Tag Archives: governance

310. A framework for Fair Trade: Exit, voice and loyalty

2012-10-09 Coffeelands Staff Comments Off

I have moved four times since I finished graduate school more than 10 years ago. Precious few of my textbooks have traveled with me through all those long-distance moves. One that has is a slender, dog-eared volume that advances in relatively few pages an exceptionally robust conceptual framework: Albert Hirschman’s Exit, Voice and Loyalty. Applying […]

309. Fair Trade and governance, revisited

2012-10-08 Coffeelands Staff Comments Off

The Fair Trade Certification system has been convulsed since Fair Trade USA broke ranks with Fairtrade International more than a year ago, introducing its ambitious Fair Trade for All initiative and changing the rules of the game. The substance of the decision rankled coops and Fair Trade pioneers. But what seemed to really unite opposition […]

217. The FT4All debates: A summary

2011-11-10 Coffeelands Staff Comments Off

On Halloween, I published a post summarizing everything written here on the Fair Trade for All debate and promised to leave this issue alone for a while. With new information continuing to emerge in this evolving process, it has proven harder than I thought to keep my word. Yesterday I published three more new posts […]

211. Fair Trade for All: A summary

2011-10-31 Coffeelands Staff Comments Off

(NB: An updated version of this summary, including links to new content, was published on 10 November 2011.) A few weeks ago I was pulled into a meeting with Paul Rice from Fair Trade USA that sent this blog swerving off its normal path and into a collision course with controversy. For the past month […]

207. Governance matters

2011-10-21 Coffeelands Staff Comments Off

Fair Trade USA recently decided to break with Fairtrade International and change the rules governing Fair Trade Certification. Fairtrade International, for its part, decided to increase the representation of producers in its governing body. These decisions shine some light on a dimension of the coffee trade that often goes unnoticed and underappreciated — coffee chain governance. […]