iirsa and the latin american political elites ...paperroom.ipsa.org/papers/paper_7824.pdf · iirsa...

IIRSA and the Latin American Political Elites: Infrastructure, Development and Environmental Agenda in the Pan Amazon.

Nirvia Ravena

Renato Boschi

The South American foreign policy has in IIRSA one of the key tools in the repositioning

of the Latin American countries in the scenario of global change (Couto, 2007.2008;

Santos Caballero, 2011). In this context, as an actor in the relevant sub regional, Brazil

plays an important role in shaping of capitalism in Latin America. (LIMA, 2003, Adams

2004; Soreanu Pecequilo 2008, Santos Caballero 2011) IIRSA, has emerged on the

scene of the determinations the Washington consensus that designed neoliberal

agenda based on privatization of state enterprises, deregulation of the economy and

the unilateral liberalization of foreign trade by countries belonging to Latin America

(Quintanar & Lopes, 2003, Couto 2008, Soreanu Pecequilo 2008). While the unfolding

of Washington Consensus, the discussion about the development headed toward

regional integration. The construction of physical infrastructure, communication and

energy to the Latin American integration was a major topic of the First Meeting of

Presidents of South America, held in 2000 and from it created the IIRSA.

Based on territorial planning, IIRSA has been designed to perform the

integration from ten regional integration axes of which pass through the four Pan-

Amazon.

The Pan Amazon or Amazon Continental consists of all spaces belonging to the

drainage area of the Amazon basin. Included in this definition, the geopolitical point of

view the following Amazonian countries: Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana,

Peru, Suriname and Venezuela.

In ten years of existence, by the election of presidents from the so-called New

Left, IIRSA takes the role of coordinating policies in Pan-Amazon, gestated still in

institutional frameworks linked to neo-liberal paradigms, showing, by Brazil, a

performance of continuity in diplomacy of Fernando Henrique (Almeida, 2004;

Universidade Federal do Pará/Universidade da Amazônia-Brazil

Instituto de Estudos Sociais e Políticos da Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (IESP-UERJ)-Brazil

Soreanu Pecequilo 2008) on one hand and the Global Player (LIMA, 2003; Santos

Caballero, 2011).

Associated with the typology of State Logistics by Cervo (2003, 2005) the theory

of the variety of capitalism is extremely instrumental to analyze the developments of

capitalism in Latin America in joints where the "new left" is in power.

The "new left" in most countries of the Pan-Amazon, presented the

environmental issue as a central element in their programs of government. Thus, it is

important to identify the place of the environmental agenda in development policies

that are underway in Latin America.

The format of the South-South cooperation, integration and regional consensus

and maintenance of the neoliberal agenda of IIRSA are points that allow you to check

interwoven forms of adaptation of capitalism in Latin America. These points were

associated with an institutional ergonomics created by neoliberal agenda that, in the

institutional household, of most South American countries, became secondary to the

discussion of environmental impacts and externalities arising from the development

agenda undertaken by the variant of capitalism in Latin America.

The forms taken by capitalism in various institutional contexts gave rise to a

variety of interpretations about their ability to adapt. Thus, in Latin America, while the

Global Player, Brazil is taking with the countries of the Pan-Amazon as coordinator of

the regional dynamic in which this adaptation occurs. This strategy is the use of

integration projects such as IIRSA. In Latin America, and particularly in the Pan-

Amazon, IIRSA lends to political context, well-marked peculiarities. The action of the

Chiefs of Executive in the implementation of its projects is flagship and has presented a

pattern that join populist practices to development policies that exclude the

environmental agenda at the time of design and implementation of projects.

This article presents a reflection on the consequences of development policies

aimed at regional integration undertaken recently by the so-called “new left” adopting

an approach that combines literature about the variety of capitalisms and

interpretations of populism and new left in Latin America. The discussion aims to

describe the changes that have occurred in the Pan Amazon and to what extent the

inclusion of the environmental agenda in development policies of elected presidents in

the last decade has irreversibly changed the stock of natural resources that could be

strategic for development of long term sustainable policies.

