Brazilian Government Action in the Strengthening and Dismantling of MERCOSUR’s Family Farming Institutionality

Grisa, Catia; França, Caio Galvão de; Niederle, Paulo; Zimmermann, Silvia A.

doi:10.1590/S0102-8529.20224403e20210024

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RESEARCH ARTICLE • Contexto int. 44 (3) • Sep/Dec 2022 • https://doi.org/10.1590/S0102-8529.20224403e20210024 copy

Brazilian Government Action in the Strengthening and Dismantling of MERCOSUR’s Family Farming Institutionality

A ação do governo brasileiro no fortalecimento e desmantelamento da institucionalidade da agricultura familiar do MERCOSUL

Authorship SCIMAGO INSTITUTIONS RANKINGS

Abstract

The article analyses the changes in the Brazilian government’s actions at the Specialized Meeting on Family Farming of Mercosur (REAF). Created in 2004, REAF is a regional forum for political dialogue between governments and social organizations to develop public policies for family farming. Drawing on dialogues between historical neo-institutionalism and debates on policy paradigm and dismantling, the article defines four dimensions (political context and power relations, ideas and policy paradigms, characteristics of institutions, and interests and strategies of political actors) to explain and typify the processes of institutional strengthening and dismantling. Based on such dimensions and on data collected through participant observation, document analysis and interviews with key actors, the article analyses the Brazilian government’s actions in comparison to prevailing types of institutional change. The analysis shows that, between 2004 and 2016, the prevailing strategy for institutional strengthening was ‘discursive and symbolic’ and operated through ‘institutional densification’; in turn, from 2016 on, strategies of ‘discursive and symbolic’ dismantling and ‘dismantling by change in the institutional linkages’ prevailed.

Keywords
institutional change; policy dismantling; ideas; public policy; family farming; Mercosur

INSTITUTIONAL STRENGTHENING	INSTITUTIONAL DISMANTLING
By institutional densification Taking advantage of the few political constraints and high discretion in public policy, political actors in favour of the paradigm include new rules, instruments or institutional relations (joint or complementary actions with other bodies) to increase the density and intensity of public policy. This is a routine and gradual strategy, occurring without drawing the attention of coalitions that challenge the policy paradigm.	By institutional densification Although the actors disagree with the paradigm, they do not have the power to extinguish the policy and/or are unable to adjust it to their world views (low discretion). In this case, without high visibility, the strategy involves increasing the density (set of rules, norms, procedures) to such an extent that it becomes difficult to execute the policy, significantly reducing its intensity.
By change in the institutional linkage Taking advantage of the existence of few political constraints and high discretion in public policy, political actors in favour of the paradigm expand its density and intensity by transferring it to another governmental sphere with greater political and institutional power. Such strategy implies high visibility, which can contribute to reinforcing the public policy paradigm.	By change in the institutional linkage and objectives Actors who disagree with the established paradigm use the low political resistance and high discretion in the public policy to reduce its density and intensity through changes in its institutional linkage and/or by converting its objectives to other purposes. The policy’s maintenance guarantees low visibility to the strategy, at least in contrast to the extinction.
Discursive and symbolic Political actors pro paradigm, discursively and symbolically produce a context favourable to institutional strengthening. Fierce political disputes, institutional constraints and low discretion in public policy demand the construction of ‘a path’ favourable to the increase in both density and intensity of public policy, with the ‘co-ordinating and communication discourse’ (Schmidt, 2017; 2008) being a key instrument in this sense.	Discursive and symbolic Political actors disagree with the paradigm and, in the face of high institutional constraints and low discretion in the public policy, act to deconstruct it, discursively and symbolically. Converging with the interpretations of discursive neo-institutionalism, the actors trigger a highly visible strategy in order to build an institutional and political context prone to reducing the density and intensity of the public policy.
	By extinction or replacementSupported by paradigms that question the importance, format and objectives of public policies, hegemonic coalitions aim for their extinction or replacement with different institutional purposes and arrangements. Although highly visible, the low discretion/ambiguity of the public policy and the absence of institutional vetoes/political constraints favour such measures.
	By the ineffectiveness of the policy and its instrumentsBeing close to the gradual change of the ‘drift’ type and the dismantling ‘by default’, this low visibility strategy involves the conduct of actors who, being opposed to the paradigm, choose not to adjust the policy and its instruments when faced with changes in context. Using their veto capacity and handling the policy’s high discretion, the actors maintain the density but do not update the intensity of the policy.

Type of institutional change	Actors’ strategies	Stance on the paradigm	Institutional constraints	Discretion in the public policy	Strategy visibility	Density	Intensity
	densification	Ideas in favour of the current paradigm	Low	High	Low	Increase	Increase
Strengthening	linkage shifting		Low	High	High	Increase	Increase
	discursive and symbolic work		High	Low	High	Increase	Increase
	densification	Ideas opposed to the current paradigm	High	Low	Low	Increase	Decrease
Dismantling	change in institutional linkage or policy objectives		Low	High	Low	Decrease	Decrease
	discursive and symbolic work		High	Low	High	Decrease	Decrease
	extinction or replacement		Low	Low	High	End	End
	ineffectiveness of the policy and its instruments		High	High	Low	Maintenance	Without update

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[1] Catia Grisa is a Professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). Secretary of the Rural Studies Network (2019-2021), Vice President of the Brazilian Society of Rural Economics, Management and Sociology (Sober 2019-2023) and member of the Coordination Committee of the Public Policies and Rural Development in Latin America and the Caribbean Network (PP-Al 2017-2022). She has co-ordinated several research projects on public policies, family farming and food policies in Brazil and Latino America, and she is author of books and papers. Her two last publications are Public policies and food systems in Latin America (2022) and ‘Ruptures in the agroecological transitions: institutional change and policy dismantling in Brazil’ (2022).