Elite deliberation and the ethical dilemma of development in Ecuador

• In Event: Climate of Change? Extractive Politics, Indigenous Environmental Governance and Climate Change in Ecuador and Bolivia

Abstract

The Ecuadorian left-leaning government of Rafael Correa has since several years occasionally been classified as among the primary defenders of the specific rights of nature/the environment and an alternative to global capitalism. The Constitution of 2008 granted Mother Earth her own rights and likewise included advanced protection and recognition of the Indigenous peoples, particularly those living in voluntary isolation. Nonetheless, the reliance on extractive industries has continued in Ecuador. In practice, a more anthropocentric and pragmatic approach by the government towards the rights of nature and the Indigenous peoples has characterized the Correa administration. Large-scale development projects have not been halted even when they directly clash with the rights of human beings, Indigenous communities or nature. A series of protest mobilizations by ecologist and Indigenous oppositional actors has taken place. This paper explores the dilemma of development and recent contentious politics around the hydrocarbon policies of the Ecuadorian state, with a political economy approach, while combining it with moral philosophical and political sociological analytical viewpoints, and with a particular focus on the existence (or absence) of elite deliberation around natural resources conflicts. A central argument is that even in situations when the executive power chooses not to debate publically with oppositional groups, an “indirect” deliberation process may be taking place.

Author

• Rickard Lalander