The paper is organized into three sections: one that presents a summary of the

approaches on varieties of capitalism, a second part that describes the recent

literature on post-neoliberal inflection occurred in countries that make up the Pan

Amazon and the last that describes and analyzes IIRSA's projects for the Amazon and

the role of Brazilian foreign policy in this context.

The interpretation of the variety of capitalisms context for the Pan Amazon

In a summary of the literature about the variety of capitalisms can say that it is an

approach that has shown significant levels of complexity in the analysis of the

globalization process. The debate surrounding this literature also shows

comprehensive in order to provide more alternative explanations for specific

phenomena assumed by capitalism. Initial approaches on the diversity of capitalism

(Hall & Soskice, 2001; Amable, 2003; Boyer, 2005) to more recent analyzes (Schneider

2009; Amable, 2009; Diniz, 2010; Doctor, 2010) have increased and typification

including state as a dominant explanatory variable in the models.

There are few approaches for Brazil (Boschi & Gaitan, 2008; Diniz, 2010; Doctor,

2010). For Latin America, the prospect of development policies associated with the

analysis of the size of the state in coordinating and regulating the market and the

actions of elites, allow a more clear picture of the phenomena of globalization in this

region (Hart, 2001.2003; Boschi & Gaitán , 2008; Diniz, 2010; Schneider, 2009; Doctor,

2010).

The state apparatus then appears as a decisive element in development

projects. At the same time, democratic consolidation and also has an ideological turn

in how policies are being implemented. (Hart, 2001.2003; Boschi & Gaitan, 2008).

If for Latin America on issues of development have nuances that are not trivial,

for the Pan Amazon there is a necessary nuance of this movement that combines an

anti-neoliberal and implementation of development models that ignore the

environmental agenda. Thus, the distinction between a practical and populist ideals of

the left, in the analysis of models of development for this region of Latin America,

demand is also an interpretation of that part of the literature has been defined as a

new left in Latin America.

The New Latin American Left and the Latin American Integration: Brazil and

its foreign policy

The so-called "Latin America Turn Left" (Roberts, 2007; Arditi, 2008; Cameron,

2009), has emerged as an object of political analysis given the presumed inflection that

occurs in the neoliberal policies that prevailed in the 90s. Coined to explain the extent

to which the election results in Venezuela (1998), Chile (2000 and 2006), Brazil (2002

and 2006), Argentina (2003), Uruguay (2004), Bolivia (2005), Peru (2006 and 2010 ),

Ecuador (2006) and Nicaragua (2006) showed how to use the electoral agendas of the

left, based on popular acclaim, this chain has sought to analyze the consequences of

the ex post period in which the Washington Consensus in Latin America led to believe

that the triumph of liberalism would materialize in the association between capitalism

and democracy. However, the institutions in its informal dimension shown in the

normative perspective of democracy and elections, his disappointment with what had

been institutionally constituted. The correlation between inequality and civil rights

allowed and encouraged this discontent.

The Latin American leaders that are inserted into associated behaviors called

new left-wing populist appeal to the masses associated with institutional settings, from

formal point of view, characterized by democratic procedures.

In Latin American countries, participating in the Pan Amazon, the presence of

this logic that associates development strategies to contexts of electoral legitimacy is

remarkable. Brazil appears most of the interpretations as a country where pluralism

was consolidated (Roberts, 2007; Arditi, 2008; Cameron, 2009 ;). However, these

approaches make clear the difference in institutional contexts marked by populist

performances and contexts where social democracy appears as a regime which also

allowed the reduction of inequalities through a consolidation of democratic

institutions (Kauffman, 2007; McLoad et al 2011). Brazil and Chile fall into this

typology. However, it is important to point out issues of disrespect the civil rights of

traditional populations in the Pan Amazon, these democratic contexts, as a point to

relativize this supposed consolidation (Raven & Teixeira, 2010). The positioning of

environmental issues into development strategies that allow relativization.

From the standpoint of the coordination of development policies, Brazil has

experienced growth rates that allowed the resumption of programs of income

redistribution and development is still designed in the wake of neoliberal policies.

