8.3 Agency Patterns: State Reemergence Amid Transnational Actors
191
this transnationality of agency has applied to biofuels and how it is interplaying with
emerging state prominence in governance.
In all three investigated cases, private agribusiness—in a combination of domestic,
foreign, and mixed-capital companies—has been part of dominant coalitions, typically allied with the state and providing essential support in the form of finance,
technology, and bio-based production capacity. Its view has been consistently productivist in nature, minimizing criticism against biofuels, focusing on outputs and market
expansion, and usually limiting social issues to job creation and environmental ones
to climate change mitigation only. Their mobilization of material resources is characteristically a mix of domestic and international capital, as seen through the financing
from foreign (usually North-based) and multilateral entities and the utilization of agricultural technology from multinationals, as in plant material and chemical inputs.
Contrastingly, however, discourses have usually been nationally oriented, evoking a
spirit of international market competition and struggle for national energy and food
security.
Smallholders, social movements, and environmental NGOs, in contrast, have been
consistently outside of dominant coalitions. Their exact positions, however, have
varied. In Brazil, grassroots rural movements and environmental NGOs have largely
joined forces to pursue an agroecology and food sovereignty-oriented approach to
biofuels and the bioeconomy. To an extent, they succeeded in being recognized by
the government and participating in decision-making, before government changes
towards the far-right curtailed such civil society participation. Such a subordinateactor articulation has been much more limited and without significant coalition
behavior in India’s biofuel governance. In Indonesia, they have been confrontational as most environmental NGOs are North-based, emphasize ecosystem conservation, and often antagonize most smallholders’ development aspirations. In all three
cases, these non-dominant agents’ typical resources have been mobilizable troops
and information about large-scale biofuel production’s social and environmental
impacts, sometimes counting on skillful local leadership. Although these actors occasionally benefit from foreign donors, their action is mainly circumscribed to their
national contexts—except for the North-based environmental NGOs in Indonesia
(and, to a lesser extent, in Brazil
2 ), which operate internationally. In this sense,
smallholder networks such as Via Campesina seem to represent more of a platform
for recognizing peasant identity, expressing views, and promoting solidarity than for
substantial exchange of resources, as it happens with large NGOs or agribusiness.
Finally, the scientific community finds itself split in all three cases. It is interesting to note that enthusiastic support for biofuel promotion and bioeconomy
development has come mostly from researchers in the exact sciences and engineering (see Afiff 2014), while criticism has come primarily from the ecological and
social sciences. The fact that recent technology-oriented papers continue to overlook
2 Such North-based environmental NGOs operate in Brazil mostly on the issue of deforestation,
which has had little relation with biofuels development. Brazilian environmental NGOs, on the
other hand, operate on a broader spectrum of issues and usually take as much social as ecological
dimensions into account (see Bastos Lima and Persson 2020).
191
this transnationality of agency has applied to biofuels and how it is interplaying with
emerging state prominence in governance.
In all three investigated cases, private agribusiness—in a combination of domestic,
foreign, and mixed-capital companies—has been part of dominant coalitions, typically allied with the state and providing essential support in the form of finance,
technology, and bio-based production capacity. Its view has been consistently productivist in nature, minimizing criticism against biofuels, focusing on outputs and market
expansion, and usually limiting social issues to job creation and environmental ones
to climate change mitigation only. Their mobilization of material resources is characteristically a mix of domestic and international capital, as seen through the financing
from foreign (usually North-based) and multilateral entities and the utilization of agricultural technology from multinationals, as in plant material and chemical inputs.
Contrastingly, however, discourses have usually been nationally oriented, evoking a
spirit of international market competition and struggle for national energy and food
security.
Smallholders, social movements, and environmental NGOs, in contrast, have been
consistently outside of dominant coalitions. Their exact positions, however, have
varied. In Brazil, grassroots rural movements and environmental NGOs have largely
joined forces to pursue an agroecology and food sovereignty-oriented approach to
biofuels and the bioeconomy. To an extent, they succeeded in being recognized by
the government and participating in decision-making, before government changes
towards the far-right curtailed such civil society participation. Such a subordinateactor articulation has been much more limited and without significant coalition
behavior in India’s biofuel governance. In Indonesia, they have been confrontational as most environmental NGOs are North-based, emphasize ecosystem conservation, and often antagonize most smallholders’ development aspirations. In all three
cases, these non-dominant agents’ typical resources have been mobilizable troops
and information about large-scale biofuel production’s social and environmental
impacts, sometimes counting on skillful local leadership. Although these actors occasionally benefit from foreign donors, their action is mainly circumscribed to their
national contexts—except for the North-based environmental NGOs in Indonesia
(and, to a lesser extent, in Brazil
2 ), which operate internationally. In this sense,
smallholder networks such as Via Campesina seem to represent more of a platform
for recognizing peasant identity, expressing views, and promoting solidarity than for
substantial exchange of resources, as it happens with large NGOs or agribusiness.
Finally, the scientific community finds itself split in all three cases. It is interesting to note that enthusiastic support for biofuel promotion and bioeconomy
development has come mostly from researchers in the exact sciences and engineering (see Afiff 2014), while criticism has come primarily from the ecological and
social sciences. The fact that recent technology-oriented papers continue to overlook
2 Such North-based environmental NGOs operate in Brazil mostly on the issue of deforestation,
which has had little relation with biofuels development. Brazilian environmental NGOs, on the
other hand, operate on a broader spectrum of issues and usually take as much social as ecological
dimensions into account (see Bastos Lima and Persson 2020).