IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/glenvp/v14y2014i4p97-115.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Blame Games in the Amazon: Environmental Crises and the Emergence of a Transparency Regime in Brazil

Author

Listed:
  • Raoni Rajao

    (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais)

  • Yola Georgiadou

    (International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation, University of Twente)

Abstract

Expanding on recent debates in environmental governance and political science, we show that the relationship between environmental transparency and public accountability is far from linear and politically neutral. This is particularly true in moments of environmental crises, when transparency regimes are most likely to emerge as an integral part of the palette of blame-avoidance strategies of accountors in their attempt to disqualify accountees’ perceptions of environmental harm and irreparable loss. Drawing upon the study of blame-avoidance strategies in political science, we discuss the emergence and evolution over time of deforestation monitoring in Brazil, a transparency regime based on GIS and remote sensing led by the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research since 1989. We arrive at three conclusions. First, the evolution of transparency regimes is conflictual, culturally embedded, and emergent. Second, the relation between accountors and accountees changes over time as blame-avoidance strategies unfold. Finally, solutions in a blame game may cause a future crisis, as the social context changes and becomes incompatible with the transparency regime of the day. Based on these considerations, we argue for the need to understand the instrumental dimension of transparency regimes alongside their normative and substantive dimensions.

Suggested Citation

  • Raoni Rajao & Yola Georgiadou, 2014. "Blame Games in the Amazon: Environmental Crises and the Emergence of a Transparency Regime in Brazil," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 14(4), pages 97-115, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:glenvp:v:14:y:2014:i:4:p:97-115
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/GLEP_a_00259
    File Function: link to full text PDF
    Download Restriction: Access to PDF is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Biermann, Frank & Gupta, Aarti, 2011. "Accountability and legitimacy in earth system governance: A research framework," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 1856-1864, September.
    2. Aarti Gupta, 2010. "Transparency in Global Environmental Governance: A Coming of Age?," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 10(3), pages 1-9, August.
    3. Arthur P. J. Mol, 2010. "The Future of Transparency: Power, Pitfalls and Promises," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 10(3), pages 132-143, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mercio Cerbaro & Stephen Morse & Richard Murphy & Jim Lynch & Geoffrey Griffiths, 2020. "Challenges in Using Earth Observation (EO) Data to Support Environmental Management in Brazil," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(24), pages 1-17, December.
    2. Lisa L. Rausch & Holly K. Gibbs, 2016. "Property Arrangements and Soy Governance in the Brazilian State of Mato Grosso: Implications for Deforestation-Free Production," Land, MDPI, vol. 5(2), pages 1-16, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mitchell, Ronald B., 2011. "Transparency for governance: The mechanisms and effectiveness of disclosure-based and education-based transparency policies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 1882-1890, September.
    2. Philip Schleifer & Matteo Fiorini & Graeme Auld, 2019. "Transparency in transnational governance: The determinants of information disclosure of voluntary sustainability programs," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 13(4), pages 488-506, December.
    3. Adam Bumpus & Thu-Ba Huynh & Sophie Pascoe, 2019. "Making REDD+ Transparent: Opportunities for MobileTechnology," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 19(4), pages 85-117, November.
    4. Teresa Kramarz & Susan Park, 2016. "Accountability in Global Environmental Governance: A Meaningful Tool for Action?," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 16(2), pages 1-21, May.
    5. Röckmann, Christine & van Leeuwen, Judith & Goldsborough, David & Kraan, Marloes & Piet, Gerjan, 2015. "The interaction triangle as a tool for understanding stakeholder interactions in marine ecosystem based management," Marine Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 155-162.
    6. Aarti Gupta & Harro van Asselt, 2019. "Transparency in multilateral climate politics: Furthering (or distracting from) accountability?," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 13(1), pages 18-34, March.
    7. Bardsley, Douglas K. & Bardsley, Annette M., 2014. "Organising for socio-ecological resilience: The roles of the mountain farmer cooperative Genossenschaft Gran Alpin in Graubünden, Switzerland," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 11-21.
    8. Park, Mi Sun & Lee, Hyowon, 2019. "Accountability and reciprocal interests of bilateral forest cooperation under the global forest regime," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 32-44.
    9. Catacora-Vargas, Georgina & Tambutti, Marcia & Alvarado, Víctor & Rankovic, Aleksandar, 2022. "Governance approaches and practices in Latin America and the Caribbean for transformative change for biodiversity," Documentos de Proyectos 48542, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    10. Duncan Weaver, 2018. "The Aarhus convention and process cosmopolitanism," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 199-213, April.
    11. Nasiritousi, Naghmeh & Hjerpe, Mattias & Buhr, Katarina, 2014. "Pluralising climate change solutions? Views held and voiced by participants at the international climate change negotiations," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 177-184.
    12. Rosendal, G. Kristin & Andresen, Steinar, 2011. "Institutional design for improved forest governance through REDD: Lessons from the global environment facility," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 1908-1915, September.
    13. Schouten, Greetje & Leroy, Pieter & Glasbergen, Pieter, 2012. "On the deliberative capacity of private multi-stakeholder governance: The Roundtables on Responsible Soy and Sustainable Palm Oil," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 42-50.
    14. Schouten, Greetje & Glasbergen, Pieter, 2011. "Creating legitimacy in global private governance: The case of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 1891-1899, September.
    15. Fouad Khan & Benjamin K. Sovacool, 2016. "Testing the efficacy of voluntary urban greenhouse gas emissions inventories," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 139(2), pages 141-154, November.
    16. Marin-Burgos, Victoria & Clancy, Joy S. & Lovett, Jon C., 2015. "Contesting legitimacy of voluntary sustainability certification schemes: Valuation languages and power asymmetries in the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil in Colombia," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 303-313.
    17. Pickering, Jonathan & Jotzo, Frank & Wood, Peter J., 2015. "Splitting the difference: can limited coordination achieve a fair distribution of the global climate financing effort?," Working Papers 249508, Australian National University, Centre for Climate Economics & Policy.
    18. Fred Gale & Francisco Ascui & Heather Lovell, 2017. "Sensing Reality? New Monitoring Technologies for Global Sustainability Standards," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 17(2), pages 65-83, May.
    19. Cathrin Zengerling, 2019. "Governing the City of Flows: How Urban Metabolism Approaches May Strengthen Accountability in Strategic Planning," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 4(1), pages 187-199.
    20. Michelle Scobie, 2018. "Accountability in climate change governance and Caribbean SIDS," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 769-787, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    transparency; environmental politics; environmental crisis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q5 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tpr:glenvp:v:14:y:2014:i:4:p:97-115. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kelly McDougall (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.