In its foreign policy, Brazil has adopted a performance of coordinator of Latin

American integration, and even in the face of economic asymmetry between countries,

seeks to maintain the strategy to raise regional force by coalition with the South (Lima,

2005, Jaguaribe, 2008 ; Santos Caballero, 2011). In the regional scenario, for the Pan-

Amazon, IIRSA, as an instrument of effectiveness of this strategy, is emblematic.

The IIRSA has been designed under the influence of the IDB and policies

designed by ECLAC for Latin America (CEPAL, 1994). Originated by neoliberal

conceptions about regional integration, the guiding idea of the IIRSA seeks to create a

less costly flow of people, goods, capital and natural resources by increasing the

movement of goods across the continent and also intercontinental

perspective. Initially, the state's role in implementing this action of integration would

be limited, and even as coordinator of actions directed to the region would function

only as the creation and maintenance of supranational organizations. From this

perspective the IIRSA the state would lead stocks at the regional level that would result

in an institutionalization of supranational integration in perspective. The axes of

integration proposed by IIRSA demonstrate the magnitude of integration and

coordination problems arising from this proposal for supranational.

FIGURE 1

Source: IIRSA 2009

It is important to note the need for integration, associated with the view that

Latin America experienced a low level of investment in infrastructure, was the

argument raised as a central element for the preparation of IIRSA. The number of axes

in Figure 1 is composed mainly of works in construction that has the dominant sector.

This sector leverage circuit development, but it constitutes an interest group that, in

the regulatory game, is opposed to normative2. This mega-project would serve,

through regional integration, economic agents strategically placed in both the state

apparatus in the Brazilian and other Latin American countries. Currently, the

governments of the left, use of the IIRSA projects to meet the market demands. This

policy option of Latin American governments to stay implementing IIRSA's projects is

welcome in the political system. Political pluralism has allowed the market, through

campaign finance and the action of pressure groups particularly business, has a

2 In Brazil, the energy sector combines state action and business interests that circumvent the civil rights of people who will be affected by infrastructure projects located mainly in the Amazon. This is denounced and judicialized but the State and Federal prosecutors are hamstrung by presidential decrees that prevent its action.

relevant role in the decision making of elected leftist governments. Relations and

interest groups expand in times of campaign finance, the window of opportunity to

influence government decisions. Thus, the IIRSA constitutes an instrument of a game

where the market and government gain. (Quintanar & Lopez, 2003; SOREANU

PECEQUILLO, 2008, Couto 2007) The existence of uncoordinated environmental

regulation in most countries of the Pan Amazon and growing environmental

deregulation in the Brazilian political scene3, make the IIRSA, an effective tool both for

governmental interests to expand jobs and increase economic growth rates and for

agents market that have a return on their investment campaign.

Table 13: Base institutional environment of the Amazon countries

Country Responsible for the Environment

Reference to Environmental in the

Constitution

Management, supervision and monitoring of

Amazonian natural resources

Bolivia - Ministry of Rural Development,

Environment and Agriculture

- Ministry of Water

Constitution of the Republic of Bolivia

(1967, with reforms in 2002)

- National Institute of Agrarian Reform

- Forestry Superintendent - Governments departmental

- Local governments

Brazil - Ministry of the Environment - Council of

Government - National Council on

the Environment (CONAMA)

Federal Constitution (1988)

- Brazilian Forest Service

- Brazilian Institute of Environment and Natural Resources

(IBAMA)

Colombia - Ministry of Environment, Housing and

Territorial Development

- National Council on Environment

Political Constitution of Colombia (1991)

- Amazonian Institute of Scientific Research

- Amazonian Body

- Cormacarena

- Corponariño

- Corporinoquia

Ecuador - Ministry of the Environment

- National Department of Development

Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador

(1998)

- Institute for Development of Amazon (Ecorae)

3 An example of this deregulation is the project of Law 1876/1999 that it "provides for Permanent Preservation Areas, Legal Reserve, logging and other measures" (revokes Law no. 4,771, 1965 - Forest Code, amending Law No. 9605, 1998) which is awaiting referral to vote in the full House of Representatives.

