fisheries governance and how it is related to specific arrangements.