Reaping the Seeds of Discord: Advocacy Coalitions and Changes in Brazilian Environmental

311 Pages·2017·3.74 MB·English

The London School of Economics and Political Science

Reaping the Seeds of Discord: Advocacy Coalitions
and Changes in Brazilian Environmental Regulation

Flavia M. M. Donadelli

A thesis submitted to the Department of Government of the London School of
Economics for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, London, September 2016.
DECLARATION

I certify that the thesis I have presented for examination for the MPhil/PhD degree of
the London School of Economics and Political Science is solely my own work other than
where I have clearly indicated that it is the work of others (in which case the extent of
any work carried out jointly by me and any other person is clearly identified in it).
The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted,
provided that full acknowledgement is made. This thesis may not be reproduced
without my prior written consent.
I warrant that this authorisation does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights
of any third party.
I declare that my thesis consists of 79,240 words.
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ABSTRACT

This is a thesis about the main drivers of regulatory change. Departing from theoretical
approaches focused on the ‘policy process’ – such as the Advocacy Coalition
Framework (ACF) and the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) – this work investigates
the main reasons behind the marked changes that occurred in the regulation of three
Brazilian environmental policy areas between 2005 and 2015. The policy areas under
investigation are Forestry, in particular the approval of a new Forest Code in 2012;
Access to Genetic Resources and Benefit Sharing, specifically the new 2015 law on the
topic (Lei 13.123/2015); and Pesticides, in particular, regulatory changes concerning
the registration and use of new products.
In order to assess the reasons for regulatory change in these three areas, this thesis
qualifies the latest version of the Advocacy Coalition Framework's explanation for
policy change as developed by Weible and Nohrstedt (2013). The thesis explores the
role of the four causal factors advanced in the ACF – external events, internal events,
learning and negotiated agreement – and assesses them in relation to the three case
studies. It does so through process-tracing of each sector’s history and content analysis
of arguments proffered in National Congress debates, interviews with key actors and in
the national media.
The findings of this thesis qualify the ACF expectations regarding policy change and
suggest that events external and internal to the policy areas analysed might be
sufficient sources of regulatory change. Negotiated agreement and learning were not
necessary sources of regulatory change in two of the three cases investigated. Among
the external events identified as relevant for the regulatory changes are the increased
relevance of commodity production and export between 2008 and 2013 and the
consequent increase in the political and economic power of the agribusiness sector.
The main internal events identified point to the importance of the beginning of the
enforcement of previously non-enforced regulations; the limits of the state’s capacity
to enforce previous regulations; international negotiations; and media scandals.
Finally, incentives generated by international negotiations were found to be crucial
determinants of negotiated agreement and learning between coalitions, in the only
case in which these occurred (Access to Genetic Resources and Benefit Sharing).
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am deeply grateful to all those who contributed to this work. I own the
conclusion of this thesis to the time, patience and generosity of so many people that
listing a few names is certainly unfair. A few people, however, cannot go unremarked.
First and foremost, my supervisor Professor Martin Lodge was a crucial
guidance and inspiration throughout this process. He read the endless versions of
these chapters in a diligent and timely manner and provided me with constructive and
vital feedback that rescued me from the several tides of confusion and deadlock
through which I navigated over the past 4 years. Most of all, I am sincerely grateful to
him for believing in, welcoming, and nurturing my aspiration to pursuing a PhD when I
first came to LSE as a MSc student 5 years ago. In a similar way, my adviser Dr. Kira
Matus provided me with invaluable comments and support at the initial stages of this
project. Although at later stages she embarked on the fascinating journey of
motherhood, the lessons I grasped from her sharp, objective and clear reasoning
certainly accompanied me throughout this entire project and are reflected in the final
results.
Second, I am immensely grateful to all those people who helped me during
my fieldwork in Brasilia. Those six months would not have been so insightful and
enjoyable without the generosity of Professor Cristina Inoue from University of
Brasilia, who received me with open arms, generously sharing her ideas about Brazilian
socio-environmentalism and her own office space with me. I could not sufficiently
express my gratitude, moreover, to Dr. Francisco Gaetani, who opened so many doors
of Brazilian bureaucracy to me and introduced me to the machinery of Brazilian
Ministry of Environment. Finally, the 58 interviewees who dedicated one or more
hours of their time to answering my questions and to sharing the amazing universe of
their professional experiences with me provided not only with much needed
information, but also nurtured my admiration and curiosity about the engines of public
administration and regulation.
Third, this research would not have been possible without the financial
support of CAPES (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel),
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a governmental agency within the Brazilian Ministry of Education. The support they
provided was decisive for the continuation of this project, which was initially pursued
without funding for one year. They allowed me to focus my entire attention to this
research for three years which was an inestimable help.
Fourth, my colleagues from ‘the PhD room’ (and LSE in general) were a
fundamental point of support during this often solitary journey. The daily lunches and
conversations with Takuya Onoda, Nimrod Kovner, Ricardas Juskevicius, Izabella
Correa, Bernando Rangoni and Heidi Wang were much appreciated opportunities to
share the joys and distresses of this process, and to cultivate friendships that will
certainly last beyond the conclusion of our theses. In a similar way, I am immensely
indebted to my friends from Closer (Challenges of Multidisciplinarity in Socio-
Environmental Research), Carolina Schneider Comandulli, Giovanna Grandoni, Grace
Iara Sousa, Larissa Boratti, Rafael Morais Chiaravalloti, and Tiago Ávila Martins Freitas,
who enriched my life with their wonderful researches, experiences, dreams and also
provided important feedbacks to my research. Also a big thank you to Dr. Thomas
Eimer, with whom I share the interest for Access to Genetic Resources and Benefit
Sharing in Brazil, and who has provided me with valuable feedbacks and stimulating
conversations about the topic.
Finally, I am the most indebted to my family which has always
unconditionally supported me and provided me with the necessary confidence to
venture on new roads. Their care and love is at the very base of any of my
achievements and they can be warmly felt, even across the ocean that so frustratingly
physically separates us. At last, there would be no words to tell Philipe how grateful
and lucky I am to have had him by my side during this entire process. This thesis is
dedicated to him, who had to endure not only the practical difficulties involved in
accompanying me to the UK, but also the emotional challenges involved in completing
it.