Planning

Guyana - President of the Republic

- Sub-Offices - Committee on

Natural Resources and Environment

Constitution of the Republic of Guyana

(1980)

- Subcommittee on Natural Resources and Environment

-Advisory Committee for Natural Resources

and Environment (NREAC)

Peru - National Environment Council

(CONAM)

Political Constitution of Peru (1993)

- National Institute of Natural Resources

(INRENA) - Research Institute

of the Peruvian Amazon (IIAP)

Suriname - Ministry of Labor, Technological

Development and Environment

- National Institute for Environment and

Development

Constitution of the Republic of Suriname

(1987)

- Ministry of Physical Planning, the Land

and Forest Management

- Ministry of Natural Resources

Venezuela - Ministry of Popular Power for the Environment

Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of

Venezuela (1999)

- Research Institute of the Venezuelan

Amazon (IVIA) Source: Sant'Anna 2009, adapted from PNUMA, OTCA e CIUP, 2009.

These bases are linked politically to the institutional sector bureaucracies

markedly developmental remaining in the domestic scenarios and interfere in the

south-south cooperation (LIMA, 2005). An example is how the financing of projects

designed within the IIRSA and how the adhesion of BNDS to finance most projects is

associated with the requirement that the Brazilian companies are contracted to

perform the work. However, the question that arises is: what is the development

model designed in this strategy? The IIRSA is further elaborated under the influence of

neo-liberal perspective and dependent trajectories created from this development

confined to the environmental agenda an insignificant role in driving and

implementing projects. Projects and environmental licensing express this secondary

position.

The Pan Amazon is the recipient of four of the ten lines of action of IIRSA, which

articulates the Andean transversely to the axis of the Guiana Shield, the axis Amazon,

and the axis Peru-Bolivia-Brazil, home to much of the internationalization of Project

Madeira and the proposal to integrate the Atlantic and Pacific, through the

combination of modal waterway, rail and road.

The tables below allow you to check the total number of ongoing projects and

their environmental licenses in each country:

TABLE 01: AXIS OF AMAZON

TOTAL OF PROJECTS BY COUNTRY PROJECTS RUNNING

Countries With no License

Environment

With License Environment

With no License

Environment

With License Environment

Finished with

License

Finished with no License

BRAZIL 03 06 01 01 01 -

BRAZIL/ PERU 01 - - - - -

PERU 15 11 03 09 - -

COLOMBIA 02 03 - 03 - -

COLOMBIA/ ECUADOR/

PERU

02

- - - - -

ECUADOR/ PERU

- 02 - - - 01

ECUADOR 13 06 - 04 - -

TOTAL 36 28 04 17 01 01 Source: Initiative for Integration of South American Regional Infrastructure (IIRSA). Accessed at:

www.iirsa.org on 12/03/2012.

TABLE 02: AXIS OF ANDINO



Environment

With License

Environment

With no License

Environment

With License

Environment

Finished with

License


BOLIVIA - 01 - 01 - -

BOLIVIA/PERU 02 - 02 - - -

BOLIVIA/PERU/COLOMBIA/ECUADOR/VENEZUEL

A

03 - 01 - - -

COLOMBIA 06 11 - 07 02 01

COLOMBIA/ECUADOR 04 02 02 01 -

COLOMBIA/VENEZUELA 03 01 - 01 01 01

ECUADOR 01 06 - 01 -

ECUADOR/PERU 03 03 01 02 03 01

PERU 01 09 07 01

VENEZUELA 07 - 02 - - -



TABELA 03: AXIS OF GUYANESE SHIELD


Countries With no With With no With Finished Finished

License Environme

nt

License Environme

nt

License Environme

nt

License Environme

nt

with License

with no License

BRASIL - 02 - 01 02 -

BRASIL/GUYANA/SURINAME

01 - 01 - - -

BRASIL/VENEZUELA 01 02 01 01 - 02

GUIANA 01

GUIANA/BRASIL - 02 - - 01 -

GUIANA/SURINAME 01 - - - 01

GUIANA/SURINAME/VENEZUELA

02 - - - - -

SURINAME 02 01 - - - -

VENEZUELA 03 - 01 - - -



TABELA 04: AXIS OF PERU BOLIVIA BRASIL



Environment

With License

Environment

With no License

Environment

With License

Environment

Finished with

License


BOLIVIA 07 01 02 - - -

BOLIVIA/BRASIL 02 - - - - -

BOLIVIA/PERU 01 - - - - -

BRASIL 03 03 03 02 - -

BRASIL/PERU 02 - 01 01 02 -

PERU 05 02 02 01 - -

TOTAL 20 06 08 04 02 - Source: Initiative for Integration of South American Regional Infrastructure (IIRSA). Accessed at:


The tables presented above allow to verify the ineffectiveness of environmental

regulation for all axes as in all of them unlicensed projects were finished and there are

still several running without their license. This finding is not trivial. The number of

projects without an environmental permit if not exceeds the licensed designs

approaches the number of projects being executed with environmental license.

