Actividad probatoria de la condición pobreza

The analysis is structured into two parts that are intended to answer the two research questions of the study. Both parts are related to the same general analytical model, with different foci on either mainly the dimension of structure or agency. A causal analysis is relied upon in order to answer research question 1, - and hypotheses 1-4, - related to how structural changes in the global food system and in Brazil have shaped the international engagement of Brazilian public and private actors. In line with this approach, the objects of interest in the causal analysis can therefore be seen as causal process observations (COLLIER 2011, p.823) and causal process mechanisms (Ibid, p.824). This also implies a strong focus upon demonstrating concatenations rather than co-variations, and upon providing evidence related to the regularities inherent within the causal chain (WALDNER 2012, p.67). The approach to causal analysis approximates that which has been elaborated by Mahoney (2010) as a strongly qualitative focus on causal process observations. Thereby, data in form of these causal process observations is believed to imply evidence about context and mechanisms, with a high degree of potential leverage with regards to causal inference (MAHONEY 2010, p.124).

Analysis of research question 2, - and sub-question 5-8, - is conducted through exploratory examination of cases of decision-making processes in which stakeholders in relation to Brazilian agriculture have been mobilized in international regulatory formation processes. In this part, focus is directed on identification of the underlying patterns of behavior and modes of interactions which mark the central actors across the different cases. This part is thus based on descriptive inference, as the objective is to form a perspective of the systematic components (KING et al. 1994) of an agency modality that crystallizes in different processes at different political levels. In line with Wieringa (2014), the validity of the descriptive analysis is sought through a strategy of triangulation, in effect of which the phenomena of interest are analyzed by use of different sources of empirical evidence.

The analyses seeking to answer the two research questions are related to the same general analytical model, that departs from transformations in the global food system, in order to evaluate how this creates a new structure of more concrete incentives, challenges and dilemmas for the actors under scrutiny. In line with figure 1 presented in to foregoing, the events within the structural dimension in turn affect the

62

dispositional dimension, in which they become mediated by the actors examined and result in shifts in their underlying rationale and motivations. It is therefore within this dimension that structural developments are transformed into strategic perceptions by public and private agents. These strategic perceptions then become the point of departure, in order to account for the preferences and choices of the agents examined, which are located within the intentional dimension. The analysis thus departs from a structural dimension, passes through a dispositional dimension, and finally leads on to an intentional dimension. This presupposes an agency-structure duality approach, through which the structural emphasis within the initial part of the analysis gradually makes way for a stronger focus upon the dispositions and intentions of the actors examined. In the same manner, the mode of inference also shifts from the analysis which examines the structural developments related to research question 1, which is approached through causal inference, while the analysis with focus on the agency modalities, related to research question 2, is conducted by means of descriptive inference. An illustration of the general analytical model can be seen in figure 2 below:

Figure 2: General analytical model transgressing structural, dispositional and intentional dimensions:

Source: Author´s elaboration

63

Ideational, institutional, and material transformations in the global food system, along with the structural transformation of the Brazilian economy in the 1980-1990s, are treated as explanatory variables. These are believed to encapsulate the different dynamics of market-oriented transformations within the global political economy of agriculture, and internally within the Brazilian agricultural sector. The variables related to food system transformation from the 1980s and 1990s are supplemented by variables which also either relate to posterior changes within the food system, or which relate to other structural developments that also wield strong repercussions within the global food system. The latter becomes the case with regards to increased global climate change awareness, or the proliferation of private certification standards from the turn of the millennium. These refer to systemic developments that become evident at a later point in time than the first category of structural variables. This means that while the food system changes and the structural transformation of the Brazilian economy are seen as an "initial push" which inserted Brazilian agriculture on to the path of internationalization, the second category of posterior structural developments wield a delayed and continuous impact upon the international engagement of public and private actors. They are therefore treated in the second analytical part.

The systemic transformations analyzed are considered as a general process occurring within various interrelated dimensions of the global food system. The aggregated impact of these developments upon the variable of convergence of interests/joint public-private agenda formation within the dispositional dimension is therefore believed to be brought about through conjunctural causation (KOLBERG 2009, p.9). The structural transformations within the global food system and within Brazilian agriculture thereby imply the potential to create a new array of incentives for public and private actors, which in turn leads towards the formation of a joint international agenda formation between these parties. This convergence of interests shapes the particular strategy formation between these actors, which pertain to the intentional dimension of the structure-agency model. This joint strategy is approached through an exploratory focus upon the variables of resource pooling, institutionalization of (mutual) interactions, and coalition formation, the particular configuration of which constitutes the modality of the public-private cooperation examined in the second analytical part.

