Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Converging Divergence: the Diffusion of the Green State in Latin America

  • Published:
Studies in Comparative International Development Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Global processes of policy diffusion result in different types of state development. A broad view of environmentalist reform in Latin America easily reads as top-down diffusion of blueprints and institutional convergence. But such a thesis is reductionist and ultimately misleading, case studies demonstrate. First, diffusion mechanisms matter for divergence: when normative and mimetic mechanisms are relatively strong vis-à-vis coercive forces, formal state change is followed by more meaningful real state change; when the coercive mechanism rules unmatched, green state change ends up being formal for the most part. Secondly, institutional entrepreneurs face shifting opportunity structures for political change; because these opportunities are never uniform, national experiences will differ. Thirdly, national institutional environments provide contrasting domestic resources and cultures for the building of green states; legacy, in short, will condition translation by entrepreneurs. A bridging institutionalist framework helps us make sense of “converging divergence”.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Interview with Manuel Pulgar Vidal, former executive director of the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law and current environment minister of Peru, September 27, 2007.

  2. The term “converging divergence” has been borrowed from a manifesto for reinvigorating the political economy of Latin America made at LASA 2013.

  3. Interview with Rafael Asenjo, head of the Secretaría Técnica de la Comisión Nacional de Medio Ambiente (which became CONAMA) in 1990–1994. Santiago, July 19, 2007.

  4. Interviews with Gustavo Lagos, adviser to the Environmental Unit of the Ministry of Mining in 1991–1994. July 23, 2007, and with Jaime Solari. Santiago, August 24, 2007.

  5. Interview with Solari.

  6. Interview with Marc Dourojeanni.

  7. Ibid.

  8. Ibid.

  9. Interview with Mariano Castro.

  10. Interview with Gonzalo Galdos. CONAM’s first President. Lima, January 11, 2010.

  11. http://www.mma.gov.br/conama/. Accessed in January 11, 2011.

  12. Interview with Solari.

  13. Interviews with Mariano Castro and Pedro Solano.

  14. La República, December 21, 2007.

References

  • Abers R. Inventing local democracy: grassroots politics in Brazil. Boulder: Lynne Rienner; 2000.

    Google Scholar 

  • Acuña G. Marcos regulatorios e institucionales ambientales de América Latina y el Caribe en el contexto del proceso de reformas macroeconómicas: 1980–1990. Serie medio ambiente y desarrollo 20. Santiago: CEPAL; 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  • Andrews R. Managing the environment, managing ourselves: a history of American environmental policy. New Haven: Yale University Press; 2006. p. 228–32.

    Google Scholar 

  • Angell A, Lowden P, Thorp R. Decentralizing development: the political economy of institutional change in Colombia and Chile. New York: Oxford University Press; 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ban C. Brazil’s liberal neo-developmentalism: new paradigm or edited orthodoxy? Rev Int Polit Econ. 2013;20(2):298–331.

    Google Scholar 

  • Basadre J. El Azar en la Historia y sus Límites. Lima: Ediciones P.L.V.; 1973.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bockman J, Eyal G. Eastern europe as a laboratory for economic knowledge: the transnational roots of neoliberalism. Am J Sociol. 2002;108(2):310–52.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brañes R. Institutional and legal aspects of the environment in Latin America, including the participation of nongovernmental organizations in environmental management. Washington: Inter-American Development Bank; 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  • Callon M, Latour B. Unscrewing the big Leviathan: how actors macro-structure reality and how sociologists help them to do so. In: Knorr-Cetina, Cicourel. Advances in social theory and methodology: Toward an integration of micro-and macro-sociologies; 1981. p. 277–303.

  • Campbell JL. Institutional change and globalization. New Jersey: Princeton University Press; 2004.

    Google Scholar 

  • Campbell JL, Pedersen OK. The rise of neoliberalism and institutional analysis. New Jersey: Princeton University Press; 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  • Camus P. Ambiente, bosques y gestión forestal en Chile, 1541–2005. Santiago: LOM Ediciones; 2006.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carruthers D. Environmental politics in Chile: legacies of dictatorship and democracy. Third World Q. 2001;22(3):343–58.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chorev N. Changing global norms through reactive diffusion: the case of intellectual property protection of AIDS drugs. Am Sociol Rev. 2012;77(5):831–53.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conca K, Dabelko G. Green planet blues four decades of global environmental politics. Colorado: Westview Press; 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cotler J. Clases, estado y nación en el Perú. Lima: IEP; 1978.

    Google Scholar 

  • Di Maggio P, Powell W. The iron cage revisited: institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. Am Sociol Rev. 1983;48:147–60.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dobbin F, Simmons B, Garret G. The global diffusion of public policies: social construction, coercion, competition, or learning? Annu Rev Sociol. 2007;32:449–72.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dourojeanni M. Crónica forestal del Perú. Lima: UNALM/UNMSM; 2009.

    Google Scholar 

  • Drummond J. The garden in the machine: an environmental history of Brazil’s Tijuca Forest. Environ Hist 1996;1(1):83–104.

