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The objective of the present paper is to analyze if policies of the Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America (IIRSA) - applied to the borderline region between Brazil/Bolivia - include social participation in the decisions about environmental resources exploitation. It was used the followed methods: textual analysis of public policies of IIRSA, photography, maps and interview analysis with experts in the subject of regional integration. The research is based mainly in the theories of David Harvey, Neil Smith, David Held and Bertha Becker. The current paper discusses about: 1) how policies have a "lacunar discurse2" conduced by Brazil. 2) how laws are planed exclusively by the decision makers, often without the vote of the citizens. Consequently, there is a loss of autonomy in the management of natural resources done by the people, and decisions are taken according to the international economic demands. The physical consequence of the policies on the environment is an increase of fragmentation not only ecological but also cultural, both reflecting negatively on the economy of the region involved in integrative policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence abounds that transnational advocacy networks (TANs) have played an important role promoting environmental causes and human rights issues, especially in the last quarter-century. Less well explored, however, are the long-term impact that advocacy networks have on ?developing? countries where TANs have focused their campaigns. For example, Brazil saw a steep decline in deforestation throughout the late 1990s despite the fact that the international campaign to protect Amazonian resources peeked in the early 1990s. As such, unless we believe the World Bank flawlessly executed the supervisory policies suggested by many international non governmental organizations (INGOs), we need a better causal explanation of why environmental conditions in Brazil continue to improve. While a leverage politics/?boomerang? story best explains environmental policy changes during the 1980s and early 1990s, it is not sufficient to explain the role that TANs have played in Brazilian environmental politics during the past decade, nor does an ?INGOs-as-primary-actors-within-networks? model correctly describe the current composition of environmental advocacy networks in Brazil. In this paper, I argue that continued improvement in Brazilian environmental policy can only be explained by a second-order process which occurred during the original Amazonian campaign: an information cascade that catalyzed Brazilian NGOs and raised the salience of environmental issues amongst both voters and politicians. By examining how international forces increase the resource base of domestic NGOs and raise public awareness regarding environmental issues, we can explain more of the current improvement in Brazil?s implementation of development programs. In addition to the Brazilian case study, this paper concludes with a research design that seeks to generalize the information-shock model across both countries and issue-areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interrelated nature of science, power and culture is subject to a ?conceptual silence? in common discourses related to science and politics in general and in large segments of the social sciences. International relations literature is no exception: this literature as well gives scant attention to the issue of legitimacy, and in particular the role of scientific legitimacy in global environmental politics. Instead, the ?erosion-of-sovereignty? literature has tended to focus on the issues of autonomy and control, categories that are less mediated by perception and hence easier objects of study for international relations scholars (ibid.). These silences in the social science literature about the challenge science poses to state control are startling given that science is a prime, powerful and persistent factor effecting transformation within and between nations. This paper seeks to fill some of these gaps through a case study of Brazil, with central focus on national anxieties in relationship to the Amazon and international science. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]