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CONTENTS

LIST OF GRAPHS ................................................................................................................ 8
LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................... 8
LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................. 8
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ................................................................................................. 10
PART 1: ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK ............................................................ 12
CHAPTER 1 - FRAMING THE PROBLEM ....................................................... 13
1.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................ 13
1.2. Importance .............................................................................................................. 16
1.2.1. Why the Advocacy Coalition Framework? .................................................................... 16
1.2.2 Why Environmental Regulation? ................................................................................... 19
1.2.3 Why Brazil? .................................................................................................................... 19
1.2.4 Why these Cases and Timeframe? ................................................................................ 22
1.3. Research Design ...................................................................................................... 24
1.4. Methods of Data Analysis and Collection ................................................................ 26
1.4.1. Methods of Data Analysis ............................................................................................. 26
1.5. Overview of the Thesis ............................................................................................ 34
CHAPTER 2 - ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK I: THE ADVOCACY COALITION
FRAMEWORK .............................................................................................. 36
2.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................ 36
2.2. The Advocacy Coalition Framework ........................................................................ 36
2.3. Analytic Parameters and Observable Implications .................................................. 39
2.3.1. External Events ............................................................................................................. 42
2.3.2. Internal Events .............................................................................................................. 44
2.3.3. Policy-oriented Learning ............................................................................................... 44
2.3.4. Negotiated Agreement ................................................................................................. 46
2.3.5. ACF’s limits and the contributions of this thesis ........................................................... 48
2.4. Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 54
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CHAPTER 3 - ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK II: BRAZILIAN ENVIRONMENTAL
DISCOURSES ............................................................................................... 56
3.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................ 56
3.2. A framework of Brazilian Environmental Discourses .............................................. 58
3.3. The Four Discourses ................................................................................................ 63
3.3.1. Neo-developmentalism ................................................................................................ 65
3.3.2. Preservationism (Deep Ecology) ................................................................................... 70
3.3.3. Socio-environmentalism ............................................................................................... 71
3.3.4. Administrative economic rationalism ........................................................................... 75
3.4. Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 77
PART 2: EMPIRICAL CASES .......................................................................... 79
CHAPTER 4 – CASE STUDY I: FORESTS ........................................................ 80
4.1. The History of Forest Policies in Brazil .................................................................... 81
4.1.1. Introduction .................................................................................................................. 81
4.1.2. The Alternation of Discourses in Forest Policies from 1530 to 2005 ............................ 81
4.1.3. The 2005–2015 Decade: Standards and Saliency Analysis ........................................... 87
4.1.4. Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 90
4.2. The 2012 Forest Code ............................................................................................. 90
4.2.1. Introduction .................................................................................................................. 90
4.2.2. The Different Positions ................................................................................................. 91
4.2.3. The Narratives .............................................................................................................. 97
4.2.4. The Coalitions ............................................................................................................. 101
4.2.5. Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 103
4.3. ACF Sources of Policy Change ............................................................................... 104
4.3.1. Introduction ................................................................................................................ 104
4.3.2. External Events ........................................................................................................... 105