    Google Scholar 

  • Drummond J, Barros-Platiau AF. Brazilian environmental laws and policies, 1934–2002: a critical overview. Law Policy. 2006;28(1):83–108.

    Google Scholar 

  • Drummond JA, Franco JLA, Ninis AB. Brazilian federal conservation units: a historical overview of their creation and of their current status. Environment and History. 2009;15(4):463–91.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dryzek J, Downes D, Hunold C, Schlosberg D, Hernes HK. Green states and social movements: environmentalism in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Norway. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2003.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Evans P. Embedded autonomy: states and industrial transformation. Princeton: Princeton University Press; 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  • Figueiredo R, Lamounier B. As cidades que dão certo. Experiêcias inovadoras na administraçào pública brasileira. Brasilia: M.H. Comunicação; 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frank D, Hironaka A, Schofer E. The nation-state and the natural environment over the twentieth century. Am Sociol Rev. 2000;65(1):96–116.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Geisse G. 10 Años de debate ambiental. Santiago: CIPMA; 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giddens A. Central problems in social theory: action, structure, and contradiction in social analysis. Berkeley: University of California Press; 1979.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gilardi F. Transnational diffusion: norms, ideas, and policies. In: Carlsnaes W, Risse T, Simmons B, editors. Handbook of international relations. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications; 2012. p. 453–77.

    Google Scholar 

  • Góngora M. Ensayo Histórico sobre la Noción de Estado en Chile en los Siglos XIX y XX. Santiago: Editorial Universitaria; 1986.

    Google Scholar 

  • Greif A. Institutions and the path to the modern economy: lessons from medieval trade. New York: Cambridge University Press; 2006.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Guimarães R. The ecopolitics of development in the Third World: politics and environment in Brazil. Boulder: Rienner Publishers; 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haas PM. Epistemic communities and international policy coordination. Int Organ. 1992;46(1):1–35.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hall P. Historical Institucionalism in Rationalist and Sociological Perspective. In: Mahoney J and Thelen K, editors. Explaining institutional change: ambiguity, agency, and power; 2010; pp. 204–223

  • Hall PA, Soskice DW. Varieties of capitalism: the institutional foundations of comparative advantage, vol. 8. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2001.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hall P, Taylor R. Political science and the three new institutionalisms. Polit Stud. 1996;44(5):936–57.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hironaka A, Schofer E. Decoupling in the environmental arena: the case of environmental impact assessments. In: Hoffman AJ; Ventresca MJ. Organizations, policy, and the natural environment: institutional and strategic perspectives; 2002. p. 214–231.

  • Hirschman A. Journeys toward progress. Studies of economic policy-making in Latin America. New York: Twentieth Century Fund; 1963.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hochstetler K, Keck M. Greening Brazil: environmental activism in state and society. Duke University Press; 2007.

  • Hoff K, Stiglitz J. Modern economic theory and development. In: Meier G, Stiglitz J, editors. Frontiers of development economics: the future in perspective. New York: Oxford University Press; 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  • Katz R, Del Favero G. Medio Ambiente en Desarrollo. Santiago: CEP; 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  • Keck M, Sikkink K. Activists beyond borders: advocacy networks in international politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press; 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klyza C, Sousa D. American environmental policy, 1990–2006: beyond gridlock. Cambridge: MIT Press; 2008.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kohli A. State-directed development: political power and industrialization in the global periphery. New York: Cambridge University Press; 2004.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Lacunza S. From dictatorship to democracy: environmental reform in Chile. Hast Int Comp Law Rev. 1996;19:539–95.

    Google Scholar 

  • Latour B. Science in action: how to follow scientists and engineers through society. London: Harvard university press; 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  • Li T. The will to improve: governmentality, development, and the practice of politics. Durham: Duke University Press; 2007.

  • Mahoney J. Path dependence in historical sociology. Theory Soc. 2000;29(4):507–48.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mahoney J, Thelen K. A theory of gradual institutional change. In: Mahoney and Thelen, editors. Explaining institutional change: ambiguity, agency, and power; 2010. p.1–37.

  • McAdam D, Tarrow S, Tilly C. Dynamics of contention. New York: Cambridge University Press; 2001.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • McAllister L. Making law matter: environmental protection and legal institutions in Brazil. Stanford: Stanford Law Books; 2008.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • McCormick J. Reclaiming paradise: the global environmental movement. Bloomington: Indiana University Press; 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meadows DH, Meadows DL, Randers J. The limits to growth: a report for the Club of Rome’s project on the predicament of mankind. New York: Universe Books; 1972.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meyer JW, Rowan B. Institutionalized organizations: formal structure as myth and ceremony. Am J Sociol. 1977;83:340–63.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meyer J, Frank D, Horonaka D, Schofer E, Tuma N. The structuring of a world environmental regime, 1870–1990. Int Organ. 1997;5:623–51.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Migdal J. State in society: studying how states and societies transform and constitute one another. New York: Cambridge University Press; 2001.

