Kathryn Hochstetler

The Sovereign Limits of Global Civil Society: A Comparison of NGO Participation in UN World Conferences on the Environment, Human Rights, and Women

The increased visibility of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and social movements at the international level invites continuing evaluation of the extent and significance of the role they now play in world politics. While the presence of such new actors is easily demonstrated, international relations scholars have debated their significance. The authors argue that the concept of global civil society sets a more demanding standard for the evaluation of transnational political processes than has been applied in prior accounts of transnational activity. Further, most empirical studies of this activity have focused on a limited number of NGOs within a single issue-area. Using three recent UN world conferences as examples of mutual encounters between state-dominated international politics and global civic politics, the authors develop the concept of global civil society to provide a theoretical foundation for a systematic empirical assessment of transnational relations concerning the environment, human rights, and women at the global level.

Rethinking Presidentialism: Challenges and Presidential Falls in South America

Since the South American countries returned to civilian government in the 1970s and 1980s, twenty-three percent of their elected presidents have been forced to leave office before the end of their terms. This striking rate of early presidential exits has received little systematic attention, although it should be central in debates about the quality of democracy and possible instability in presidential systems. Why and how do South Americans demand their presidents leave office early? Since 1978 the most serious challenges have come from civilian actors, in the legislature, on the streets, or both together. The challenged presidents were more likely to be personally implicated in scandal, to pursue neoliberal policies, and to lack a congressional majority than their unchallenged counterparts. The presence or absence of street protests then played a cen tral role in determining which presidents actually fell.

After the Boomerang: Environmental Movements and Politics in the La Plata River Basin

This article focuses on one common transnational NGO strategy, the boomerang strategy. In this strategy, Southern NGOs seek international allies to help them pressure their states from outside. The article uses a case study of a transnational mobilization against a water superhighway or Hidrovia in the La Plata River basin in South America to develop arguments about the long term impacts of throws of the boomerang. I argue that what happens after the boomerang depends on two related factors: the extent to which the target state(s) have accepted the international norms at stake and the presence or absence of a specific set of domestic capacities in the target state(s). Because Brazil has higher levels of national environmental legal capacity and greater acceptance of international environmental norms than its neighbors, environmentalists were able to block the Hidrovia there after the successful collective pressure, while Argentine environmentalists were not.

Brazil and the politics of climate change: beyond the global commons

Assessing the changing role of the emerging powers in global climate change negotiations, with special attention to Brazil, we ask why they have agreed to voluntary reductions at home without formalising those commitments in ways that might persuade other large emitters to make similar binding commitments. We argue that for very large emitters, the climate issue does not evince the ‘global commons’ logic often attributed to it. Instead, since their actions can directly affect climate outcomes alone or in small groupings, large emitters are more responsive to domestic cost-benefit calculations, making international commitments based on shifting interest group pressures at home. In Brazil, a coalition of ‘Baptists and bootleggers’ found principled and interest-driven reasons to support new climate commitments after 2007.

The Renewed Developmental State: The National Development Bank and the Brazil Model

This study examines how Brazil operationalised a renewed developmentalist project during the democratic period, and especially during the presidency of Lula da Silva. We use an original data set of 2,115 loans made by the Brazilian National Development Bank (BNDES) between 2002 and 2011 to show elements of both change and continuity with Brazil’s developmentalist past. Large loans continued to flow to many of Brazil’s historic large firms and industrial sectors – as reported widely – but the data also show significant numbers of smaller loans to firms in all sectors, as well as renewed support for internationalisation and innovation. We conclude that BNDES’s lending reflects less a wholly new model of developmentalism than it does a developmentalist strategy that has been renewed and updated for the challenges and opportunities of a more market-oriented economy.

Wind and Solar Power in Brazil and China: Interests, State–Business Relations, and Policy Outcomes

This article examines developments in the renewable electricity sector in Brazil and China since 2000. The two countries share many interests with respect to solar and wind power, but institutional differences in state–business relations led to different outcomes. In China, in a context of corporatist state–business relations, state interventions were more far-reaching, with the state coordinating with state-owned banks, offering large financial and investment incentives to state-owned or state-connected enterprises. By contrast, in Brazil’s public–private partnerships, state support to promote renewable energies was shaped by a stronger preference for competitive auctions and stricter financing rules. The differences in state–business relations help explain the observed developmental trajectories in wind and solar power.

Latin American environmentalism: Comparative views

This article examines three common generalizations from the literature on Latin American environmentalism. The validity of these generalizations, structured as hypotheses, is tested with four case studies from Costa Rica, Mexico, Venezuela, and Brazil. The first generalization is that tensions arise between international environmentalists principally concerned with wildlands conservation and national environmentalists engaged in a broader array of local and domestic issues including urban environmental quality and access to natural resources. The second is that environmental groups in Latin America are elitist in structure and participant base. The third is that the particular tactics employed by environmentalists will be closely tied to the relative openness of their nation’s political system. Through a cross-disciplinary case study approach we find the first two hypotheses quickly break down upon closer inspection, while the third is supported. We suggest a modified framework for interpreting environmental activism in the region, one that weights the role of the state as well as the competing strategies employed by grassroots, private voluntary, and professionalized environmental groups. Latin American environmentalism is highly diverse, presenting many faces in different time periods and different countries. Developing one general theory of environmentalism in Latin America is impossible, but more specific categorizations of the middle range may be achievable.

Emerging Powers in the Climate Negotiations: Shifting Identity Conceptions

The BASIC countries (Brazil, China, India, South Africa) have played a major role in recent climate negotiations. We argue that a focus on identities—both their individual national identities as emerging powers and their joint identity as the BASIC coalition of emerging powers—is useful for understanding the coalition’s negotiation stances and the larger negotiation dynamics between 2009 and 2011. BASIC countries maintain a hard defining line between themselves and developed states in terms of their climate obligations but accept some differentiation between themselves and other developing countries, thus adding a destabilizing third category of countries to the climate negotiations.

South-South Trade and the Environment: A Brazilian Case Study

As South-South trade gains new weight in global exchange patterns, will environmental protection be enhanced or endangered? Environmental economists are generally optimistic that trade will lead to greater environmental protection, but see less chance of that in South-South trade; political economists make opposite arguments on both points. This article shows that South-South trade is dominated by a small set of fourteen countries, with most Southern countries continuing to be natural resource providers. Case studies of Brazils trade with China and with its South American neighbors reveal a policy framework that supports both of the opposed arguments: Southern countries can and do consider the environmental impacts of their production and trade, but strong counter-forces limit that effect.

The G-77, BASIC, and global climate governance: a new era in multilateral environmental negotiations

The G-77 has historically organized the participation of developing countries in multilateral environmental negotiations. This article analyses the impact of a new coalition of emerging powers - Brazil, China, India, and South Africa as BASIC - on the G-77s role in climate governance. While there are important benefits for both sides in their relationship, I argue that the G-77 is also disadvantaged in several concrete ways by the BASIC countries.