4.3.3. Internal Events ............................................................................................................ 110
4.3.4. Negotiated Agreement ............................................................................................... 111
4.3.5. Policy-oriented Learning ............................................................................................. 116
4.3.6. Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 127
CHAPTER 5 – CASE STUDY II: PESTICIDES ................................................. 130
5.1. Introduction .......................................................................................................... 130
5.2. A brief history of Pesticide Regulation in Brazil ..................................................... 131
5.3. Narrative and Coalition Analysis ........................................................................... 137
5.3.1. Narrative Analysis ...................................................................................................... 137
5.3.2. Thematic Coding ......................................................................................................... 142
5.4. Sources of Policy Change ....................................................................................... 146
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5.4.1. Internal Events ............................................................................................................ 147
5.4.2. Negotiated Agreement ............................................................................................... 149
5.4.3. Policy-oriented Learning ............................................................................................. 152
5.5. Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 159
CHAPTER 6 - CASE STUDY III: ACCESS TO GENETIC RESOURCES AND
BENEFIT-SHARING (ABS) REGULATION ..................................................... 161
6.1. Introduction .......................................................................................................... 161
6.2. The history of ABS regulation ................................................................................ 163
6.3. Positions, Arguments and Narratives .................................................................... 167
6.3.1. Positions ..................................................................................................................... 167
6.3.2 Thematic Coding .......................................................................................................... 169
6.3.3 Narrative Analysis ....................................................................................................... 174
6.4. The ACF sources of policy change ......................................................................... 179
6.4.1. Internal events ............................................................................................................ 179
6.4.2. Negotiated agreement ............................................................................................... 181
6.4.3. Policy-oriented learning ............................................................................................. 186
6.5. Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 191
PART 3: COMPARATIVE DISCUSSION ........................................................ 194
CHAPTER 7 - COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS .................................................... 195
7.1. Introduction .......................................................................................................... 195
7.2. The Time for Neo-Developmentalism? ................................................................. 196
7.3. External Events and the Legitimising Power of a Strategic Narrative ................... 200
7.4. Internal Events and Changes to the cost/benefit Calculation ............................... 204
7.5. Negotiated Agreement and the Importance of a Hurting Stalemate .................... 209
7.6. Learning through ‘Elite Networking’ ..................................................................... 212
7.7. Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 215
CHAPTER 8 - CONCLUSION ....................................................................... 218
8.1. Introduction .......................................................................................................... 218
8.2. Results: What Explains Regulatory Change in the Brazilian Case? ........................ 219
8.2.1. Sources of Policy Change: What is Sufficient? What is Necessary? ............................ 219
8.2.2 What is the Impact of Opportunity Structures? ........................................................... 220
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8.2.3. Observing Variation: What Motivates Learning and Negotiated Agreement? .......... 223
8.3. Contributions to Wider Debates ........................................................................... 225
8.3.1. Contributions to Theoretical Debates ......................................................................... 225
8.3.2. Contributions to Empirical Debates ............................................................................ 230
8.4. Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 233
APPENDIX I ................................................................................................................... 237
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................. 291

LIST OF GRAPHS
Graph 1 - Historical series of deforestation levels in the Legal Amazon (km2/year) ................. 87
Graph 2 - Percentage of Actors in each Group Supporting None, Partial or Extensive Changes to
the Previous Forest Regulation ................................................................................................ 102
Graph 3 - Main policy problems on the agenda about pesticides (2005–2015) ...................... 136