  • Miller S. An environmental history of Latin America. New York: Cambridge University Press; 2007.

    Google Scholar 

  • Munck G. Repensando la cuestión democrática: la región andina en el nuevo siglo. Revista de Ciencia Política. 2010;30(1):149–61.

    Google Scholar 

  • Muñoz O. Políticas públicas. Historias personales. Santiago: CIEPLAN; 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ocampo JA, Ros J. Shifting Paradigms in Latin America’s Economic Development. In: Ocampo and Ros, editors. The Oxford handbook of Latin American economics. OUP Oxford. NY: Oxford University Press; 2011. p. 3–25

  • OECD. Environmental performance reviews: Chile. Paris: OECD Publications; 2005.

  • ONERN. Lineamientos de política de conservación de los recursos naturales renovables del Perú. Lima: ONERN/OEA; 1974.

  • Orihuela JC. The making of protected areas in the Peruvian Amazon. LASA Annual Meeting Paper; 2013.

  • Orihuela JC. The environmental rules of economic development: governing air pollution in Chuquicamata and La Oroya. J Lat Am Stud. 2014;46(1).

  • Pierson P. Politics in time: history, institutions and social analysis. Princeton: Princeton University Press; 2004.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pierson P. Public policies as institutions. In: Shapiro I, Skowronek S, Galvin D, editors. Rethinking political institutions: the art of the state. New York: NYU Press; 2006.

    Google Scholar 

  • Polanyi K. The great transformation. New York: Rinehart; 1944.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pulgar-Vidal M. Para Hacer Tortillas Hay Que Romper Huevos: Historia de La Gestión Ambiental en el Perú: 1990–2005. Lima: SPDA; 2006.

    Google Scholar 

  • Quiroz A. Corrupt circles: a history of unbound graft in Peru. Washington: Johns Hopkins University Press; 2008.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rootes C. Environmental movements: local, national and global. London: Frank Cass Publishers; 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schelling T. Micromotives and macrobehavior. New York: Norton; 1978.

  • Scott R. Approaching adulthood: the maturing of institutional theory. Theory Soc. 2008;37(5):427–42.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sikkink K. Ideas and institutions: developmentalism in Brazil and Argentina. Ithaca: Cornell University Press; 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  • Silva E. Democracy, market economics and environmental policy in Chile. J Interam Stud World Aff. 1996;38(4):1–33.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Silva P. In the name of reason: technocrats and politics in Chile. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press; 2008.

    Google Scholar 

  • Strang D, Meyer J. Institutional conditions for diffusion. Theory Soc. 1993;22:487–511.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Streeck W, Thelen K. Beyond continuity. Institutional change in advanced political economies. New York: Oxford University Press; 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tarrow S. Power in movement: social movements and contentious politics. New York: Cambridge University Press; 1998.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Tarrow S. The new transnational activism. New York: Cambridge University Press; 2005.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Taylor M. Institutional development through policy-making. A case study of the Brazilian Central Bank. World Polit. 2009;61(3):487–515.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thelen K. How institutions evolve: insights from comparative-historical analysis. In: Mahoney J, Rueschemeyer D, editors. Comparative historical analysis in the social sciences. New York: Cambridge University Press; 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thorp R. Progress, poverty and exclusion: an economic history of Latin America in the 20th century. Washington: IADB; 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tilly C. To explain political processes. Am J Sociol. 1995;100(6):1594–610.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Van Cott D. Regional environmental law in the Americas: assessing the contractual environment. Univ Miami Interam Law Rev. 1995;26(3):489–533.

    Google Scholar 

  • World Commission on Environment and Development. Our common future. New York: Oxford University Press; 1987.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Economía, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Av. Universitaria 1801, San Miguel, Lima, 32, Peru

    José Carlos Orihuela

Authors
  1. José Carlos Orihuela
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to José Carlos Orihuela.

Additional information

This article is the ultimate outcome of a trans-disciplinary journey that started with my doctoral research, a quest to understand how institutions matter for development. I am grateful to my advisors Rosemary Thorp and John Coatsworth as well as to Lisa Anderson, Albert Fishlow, Ira Katznelson, José Antonio Ocampo and Maritza Paredes, and Diego Sánchez-Ancochea, who read and commented my dissertation work at different stages. Fieldwork research was funded by the Institute of Latin American Studies at Columbia University. The “translation” and further transformation of the thesis into this manuscript benefitted from comments by Patrick Heller, Richard Snyder, Tatiana Andia, and Andrew Schrank. I am also indebted to SCID anonymous reviewers and editors. An earlier version was presented at LASA 2012. Emily Kirkland and Alejandra Zúñiga provided excellent research assistance.

Appendix

Appendix

Table 2 Year of adoption of green state blueprints
Full size table

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Orihuela, J.C. Converging Divergence: the Diffusion of the Green State in Latin America. St Comp Int Dev 49, 242–265 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12116-013-9147-6

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12116-013-9147-6

Keywords

Search

Navigation