In energy, transport and communication IIRSA in 2011 established a schedule of

priority projects. This is an indication of the revival and strengthening of the

implementation of integration hubs. In the four axes operated in the Pan Amazon,

there are 84 ongoing projects. Allegations of social movements in the countries of the

IIRSA participants regarding the lack of regulation applied to environmental projects

are intense. In Peru and Bolivia, especially the social movements question the IIRSA on

the basis of their appearance that combines developmental disrespect for the rights of

traditional populations that are located in areas where there is the environmental

impact resulting from implementation of the IIRSA projects. Most of the projects

located in the transportation sector, but the most striking are those related to the

energy sector.

The axis of the Peru-Brazil-Bolivia is strategic in all the others. In it are also

provided for construction of hydroelectric plants in Peru and Bolivia and the waterway

to be built in wood to drain much of the natural resources for the Pacific. It was

designed to supply the world market with products from the processing of

commodities and goods with greater added value produced by Brazilian companies

mostly. The logistics flow includes a stretch of waterway Beni-Madeira, to connect the

output of the River Plate to the Pacific.

On the one hand the construction of infrastructure for the integration is a

physical scale to be considered; on the other hand the coordination of economic and

institutional construction projects under these axes is complex. An association

between low level of environmental regulation, low level of participation of interested

and affected the decisions of IIRSA and presidential performance-based plebiscitary

acclamation, allow the state apparatus to easily transform into an instrument of

market agents in the capture of regulatory arenas. In this context the environmental

arena is the most concerned.

Even more regulated than other countries in the Pan Amazon environmental

issues, the regulatory debate about the environmental arena is big trouble in

Brazil. The strong impact on consumption that the redistributive policies of the Lula

government promoted (Hunter & Sugiyama, 2009), became opaque the importance of

environmental issues whose dynamics has intangible benefits and long term. In the

reverse path, social policies offer consumers new to the market almost

immediately. Explained. The demands for more aggressive programs of distribution of

income and employment growth has been accompanied by a discourse that blames

environmental regulation and protection of traditional barriers to the development

because, in the discourses of business and government, environmental regulation is

the element responsible for obliterating works that would create a virtuous cycle of

growth. The environmental agenda has had few adherents and various regulatory

instruments have been changed in Brazil4.

In the rest of Latin America, and particularly the countries of the Pan-Amazon,

these instruments exist without a scope coordinating environmental policies and have

a low degree of institutionalization. Thus, consider the action of Brazil in the

coordination of regional integration projects requires an understanding of that country

as hegemonic also looking to impose models of environmental regulation. These, in

the case of IIRSA in the Pan-Amazon, operate throughout the territorial impact of IIRSA

projects in the region. Compatible regulatory projects are already underway for this

purpose5. The area of influence, only from Amazon axis, allows us to understand the

scope of territorial action on this axis as well as the extent to which institutional

coordination is complex. The complexity of the interweaving of scales that involve the

actions of regional integration proposed by IIRSA is notorious. The axis is

representative of the Amazon scenario complexity. In their areas of coverage are the

largest inventories of natural resources of the planet and also low levels of

institutionalization of environmental regulations.

4 Also in 2007, Jerson Kelman that interfered starkly in the regulation of water resources given its position as market agent and regulator (RAVENA, 2004) proposed the exemption from licensing for projects under the category "National Interest". (Kelman, J. Environmental licensing and national interest. O Estado de S. Paul, Open Space, A2, 02/06/2007.)

5 In the Andean axis is running the project: Armonización regulatoria: eléctrica, gasífera y

petrolera. Countries: Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela.

