Greening Brazil

Environmental Activism in State and Society

Autor: Hochstetler, Kathryn; Keck, Margaret E.
Editor: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822340485
eISBN Pdf: 9780822390596
Lugar de publicación: Durham , Estados Unidos
Año de publicación digital: 2007
Mes: Agosto
Páginas: 304
DDC: 333.720981
Idioma: Ingles

Descripción

Greening Brazil challenges the claim that environmentalism came to Brazil from abroad. Two political scientists, Kathryn Hochstetler and Margaret E. Keck, retell the story of environmentalism in Brazil from the inside out, analyzing the extensive efforts within the country to save its natural environment, and the interplay of those efforts with transnational environmentalism. The authors trace Brazil’s complex environmental politics as they have unfolded over time, from their mid-twentieth-century conservationist beginnings to the contemporary development of a distinctive socio-environmentalism meant to address ecological destruction and social injustice simultaneously. Hochstetler and Keck argue that explanations of Brazilian environmentalism—and environmentalism in the global South generally—must take into account the way that domestic political processes shape environmental reform efforts.

The authors present a multilevel analysis encompassing institutions and individuals within the government—at national, state, and local levels—as well as the activists, interest groups, and nongovernmental organizations that operate outside formal political channels. They emphasize the importance of networks linking committed actors in the government bureaucracy with activists in civil society. Portraying a gradual process marked by periods of rapid advance, Hochstetler and Keck show how political opportunities have arisen from major political transformations such as the transition to democracy and from critical events, including the well-publicized murders of environmental activists in 1988 and 2004. Rather than view foreign governments and organizations as the instigators of environmental policy change in Brazil, the authors point to their importance at key moments as sources of leverage and support.

Contents
List of Tables
Preface
List of Acronyms and Organizations
Introduction
1. Building Environmental Institutions: National Environmental Politics and Policy
2. National Environmental Activism: The Changing Terms of Engagement
3. From Protest to Project: The Third Wave of Environmental Activism
4. Amazônia
5. From Pollution Control to Sustainable Cities
Conclusion
Appendix: List of Interviews
Notes
Bibliography
Index