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1 - The relationship between different sources of policy change ................................... 50
Figure 2 - The Myths of Nature .................................................................................................. 61
Figure 3 - Dominance of Discourses in Brazilian Environmental Politics .................................... 65
Figure 4 - Dominant Discourses in Brazilian Forestry Regulations and Policies ......................... 81
Figure 5 - Argumentative map of the debate about the new forest code ................................. 99
Figure 6 - Latin America and the Caribbean: real private investment and commodity export
price growth, 2004–14. ............................................................................................................ 107
Figure 7 - Commodity Prices .................................................................................................... 107
Figure 8 - Brazilian agrifood trade between 1995 and 2013 .................................................... 107
Figure 9 - Actors’ positions on the pesticide ideological spectrum .......................................... 145
Figure 10 - Analysis of coalitions .............................................................................................. 145
Figure 11 - Timeline of main regulations and events of the ABS policy subsystem ................. 162
Figure 12 - Argumentative map of the debate about the new ABS Law .................................. 169
Figure 13 - Dominance of discourses in Brazilian environmental politics ................................ 196
Figure 14 - Summary of the causal pathways to policy change ............................................... 220

LIST OF TABLES
Table 1 - Data analysed in each case study ................................................................................ 33
Table 2 - Summary of ACF’s sources of policy change, causal mechanism and observable
outcomes .................................................................................................................................... 41
Table 3 - Sources of policy change, causal mechanisms and observable outcomes proposed by
this thesis ................................................................................................................................... 42
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Table 4 - Typology of coalition opportunity structures .............................................................. 52
Table 5 - Summary of Brazilian opportunity structure ............................................................... 54
Table 6 - Summary of Dryzek’s Checklist of Elements for the Analysis of Environmental
Discourses .................................................................................................................................. 59
Table 7 - Ideology Frame of Brazilian Environmental Narratives ............................................... 63
Table 8 - Main forest standards approved between 2005 and 2015 and their salience ............ 89
Table 9 - Comparison between forest codes .............................................................................. 92
Table 10 - Main positions and number of actors in each coalition ............................................ 96
Table 11 - Narrative analysis .................................................................................................... 101
Table 12 - Top 5 donors to Lula’s campaign - 2002 .................................................................. 108
Table 13 - Top 5 donors to Lula’s campaign - 2006 .................................................................. 109
Table 14 - Top 5 donors to Dilma’s campaign - 2010 ............................................................... 109
Table 15 - Top 5 donors to Dilma’s campaign - 2014 ............................................................... 109
Table 16 - Scientists participation in Lower Chamber debates ................................................ 120
Table 17 - Use of scientific information by politicians in Lower Chamber debates ................. 124
Table 18 - Comparative table of positions of members of each coalition before and after the
SBPC/ABC report ...................................................................................................................... 126
Table 19 - National Congress recent decisions on pesticide-related regulatory changes ........ 134
Table 20 - Policy problem citations per year (excluding same author citations) ..................... 136
Table 21 - Narrative Analysis main policy problem .................................................................. 142
Table 22 - Number of citations of specific policy problems by actor groups ........................... 143
Table 23 - Technical arguments identified in Lower and Higher Chamber debates between 2005
and 2015 ................................................................................................................................... 156
Table 24 - Use of technical information by politicians in Lower and Higher Chamber debates
between 2005 and 2015 .......................................................................................................... 158
Table 25 - Narrative analysis .................................................................................................... 177
Table 26 - Participation of scientists in Lower Chamber debates ............................................ 190
Table 27 - Use of scientific information by politicians in Lower Chamber debates ................. 190
Table 28 - Summary of the coalitions ....................................................................................... 197
Table 29 - Example of the argument of social inclusion being used in debates about the new
Forest Code .............................................................................................................................. 202
Table 30 - Summary of relevant internal events ...................................................................... 205
Table 31 - Comparative analysis of the occurrence of a hurting stalemate between cases .... 210
Table 32 - Summary of findings about the occurrence of learning .......................................... 213
Table 33 - Summary of Brazilian opportunity structure ........................................................... 221

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