Power is fundamental to co–management in numerous ways. In this chapter, key theoretical approaches to the concept of power are reviewed, drawing on conceptions of ‘power over’, ‘power to’ and similar. The chapter then investigates the concept of power in three ways: what power sharing means and how it is experienced, what dominant power relations are observed in co-management and what empowerment means in the context of co–management. In relation to power sharing, it is found that power is often unequally shared, with government having greater power than resource users, evidenced in control of resources and decision-making. Dominant power relations include elite capture, patron–client relations and gender relations. Constraints on the potential for co–management to be empowering for resource users are found to be related to power dynamics and unequal power sharing, encouraging a more technical approach to empowerment being taken rather than a more critical, political approach.

The main contention of Chapter 6 is that the legal predominance of the internal market objective in this field of regulation has not been to the detriment of the protection of health. While the broad reach of the TFEU free movement provisions does mean that most Member State measures can be scrutinised by the Court of Justice for their restrictive effect on cross-border trade, the case law does not reveal a consistent hostility towards national control measures. The picture is rather one of unpredictability. In addition, the harmonisation practice of the EU legislature shows that the market functions mostly as an auxiliary to health, or, at times, fades away behind the objective of health protection. This invites a re-evaluation of the concept of the internal market in EU law.

Chapter 2 lays the foundations for the study and further clarifies its scope. Unhealthy lifestyles are defined here as collective patterns of unhealthy behaviour, based on choices from options available to people according to their life chances. This definition highlights four key dimensions central to the book: the health risks associated with those behaviours, their consumable nature, their voluntary character and, finally, the relevance of social norms and structural factors. The chapter explores the health dimension in greater detail for each of the three categories of products studied here, tobacco, alcohol and unhealthy foods, clarifying the health risks to which consumers are exposed and introducing the central regulatory questions raised by each category.

Many factors influence the perceptions, attitudes and behaviour of actors in co-management, from trust and perceptions of legitimacy to the timing and extent of participation. The chapter introduces and reviews concepts that have less extensively been applied to analyses of the co-management of renewable natural resources. These concepts are personal values, behaviour, social norms, identity and agency. The chapter draws on literature from social psychology and philosophy to identify key characteristics of each concept and identify what has been learnt from application of these concepts to relevant contexts to the co-management of renewable natural resources. The chapter concludes by identifying key and recurring themes, particularly related to the need to understand the social context of co-management, the role of social norms and the links between values, behaviour, identity and agency and the rights and pursuits of justice of Indigenous Peoples and local communities involved in co-management.

The book finishes with a concluding chapter that identifies and brings together key insights from the earlier chapters. From a review of these key insights, four cross-cutting themes are identified: co-management as process, the relevance of power, the context of co-management and co-management as social relationships. Following discussion of these themes, a new definition is offered for co-management, inspired by the centrality of social relationships to the foundational concepts of co-management. A conceptual framework elaborates on this definition and offers a guide for the analysis and practice of co-management, one that seeks to deliver on rights and justice, as well as shared goals, accountability and legitimacy. Implications of this new, or alternative, definition of, and perspective on, co-management for practising co-management are identified and an agenda for supportive research set out.

The conclusion addresses the three questions asked. (i) What are the powers of the EU to regulate unhealthy lifestyles and how have these powers been used to date? (ii) How does EU law balance the objective of building a market for unhealthy products with that of reducing and eliminating their consumption? (iii) How does EU law balance market uniformity with the diversity and scientific uncertainty associated with lifestyle practices? It argues that EU legislation in this field remains framed predominantly in economic terms. As a result, debate continues to revolve largely around the relationship between the internal market and scientific or public health concerns. The book concludes that future EU intervention should be accompanied by reforms to the constitutional framework of competence and by greater recognition of the political, moral and cultural dimensions of unhealthy lifestyles.

Chapter 8 approaches diversity through cultural and moral lenses. It concerns the acceptance of EU intervention, the legitimacy of its action in a sensitive field, ripe with moral and ethical controversies. The EU’s approach can broadly be divided into three strands, which are not mutually exclusive. The first is the Europeanisation of choice, most apparent in tobacco regulation, where the EU has adopted a quasi-prohibitionist stance with seemingly broad support from Member States. Strikingly, this occurs in the absence, both legally and politically, of arguments grounded in individual rights and autonomy. The second is an approach of insulation, relevant to alcohol and certain ‘heritage’ foods, where national regulatory choices remain shielded from European influence, either because of the EU’s reluctance to act or because of political deadlock. The third concerns the application of proportionality in free movement cases, and the extent to which cultural and moral arguments are accommodated in the adjudication of national restrictive measures.

The scale of social-ecological systems – spatial and temporal – matters for co-management as very often multiple actors and sectors are involved, operating at and across different administrative levels, including across national boundaries. This creates challenges for building relationships, delivering on accountability and transparency, and for fair and effective participation. Geographically dispersed actors involved in collaborative governance may lead to fragmented systems and processes. Responses to such challenges within natural resource governance have included the adoption of multilevel, network and polycentric governance. Collaboration in relation to each of these approaches is investigated, with review of the concepts of scale, networks and polycentricity to identify implications for the concept and practice of co-management.

As co-management often involves resource-using community participation, understanding of what is meant and understood by the concept of community is critical. The chapter therefore begins by recognising the contested nature of the concept of ‘community’, noting critique of assumptions regarding shared interests and priorities, and reflects on different forms of community, how communities may emerge over time and recognition of ‘delocalisation’ of communities in relation to natural resource governance. Different bases of social cohesion are then considered and forms of the related concept of social capital reviewed. Insights from research into how cohesion and social capital influence co-management emphasise the centrality of relationships. Given that co-management may involve multiple and diverse communities, representation of actors is generally necessary. The section on representation considers what representation implies and what bases of representation have been found within the experience of co-management.

Institutions are considered as ‘rules of the game’ in this chapter, which is informed by two approaches taken to the analysis of institutions in natural resource governance. The first approach centres on viewing co-management itself as an institution. This section draws on common property theory and Ostrom’s design principles for sustainable common property regimes. The section also considers insights from literature on ‘institutional fit’ as a response to scale mismatch to identify lessons for co-management. The second approach is concerned with investigating which institutions shape co-management and how, from formal, bureaucratic institutions of policy and legislation to informal, socially embedded institutions, such as customary systems, kinship ties and gender norms. Critical institutionalism suggests that bureaucratic and socially-embedded institutions may interact through processes referred to ‘institutional bricolage’, with implications for how co-management evolves and performs.