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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]

Brazil has a long history of environmental problems, but philosophy seems to lag behind other disciplines that actively consider this history. Nonetheless, there is a sufficiently rich intellectual tradition to allow a genuine environmental philosophy to emerge. Based on a detailed overview of discussions pertaining to environmental reflection and activism in Brazil, three fields of tension in recent Brazilian environmental history--military developmentalism versus militant environmental activism, anthropocentric realism versus ecocentric Utopia, and sustainable development versus strong sustainability--presuppose philosophical positions and represent three corresponding "intellectual culprits" that need to be addressed. Among emerging trends in environmental philosophy, two avenues of thought can be highlighted as promising for dispersing these "culprits": ethnocultural pluralism and global environmental responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes and analyzes discourses regarding environmental governance held among key actors in a region of expanding high-input, high-output agriculture. Q-method, an intensive (small n) and quantitative technique in which n tests are measured by m individuals, was used to determine four empirically significant social perspectives: critical environmentalism, agri-environmentalism, private environmentalism, and statist environmentalism. The article highlights major differences and agreements among social perspectives, in addition to the arguments used to justify claims. These findings help fill a knowledge gap in the literature on governance debates between farmers and environmentalists; moreover, the findings contribute to a concern in the literature regarding the role of discourses in producing policy solutions to environmental governance problems. The article also supports continued use of Q-method in human geography, suggesting the value of Q as a research ends and means, particularly when research subjects include landed elites. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article discusses Brazil's multilateral policy under Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's administration, highlighting economic, political and environmental themes. The main argument is that Brazil's multilateral relations during this government reached a new significance with the reinforcement of international coalitions and the articulation with the country's new development model. The country has been using multilateral forums as a way to achieve international projection and support for its development project, highlighting bargaining aspects, variable geometry coalitions and the strengthening of South-South cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the environmental movements and politics in the La Plata River basin. Information on the boomerang strategy; International norms and domestic environmental institutions in Brazil and Argentina; Details on the Hidrovia project.

As of the 1980s, 'urban problems' have come to be perceived and treated in new ways in Brazil. Innovations introduced into public administration and legislation, at both the national and local levels, accompanied a broader social process and created conditions in which urban regulations, planning and management not only were equipped with new mechanisms for intervention in the urban context, but were submitted to a new approach structured around respect for environmental concerns. The ideas developed in this article begin with an outline of environment-related litigation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil offered as a way to identify the actors that are able to ensure that their demands and arguments for environmental protection circulate publicly. The second section is designed to begin the task of identifying the available repertoire of versions of the environment as a social problem in Rio de Janeiro. Some remarks are called for here in order to mark out the terrain on which environmental conflicts occur in Rio de Janeiro? The first relates to the role played by public institutions, which goes far beyond their participation as parties to litigation.

This article presents an editorial in which the author comments on the threats of the policies of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro toward the Amazon Rainforest. He discusses the dismantling of environmental policies and government agencies in favor of mining and agricultural industries, which are known to negatively impact the Amazonian environment.