XVII Congress of the Brazilian Studies Association

Enacting Democracy and Sustainability in Brazil: From Human Rights to the Environment

Session Submission Type: Complete Panel

Abstract

Over the last decade in Brazil, reactionaries and far-right extremists have led a sustained onslaught on many public and private institutions implementing progressive and universalist policies. Such illiberal attacks seek to undermine values related to democracy, egalitarianism, and environmental sustainability. This panel showcases different areas of this political struggle. Carrillo and Campos examine how members of the Agribusiness Bench use reactionary discourse related to racism, sexism, LGBTQ-phobia, and anti-indigeneity to justify rolling back environmental protections. Dias and Schapiro examine how actors from within the Brazilian State created institutional arrangements targeted at sustainability despite and under former President Bolsonaro, specifically analyzing policies devised by the Brazilian Central Bank, the consortium of Amazonian state governors, and a set of Supreme Court decisions. Suchodolski analyzes how, despite agreement on land titling goals, clashing elites (agribusiness, politicians, environmentalists, and prosecutors) unintentionally undermined the INCRA land bureaucracy in priority Amazonian regions over the past twenty years. Rausch details observed and potential responses from different stakeholders in Brazil's cattle sector to demands from an important market for high value beef and leather exports and evaluates their alignment with forest conservation efforts. Working in the framework of the transnational policy process, Morais develops the concept of human rights bureaucrats and proposes the idea of an “international norm-policy-bureaucrat system” based on the case of Brazil in the past thirty years. Her work highlights the relevance of addressing human rights policy as embedded in transnational dynamics while constituted by the agency of multiple individuals.

Sub Unit

• XVII Congress of the Brazilian Studies Association

Individual Presentations

• “Reactionary Discourse, Environmental Deregulation, and the Agribusiness Bench in Brazil” - Ian Carrillo, University of Oklahoma; Mathaus Campos, University of Oklahoma

• “Interests without Implementation: Clashing Elites and Land Bureaucracies in Amazonia” - Gabriel Suchodolski, UCLA

• “Human rights bureaucrats in the transnational policy process: from norm diffusion to bureaucratic values in Brazil” - Michelle Morais de Sa e Silva, The University of Oklahoma

• “Pathways to compliance with the European Union Deforestation Regulation in Brazil's cattle sector” - Lisa Rausch, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• “Resisting Environmental Authoritarianism from Within the State in Brazil” - Vitor Martins Dias, Butler University

Chair

• Ian Carrillo, University of Oklahoma

Session Organizer

• Ian Carrillo, University of Oklahoma