64

3.5 Construction of hypotheses within the first analytical part

The first analytical part is directed towards answering research question 1, which has been formulated in the following manner:

Research question 1: How have food regime transformations in the 1980-1990s defined the joint international regulatory engagement between the Brazilian state and agribusiness, relative to domestically rooted structural transformations within the agricultural sector in this period?

The first research question is thereby focused on analyzing the relative impact of structural changes within the area of global and domestic agriculture, in order to evaluate how the conjunction of these transformations has rearranged the state-business relations between the Brazilian state and agribusiness towards an external orientation. In the model presented in figure 2 in the foregoing, these structural changes have been operationalized through variables that pertain to domestic agricultural changes, and variables which are related to the global food system´s transformation towards a third, - corporate - food regime. The impact which each of these variables wield upon the rearrangement of incentives and relations between the Brazilian public and private actors, the sectorial organization, and eventually the joint international agenda formation between the Brazilian state and agribusiness, is evaluated through analysis of four directional hypotheses, which each pertain to one or more of the following six variables of;

• 1) market-oriented food system restructuring within the institutional dimension, (hypothesis 1)

• 2) market-oriented food system restructuring within the material/productive dimension, (hypothesis 1)

• 3) market-oriented food system restructuring within the ideational dimension, (hypothesis 1)

• 4) technical modernization and inwards expansion of Brazilian agriculture (hypothesis 2),

• 5) the agricultural reforms of the 1980-1990s, (hypothesis 3)

65

• 6) commercial re-orientation of Brazil, (hypothesis 4)

Hypothesis 1: The transformation of the global food system

The transformation of the global food regime during the 1980-1990s can be characterized as a fundamental movement towards an increasingly marked-oriented system. This transformation is furthermore presumed to have been a very comprehensive process of a multidimensional character. The impact which it has wielded upon state-business relations in Brazil is therefore sought analyzed through a model drawing upon Robert Cox´s (1981) conceptualization of three levels of a historical structure - world order, the level of the state, and social forces of production, - and three kinds of historical forces, - material, institutional, and ideational. As the transformation of the global food system refers to a process of a global extension, the choice has been made to treat is as emanative from the level of world order. Yet, as food system transformation is perceived as a multidimensional process in the present analysis, it is presumed to comprise of the three kinds of historical forces, which each constitutes a material, institutional, and ideational dimension of change.

The material dimension of the global food system transformation refers to the incorporation of new countries and regions, - as the new agricultural economies - into staple food chains (MCMICHAEL 2009; PRITCHARD 1998, pp.72-73) as well as the central role of private capital in the global commercialization of agro-commodities in form of trading companies, and in direct financing and organization of production (FRIEDMANN & MCMICHAEL 1989; PEINE 2009). An important part of the changes towards the third - corporate - food regime is the integration of products within vertical production and commercialization structures (GOLDFARB 2013;

MCMICHAEL 2005, p.292) which implies increased power and leverage of capital in relation to landed property (GIMÉNEZ & SHATTUCK 2011; MCMICHAEL 2010).

These processes thereby merge into a comprehensive shift in the way that food has been produced and traded globally since the 1980s. This presents an essential object of analysis with regards to the pressures, incentives, and possibilities with which it has left the Brazilian agricultural sector.

Within the institutional dimension of the global food system, international organizations have gained increased centrality of in terms of facilitating the restructuring of the domestic economy and redefining its links to world markets

66

(BIELER & MORTON 2004, p.95; CERNY 2010, p.62; PIJL 1989). Within the global food system, a growing amount of agricultural regulation has become detached from the national level and elevated to the international sphere (FRIEDMANN 1995; GIMÉNEZ

& SHATTUCK 2011, p.111; MAGNAN 2012; MCMICHAEL 2009; PECHLANER &

OTERO 2008; PRITCHARD 2009). Increasing significance of international institutions within the contemporary food system has also implied a higher degree of openness for direct private interest representation of agribusiness (MCMICHAEL 1993, 2009, 2010, p.614; COLEMAN 2003; JONSSON 2016, p.85). Examining the changes within international institutions regulating the global food system thereby becomes relevant in order to assess the possibilities and incentives which this may have created for an alliance of public and private Brazilian actors in order to pursue joint interests at this level.

