Search

In environmental politics, social movements play a crucial role, promoting participatory rights and confronting injustice, inequality, and the interests of the powerful. This article examines an underexplored topic in the literature on social movements, especially in Latin America: the use of litigation to force decisionmakers to comply with participatory formats, specifically in the course of opposition to hydroelectric dams. These projects often are destructive to the local environment and communities. This study examines four cases of environmental litigation that halted dam construction in Brazil and Chile, singling out causal pathways for successful collective action. It focuses on two dimensions of movement success: the implementation of participatory formats and the resulting cancellation of dam projects. In line with the joint effect model of social movement theory, the cross-case comparison of legal disputes shows that pursuing legal strategies in parallel to broad social mobilization and the support of institutional allies, can lead to successful outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the evolution of the Green Grants program, run by Brazil's Ministry of Environment, as a means for developing the concept of bureaucratic activism. When the Workers' Party first took office in 2003, many social movement actors joined the government, especially in that agency. After 2007, however, most of these activists left the government. At the same time, the ministry substituted thousands of temporary employees for permanent civil servants. Surprisingly, this study finds that these public employees carried forward the environmentalist cause, even when this required contesting the priorities of superiors. Examining their attitudes and practices leads to a definition of activism as the proactive pursuit of opportunities to defend contentious causes. The case study helps to develop this concept and to demonstrate that workers inside bureaucracies can engage in activist behavior. It also explores the effects of bureaucratic activism on environmental policymaking in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the governance of hydroelectric dam planning in Brazil with a particular focus on two factors: first, governmental institutions that aim to provide participatory mechanisms for civil society, and second, new participatory institutions created by civil society to remedy the lack of meaningful participatory measures. One example of the latter are new collaborative research projects, which have changed dam building policies and governmental thinking about participation. It is argued here that these kinds of collaboration are fundamental to making dam-building policy more accountable to local citizens. The analysis demonstrates that lay/expert collaborations provide pathways through which affected people can contest inaccurate official scientific reports, in turn influencing the policy process. I examine six such participatory projects across the country: four are nationally based and two are international in scope. A four- pronged typology is used to analyse the processes and outcomes of these collaborations. This typology reveals multiple types of knowledge-sharing that constitute concrete means to implement participation in environmental policy, hence advancing the democratisation of environmental governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines whether Japan's role in international activity towards a sustainable future has changed in the decade since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. Japan since Rio; Change at the domestic level; Observation that Japan was playing a more active role on environmental matters at both the regional and global levels; Japan's concern with the climate-change debate; Japan's capacity for environmental leadership.

Focuses on the impact on the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) after 10 years. Urban challenge; Socio-environmental burdens and deprivations; Observation that brown agendas are still incipient, and concern that citizens are at risk has grown only recently; Potential of local Agenda 21 initiatives; Challenges to effectiveness; Action through education and empowerment.

Points out that the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June 1992, and the resulting Rio Declaration on Environment and Development document was a vital but not yet decisive victory in the ongoing battle over the meaning of scientific findings in environmental policy. Quantitative risk assessment; Precautionary principle; Definitional controversies; Lack of scientific certainty regarding cause and effect; Environmental implications of each and every planned activity.

Evaluates the impact of the last 10 years on the Rio North-South Bargain from the perspective of the South. 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Sustainable development; Additionality principle; Common-but-differentiated-responsibility principle; Polluter-pays principle; State of malaise of global environmental politics.

Analyzes the environmental and political conditions of Amazonia in Brazil. Impact of economic development on environmental conservation; Effects of political sovereignty on the ecological condition of Amazonia; Exploitation of the international interest on the Amazonian territory.

Examines the impact of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 10 years after. Observation that the momentum for interstate environmental diplomacy has ebbed dramatically; Deficiencies in Agenda 21, the action plan on issues ranging from desertification and soil erosion to water quality and urban settlements; Failure of the UNCED framework to come to grips with the socioeconomically transnationalized character of environmental problems.

Examines that the effect of the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 after 10 years of globalization. Organizer Maurice Strong; Institutional and conceptual roots in the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment; Substantial transformation of the international institutional system leading to the diminishment of the United Nations and the interstate system.