FIGURE 2

Source: Observatorio Latinoamericano de Geopolítica 2007. Ana Esther Ceceña, Paula

Aguilar, Carlos Motto.Territorialidad de la dominación: La Integración de la

Infraestructura Regional Sudamericana (IIRSA)

This axis is about 200 miles wide and 20,000 km long navigable. In it there are

already ports of Tumaco (Colombia), Esmeraldas (Ecuador), Paita (Peru), Manaus,

Belem and Macapa (Brazil).

The coverage area of the shaft Amazon is very diverse both environmentally

and economically. It is a region marked by the presence of endemic species and local

knowledge has not seized. For the region's conservation projects in local productive

arrangements, strategic and military agreements with specific radar systems and

monitoring. It has potential in the industrial area (electronics, biotechnology, chemical,

pharmaceutical, cement, shipbuilding, aluminum, fertilizers), agricultural (sugar cane,

cotton, tobacco, coffee, cotton, soybeans), agro-forestry, fisheries, mining ( oil, gas,

coal, metals, uranium, iron, gold, emeralds) and tourism.

Of the 44 projects of IIRSA in this area, 21 are for works designed to ports and

waterways, road 12, 3 for works in seaports, 5 for air and one for boundary

adjustments, and the other two are the electrical interconnection interconnecting the

various dams built on the route of the river Madeira. At higher values of IIRSA

investments will be capital for the generation of hydroelectricity.

Most companies that were still in the government of Fernando Henrique

Cardoso, capturing the agenda of building works in the axes of IIRSA, remain in times

of "Turn Left" Latin American and the decisions of leftist and center-left elected.

Moving near the state structures, introducing their demands and exert their influence

through a strategy of pluralism arenas capture (Stigler, 1971) supra, these companies

have changed their performance, and greater flexibility to act according to the

redefinition of the role of America in the global crisis of 2008 and the conversion of

Brazil in global player on the world stage.

The World Investment Report 2011 noted that the largest increase in foreign

investment occurred in South America investments were approximately $ 86 billion,

with Brazil accounting for 56% percent of this amount. Companies such as Vale do Rio

Doce, Gerdau, Camargo Correa, Votorantim, Petrobrás and Braskem have made

acquisitions in the sector of iron ore, steel, food, cement, chemicals, and petroleum

refining, industries in Latin America. (World Investment Report 2011).

In parallel, the industry related to infrastructure is positioned as influential

actor in pursuit of the actions of IIRSA. From the standpoint of household, Brazil,

Brazilian companies are welcome to their demands on the association between the

Growth Acceleration Program-PAC and actions of IIRSA. In this sense, the major

hydroelectricity wins given its centrality as a structural element of regional integration.

Already operating in the Madeira River, the industrial sector on the

construction of roads, ports and dams has significant growth both in the domestic

context and in the countries of Latin America that are in the coverage area of the shaft

Amazon. Wood River flows by more than 95% of the total flow of Bolivian rivers. This

river is the main source of suspended sediment and dissolved solids in the basin. The

design and construction of the Madeira River Hydroelectric Girau and San Antonio are

disrupting and destroying the environmental balance and regional levels. In addition to

the plants in Brazil and Bolivia the project for the Madeira River is formed by the

construction of a 4,200-kilometer waterway that allows navigation of large ships.

There is a forecast of building a connection line and power transmission with over

1,500 km in length.

Besides the construction of roads, connecting the Brazilian system to other

countries in Latin America is one of the main objectives of the Brazilian government in

the implementation of IIRSA. Interconnection is not only physical. The Ten Year Plan

for Energy Expansion in Brazil cites projects to build hydroelectric plants in Peru,

Bolivia and Guyana, coincidentally on the axes of IIRSA covering the Pan Amazon.

Approximately 7,000 MW of installed capacity corresponds to six plants to be installed

in Peru. The constructions of these dams are originated from an agreement signed in

2010 by the then President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Alan García. The cost of the

projects would be $ 15 billion (about $ 23 billion) and the plants would be managed by

the Brazilian state Eletrobrás. However, Peru has canceled the provisional license of a

Brazilian consortium to build the plant on the Inambari river. Cancellation protests

took place in the department (state) of Puno, the same that would house the dam and

the Peruvian government also demanded the cancellation of all concessions in mining

and energy sectors in Peru.