Within the ideational dimension of the global food system, the rationalities underpinning the political orientation and preferences of economic actors stand as a relevant object of attention with regards to understanding their collective strategies. This becomes clear in cases when a polarization between sectors that identify their main interests within the national sphere, and those with focus upon the international realm, becomes evident (FRIEDMANN & MCMICHAEL 1989, p.103; MCMICHAEL 1993, p.201; RUPERT 1995). The transnational consensus formation between businesses based on a market-oriented logic is stressed by various authors as a central feature of the contemporary global political economy (APELDOORN et al 2007; PIJL 1989 & 2001;

ROBINSON 2005). These ideational alignments may also be strengthened by the inclusion of segments from public and international organizations (BIELER &

MORTON 2004; LEVY & EGAN 2003, p.813), which also has been evident within transnational spheres for agricultural governance (COLEMAN, 2003). This process may unfold through mechanisms of discursive and ideological legitimation that underpin the food system (BERNSTEIN, 2016) and which serve to transmit principles supportive of free-market and industrial accumulation downwards towards national agricultural sectors (BUCK, 2014). The processes of ideological and discursive transmission from the global to the national/local level within the ideational dimension of the food system, and the manner in which they shape the preference formation of actors related to Brazilian agriculture, thereby constitute an essential object of analysis.

Based on these considerations, hypothesis 1 is formulated as the following:

67

Hypothesis 1: Restructurings towards a third corporate food regime unfolding within the material, institutional, and ideational dimensions of this system spurred the joint international engagement between the Brazilian state and agribusiness.

Hypothesis 1 is examined through analysis of three variables related to the institutional, material, and ideational restructurings of the global food system, assessing how these have impacted Brazilian agriculture. Some central development trends have been treated below each variable, meant to encapsulate this transformation. In relation to the institutional dimension, focus has been directed towards the insertion of agriculture within a multilateral institutional framework, and upon the proliferation of deliberative governance within the field. The later is seen as a posterior development - taking place from the 2000s - and is treated in the chapter about the Brazilian agribusiness and the Roundtable of Responsible Soy. Analysis of the material dimension of the restructurings of the global food system takes point of departure in the vertical integration, financialization, and corporate concentration of agricultural production structures. The ideational restructurings of the global food system are examined through analysis of the proliferation of free-trade oriented discourses and the surge of liberal production paradigms within this system. The emergence of the climate change agenda is approached as another posterior development within the ideational dimension of the global food system, occurring from the late 1990s, and is treated in the chapter with focus on the lobby efforts directed towards the RED.

Hypothesis 2: Technical modernization of Brazilian agriculture

Industrialization and standardization are trends that have come to characterize modern agriculture (MCMICHAEL 2010), and have been closely interwoven with a high degree of capital and technology intensive production (BURCH & LAWRENCE 2009; ISAKSON 2013). This also means that the inputs of intellectual capital, particularly in form of patented biotechnology, have become a central part of this mode of cultivation (MCMICHAEL 2009; OTERO 2012 & 2013). The increasing weight of

"New Agricultural Countries" such as Brazil, within global agricultural markets, has often been described as the consequence of a systemic process of incorporation of these regions within global commodity chains through insertion into a northern agro-industrial production model (BERNSTEIN 2016; FRIEDMANN 1992; MCMICHAEL

68

2005 & 2009). Yet, a different description can be found amongst authors that focus upon the technological innovation within Brazilian agriculture in the last decades of the 20th century, as part of state-driven efforts to increase its productivity (HOPEWELL 2016; LOPES et al. 2012; MARRA et al. 2013 MULLER & MULLER 2014; PAULA

& BASTOS 2008). It thereby becomes relevant to examine to what extend the technological innovations and productivity enhancing measures implemented from the late 1970s have contributed to the global competitive position obtained by Brazilian agriculture in recent decades, and to Brazilian agribusiness´ incentives to pursue external market opening in cooperation with the state. Hypothesis 2 has therefore been formulated in the following way:

(Hypothesis 2) The technical modernization of Brazilian agriculture beginning in the 1970s has enhanced the sector´s international competitiveness and thereby spurred the joint public-private engagement in the formation of international regulation.

Hypothesis 2 takes its point of departure in the scrutiny of the PRODECER initiative of the Brazilian state in order to expand agricultural production in the country´s interior, as well as the technical work of Embrapa aimed at raising agricultural productivity, and other initiatives which increased the competitiveness of Brazilian farmers towards the end of the millennium.

