PrintStakeholders make efforts to influence non-market issues within particular institutional settings or "forums." These forums are defined by the nature of the potential resolution determining the issue’s impact upon interested stakeholders. For issues associated with potential or evolving legal constraints, stakeholder bargaining occurs within a legislative forum. For example, if your organization lobbies for subsidies to help with electricity generation in Congress, that would be influence in a legislative forum, which would mean that the issue is resolved through new and revised legislation.
Once laws are established, the formulation of rules for implementation and the application of those rules occurs within a regulatory forum. The outcomes for these issues are determined through regulatory agency rule-making and rule administration. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is one such arena.
Issues engaged by stakeholders within the court system are resolved within the judicial forum. These issues are resolved through court decisions. For example, if lobbyists contested the electricity generation subsidies in court, that would be resolution through the judicial forum.
In addition, stakeholders may seek to influence an issue within the private political forum. Private political actions, such as protests and boycotts, are not intended to result in new legislative, regulatory, or judicial constraints. Instead, private politics can influence issues by changing the payoffs to the choices facing stakeholders in non-market issues. Some examples of private political action can include blogging that turns viral, phoning or commenting on a company's website, and Twitter campaigns, to name a few.
Non-market issues often evolve systematically through the various forums for non-market action. Early in the life-cycle of an issue, stakeholders will be learning about and assessing the private costs and benefits of alternative positions and issue outcomes. At this stage, stakeholders may engage in private political action in order to influence those payoffs, to themselves and other stakeholders. While the issue is just emerging, the implications for all potential stakeholders are not fully understood. Consequently, the issue is unlikely to be affected from constraints that only arise within formal public political forums–legislative, regulatory, or judicial.
The potential for public political action increases as the costs and benefits of an issue become more clearly defined. First, stakeholders may attempt to create a framework for public governance through legislative action. If legislation is created to address an issue, regulatory action will be required to establish rules for public governance. These regulations define how regulatory authorities commit to resolve conflicts that are not resolved through market-based exchange. Finally, some stakeholders may conclude that a conflict has not been resolved through regulatory administration. In this case, they may decide to improve their outcome through court action.
Private and public non-market forums represent a broad range of opportunities for non-market action. The remainder of this lesson discusses tactical options specific to each of these non-market forums.