The construction of Jirau and San Antonio Cachuela Esperanza in Brazil and

Bolivia make Bolivia incorporates most of the externalities of the Madeira project. The

environmental impact study will be reviewed in four hearings in Bolivia and is bringing,

as in protest about the construction of the road in the indigenous TIPNIS, social

movements and protagonists of the inclusion of the environmental agenda in

development models of the new left.

The central question of compatibility between development and inclusion of an

environmental agenda, in Latin America, passing through the regulatory game that has

marked its expression in environmental regional institutional forms. TCA and then the

OTCA, as an expression of the intentions of regional integration in Latin America, home

in your program area of Infrastructure Transport, Energy and Communications, the

institutional framework to operationalize the IIRSA projects. The dependent

trajectories originated in the construction of such cooperation are associated with the

dynamic implementation of the IIRSA projects lend well defined contours and

development policies in the region. The construction of the TCA and ATCO expresses

the characteristic of cooperation focused on the volatility of the signatories to join the

cooperation.

Foreign Policy, South-South Cooperation and the IIRSA

The beginning of the TCA took from the meeting of heads of state of Brazil and

Peru that sealed the commitment to develop the initial design of cooperation. The

Treaty began to gain consistency in its production in 1978, the year that Venezuela,

although at first reluctant to have accepted the possibility of recognizing it. About 15

months of negotiations were needed for the final version was presented in 1980. In

this scenario, the premise of the treaty was to preserve (in the sense of territoriality,

not in the environmental sense) and the development of the Amazon.

The consolidation phase of political and diplomatic TCA, which occurred

between 1980 treaty that was broken and the goals to be achieved strengthened.

Major issues, from the standpoint of administrative and organizational to start the

operation of the TCA have been developed and was also established its organizational

structure; Peru was chosen as the locus of this structure. In the same period, were

emphasized what should be the priority sectors for cooperation has been established -

the territorial occupation, the development of technology and scientific knowledge -

facing the region (Roman, 1998).

The signatories undertook to enhance the decision. In 1989, at a meeting held

in Manaus, there was a revival of TCA on a new footing. The question was to house

their infrastructure in a country less hegemonic than Brazil. At that meeting, Brazil had

the intention to maintain the TCA as an instrument of national security and domestic

still position yourself in order to drive and coordinate policies.

The reaction of countries participants was to allocate the operational logistics

of the Treaty in a secretary pro tempore, in Ecuador. When the office was definitely to

Peru, had about 20 employees from all signatory countries. Importantly, the question

of the time it took the operation of the TCA to be effective, because it reflects the lack

of consensus about the purposes of the Treaty and the perception of the signatory

countries that Brazil would not be interesting to emerge as hegemon in the context of

formulating drawing. However, the need for signatory countries to a certain cohesion

around the territorial integrity of the Amazon in the face of outside interests to Latin

America promoted a "geopolitical rationality." This ended as the element that allowed

the instrument was finally played, at one time as a window of political opportunity for

the Latin American countries to begin to define in advance geopolitical strategies to

defend their domestic interests. The TCA, however, was still marked by a regional

reality permeated by mistrust and uncertainty among the signatories.In 2002, the

creation of the OTCA sought to reinvigorate the purposes of integration started with

the TCA, giving more emphasis to the environmental dimension.Headquartered in

Brasilia and the Amazon from the truth, the Executive Secretariat of the OTCA, which

should be the instrument of effective policies for the region becomes more an organ

that intensified regional inequalities since, expressed the competitive dimension of the

signatories of TCA in relation to projects funded by multilateral agencies for the

Amazon.

Between 2002 and 2007, OTCA sought to implement actions aimed at regional

cooperation and distrust remained, mainly from Bolivia to Brazil questioned the

purpose of integration (Sant'Anna, 2009). The discussion on the integrated

management of transboundary rivers, as a strategy of cooperation, already had the

problem of knitting scale institutional, physical and political ACTO faced. On the other

hand, the Brazilian government's strategies within the South-South cooperation from

the foreign policy of the Lula government, promoted the badwagoning movement of

the Pan-Amazon countries to implement policies of the IIRSA projects.

