Civil society in local sustainable transformation – can bottom-up activities meet top-down expectations?

Abstract

The aim of the article is to explore whether and how local civil society – grounded in bottom-up activities – responds to a top-down initiative with expectations of sustainable transformation. The focus of our research is the possible role of civil society organizations as agents in collaborations aiming for a forest-based bioeconomy. The research was conducted in a local area within the sparsely populated Swedish region of Värmland, characterized by a strong tradition of forestry. The study is explorative and uses qualitative methods: interviews with representatives of local civil society actors, participant observations of local meetings and workshops, and document analyses. Our results suggest that general policy expectations concerning the inclusion of civil society become vague when operationalized in documents at the regional level, and lack clarity concerning the roles expected from civil society. Civil society organizations (CSOs) contribute in a multitude of ways to local social, economic, and environmental sustainability. However, the inclusion of CSOs as full actors in collaborations requires a greater knowledge of the traditions and structure of Swedish civil society, as well as its conditions and challenges in different local contexts.