Hypothesis 3: The agricultural reforms of the 1980-1990s

The significance of the state in configuring the national regulatory environment in a manner which either incentivizes or limits the international connectedness and commercial engagement of domestic productive forces, has been frequently treated by neo-Gramscian authors (APELDOORN et al. 2012; BIELER & MORTON 2004; COX 1987; GILL 1993). Globalization of markets has brought about a rearrangement of state-business relations, and a competitive external commercial insertion of dynamic sectors lies at the heart of this redefined relationship (CERNY 2010; DINIZ 2010;

DINIZ & BOSCHI 2003; LUCAS 1997). The re-regulatory function of the state, seen as its role in reforming the domestic economy in a manner which provides the structural conditions for a more market-oriented international engagement, has likewise been pinpointed as a central feature of modern agriculture (MCMICHAEL 2005; OTERO

69

2012; PECHLANER & OTERO 2008; PRITCHARD et al. 2016). Though generally not directly involved in the agricultural production, the state is highly relevant in relation to this, through its subsidies, financing, taxation, redistribution, overheat capital, licensing, and other regulatory functions (FRIEDMANN & MCMICHAEL 1989; MCMICHAEL 2009).

These considerations lead towards the establishment of a third hypothesis, in order to examine the profound changes in the institutional environment of Brazilian agriculture due to the reforms in the 1980-1990s, and how this shaped state-agribusiness relations in terms of pursuing mutual commercial interests at the international level.

Hypothesis 3, related to the variable of agricultural reforms, has thereby been formulated as the following:

(Hypothesis 3) The agricultural reforms of the 1980-1990s spurred the export-orientation of Brazilian agriculture, which led to the joint public-private engagement in the formation of international regulation.

Hypothesis 3 is examined through analysis of the reforms within the Brazilian agricultural sector during the 1980-1990s. The main focus is directed upon assessing how the effects of changes in the rural credits, minimum prize guarantees, governmental purchases, and the agricultural tax regime have influenced the internationalization process of Brazilian agriculture.

Hypothesis 4: Commercial re-orientation of Brazil

The structural pressures which in the case of many developing countries incited a more outwards focused economic model during the last decades of the past millennium fall largely in line with Cox´s (1987) notion of "internationalization of the state". This unit is thereby reshaped towards seeking a competitive participation within the global economy, a process which also redefines its relationship to domestic private actors (CÁCERES 2016; COX 1987; GILL 1993b; LICHTENBERGER 2014, p.175-176; NUNES 2016; ROCHA 2014). This may imply a reorganization of institutions for the private sector to channel its influence towards public actors (DINIZ 2010;

MANCUSO & OLIVEIRA 2006; LUCAS 1987). In some instances, business sectors have obtained a privileged position in terms of influencing political decisions, due to the

70

imperatives which economic growth, exports and job creation pose for policy-makers (BOHAS 2015; LINDBLOOM 1997; LINDBLOOM & WOODHOUSE 1993; SMITH 1990). As formal public authority becomes permeable by private interest articulation (CERNY 2010, p.12; GETZ 2001; HILLMAN & HIT 1999; SALORIO et al. 2005), it is also relevant to assess the manner in which business has come to participate in the formation of international regulation as part of a broader reorientation towards global market insertion. Structuring the international regulatory environment in accordance with its own interests constitutes a central part of the non-market strategies of business (BODDEWYN & BEWER 1994, p. 126; LEVY 2008). Trade policy is an essential area in this regard, in which business depends on the formal decision-making capacity of the state (BARON 1997; JANK et al. 2005; SCHNEIDER 2013).

The state´s increased focus upon international market participation, as well as its stronger disposition towards inclusion of private actors as part of such efforts, hereby calls attention towards evaluating the specific manner in which this may have characterized the internationalization of Brazilian agribusiness. As the structural transformation of the Brazilian economy from the 1980s has implied a significantly more liberal orientation of the state and its international strategy (BOSCHI & DINIZ 2001; CERVO 2008; VIGEVANI & CEPALUNI 2007) as well as a pluralization of the foreign policy-making process with a higher degree of involvement of non-state actors (ANASTASIA et al. 2012, CASON & POWER 2009; HURREL & NARLIKAR 2008;

RAMANZINI & MARIANO 2013) it becomes relevant to evaluate how the re-orientation of the state´s model for international insertion may have provided a privileged place for agribusiness within Brazilian foreign policy-making, and spurred a

RAMANZINI & MARIANO 2013) it becomes relevant to evaluate how the re-orientation of the state´s model for international insertion may have provided a privileged place for agribusiness within Brazilian foreign policy-making, and spurred a