The primary purposes of the Treaty, the political forces that have undertaken,

the consequences of their actions and those who succeeded in an institutional vacuum

are elements that make up a framework for thinking about the type of cooperation

undertaken and dependent trajectories originating from TCA that influenced the

Brazilian foreign policy in the conduct of policy development and integration in the Pan

Amazon.

In the domestic and regional scenarios, the Lula government has combined the

maintenance of macroeconomic policy with an unorthodox strategy articulated by the

autonomist foreign policy community. The developmental legacy remained in some

Brazilian sectoral bureaucracies and influenced its foreign policy towards Latin

American neighbors (LIMA, 2005). Sectoral bureaucracies, such as energy, for example,

that denser development projects aimed at strengthening the mix of business elites in

the context of domestic and regional integration strategies. For the Pan-Amazon IIRSA

materializes and operates this policy. On the other hand, the Brazilian Amazon is a

region where sectoral policies are defined with a high degree of concentration when

considering the federal pact, ie the integration between the domestic and local

conjunctures is disregarded. For the other signatory countries of the Organization, this

dynamic of distance intensifies.

In the Lula government, ACTO, marked by the same dependent trajectories set

by the initial design of the TCA was again enhanced in November 2011, coincidentally

after the meeting to establish the priority projects of IIRSA which occurred in June

2011.

In Dilma the strategy initiated by the Lula government has materialized through

the coordination of actions of the OTCA and IIRSA. Still early in the assembly of your

frame diplomatic president at a meeting of foreign ministers of member countries of

the Pan Amazon reaffirmed the course of South-South cooperation in the Pan Amazon.

At that meeting, redefined the role of the organization leaving it as a banner of

regional sustainability associated with a change agenda that includes developing a

different perspective from that which led to its creation from the TCA.

South America is living a moment of great potential for diplomatic action concertada.Os social issues are central to the agendas of the various domestic and foreign countries. The achievements in terms of economic growth in the entire South American continent brings with it a growing concern about reducing inequality and promoting social justice, increasingly linked to environmental conservation. We can thus associate the concern about the environment, with the equally legitimate concern related to economic development and poverty eradication (Minister Antonio Patriota, Eleventh Meeting of Ministers of the Member Countries of the Organization of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty - Manaus, November 22, 2011)

The discursive statements of submission of the environmental agenda to the

development agenda is clear. The IIRSA projects operated by ATCO for the Pan Amazon

materialize growing purposes stated.

The assumptions present in the developmental agenda of priority projects of

IIRSA and the lack of running their licenses also show that the Brazilian foreign policy

waves to the neighbors of the Pan-Amazon extent to which the environmental arena

must go into the south-south cooperation. Going against this wave are the social

movements. Forged in the Latin American political institutions, these movements rely

on the defense of the environment and environmental asset of the Amazon.

Final Considerations

The theory of varieties of capitalism associated with interpretations of the

governments called new left allows you to realize for the Latin American context

schizophrenia political representation that has been operated in two simultaneous

perspectives, but conflicting. The myriad of possibilities to adapt to new scenarios of

capitalism and the reality of the new left to meet the challenges of consolidating

democratic institutions, pluralism is printing a new face: new strategies of social

movements linked to the consolidation of the environmental agenda as a central

element in the model for Amazon.

Transcending the national boundaries, the transboundary environmental

perspective that is being built from the action of social movements is a reality that

governments put the so-called New Left, a demand for institutions that ensure the

dyad-environmental sustainability in development regulatory perspective and not

merely discursive. In this new configuration of social movements organized actions

whose turn to the inclusion of the environmental agenda in government decisions, the

New Technologies of Information and Communication gives the social movements,

previously hamstrung by divisions and geographic place names, a planetary dimension.

More than this. Allow solidarity in the face of environmental issues transcend the

limits of national states seeking to consolidate and follow the practices and institutions

that allow, as Boulding say, that this deep crisis "which faces mankind may predispose

people to taking more interest in the immediate problems and to devote more effort

for their solution".

The solution is in a republican respect to the peoples of the Pan Amazon.

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