3.5 Conclusions: Feedback Loops and Power Spirals
63
from agency in the form of institutional entrepreneurship, aimed at crafting governance architectures that promote the activities favored. This longer route can rely on
various forms of policy advocacy and discursive strategies to sway public opinion and
retain government support, leading to the commonplace observation that prevailing
institutions generally reflect the dominant actors’ views and beliefs.
Figure 3.1 presents this analytical framework to be applied in the subsequent
chapters to assess biofuel governance cases as proxies for what the bioeconomy has
looked like to date. The figure draws from previous work by Young et al. (1999/2005)
on the role of institutions in addressing environmental change, though here the focus
is shifted to the influence of governance on social equity. Following Soni (2007) and
Gupta et al. (2013), there is also a sub-division between national and international
governance architectures to identify which institutional incentives, causality links,
and redesign needs belong to each level. More significantly, here this framework
includes the element of agency, previously absent. It makes explicit that institutional
redesign is not a given but rather something that may happen. Design thus is regarded
not as something detached from agency but rather wholly dependent on it, since
institutions do not change by themselves. Finally, it includes the new dimensions
of feedback—first from social impacts back to agency, following political ecology’s
tenet that distributive outcomes and socio-economic inequalities are likely to have
political implications, then the short and long feedback loops discussed above.
References
Archer MS (2003) Structure, agency and the internal conversation. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge
Bachrach P, Baratz MM (1962) Two faces of power. Am Polit Sci Rev 56(4):947–952
Barnett MN, Finnemore M (1999) The politics, power and pathologies of international organizations.
Int Org 53(4):699–732
Bastos Lima MG (2018) Toward multipurpose agriculture: food, fuels, flex crops, and prospects for
a bioeconomy. Glob Environ Polit 18(2):143–150
Bastos Lima MG, Gupta J (2013) The policy context of biofuels: a case of non-governance at the
global level? Glob Environ Polit 13(2):46–64
Bastos Lima MG, Persson UM, Meyfroidt P (2019) Leakage and boosting effects in environmental
governance: a framework for analysis. Environ Res Lett 14:105006
Bastos Lima MG, Persson UM (2020) Commodity-centric landscape governance as a double-edged
sword: the case of soy and the Cerrado Working Group in Brazil. Front For Glob Chang 3:27
Battilana J (2006) Agency and institutions: the enabling role of individuals’ social position.
Organization 13(5):653–676
Baumgartner FR, Jones BD (1991) Agenda dynamics and policy subsystems. J Polit 53(4):1044–
1074
Bernstein H (2010) Class dynamics of agrarian change. Agrarian change and peasant studies series.
Kumarian Press, Sterling
Biermann F (2007) ‘Earth system governance’ as a crosscutting theme of global change research.
Glob Environ Chang 17:326–337
Biermann F, Pattberg P (2008) Global environmental governance: taking stock, moving forward.
Annu Rev Environ Resour 33:277–294
63
from agency in the form of institutional entrepreneurship, aimed at crafting governance architectures that promote the activities favored. This longer route can rely on
various forms of policy advocacy and discursive strategies to sway public opinion and
retain government support, leading to the commonplace observation that prevailing
institutions generally reflect the dominant actors’ views and beliefs.
Figure 3.1 presents this analytical framework to be applied in the subsequent
chapters to assess biofuel governance cases as proxies for what the bioeconomy has
looked like to date. The figure draws from previous work by Young et al. (1999/2005)
on the role of institutions in addressing environmental change, though here the focus
is shifted to the influence of governance on social equity. Following Soni (2007) and
Gupta et al. (2013), there is also a sub-division between national and international
governance architectures to identify which institutional incentives, causality links,
and redesign needs belong to each level. More significantly, here this framework
includes the element of agency, previously absent. It makes explicit that institutional
redesign is not a given but rather something that may happen. Design thus is regarded
not as something detached from agency but rather wholly dependent on it, since
institutions do not change by themselves. Finally, it includes the new dimensions
of feedback—first from social impacts back to agency, following political ecology’s
tenet that distributive outcomes and socio-economic inequalities are likely to have
political implications, then the short and long feedback loops discussed above.
References
Archer MS (2003) Structure, agency and the internal conversation. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge
Bachrach P, Baratz MM (1962) Two faces of power. Am Polit Sci Rev 56(4):947–952
Barnett MN, Finnemore M (1999) The politics, power and pathologies of international organizations.
Int Org 53(4):699–732
Bastos Lima MG (2018) Toward multipurpose agriculture: food, fuels, flex crops, and prospects for
a bioeconomy. Glob Environ Polit 18(2):143–150
Bastos Lima MG, Gupta J (2013) The policy context of biofuels: a case of non-governance at the
global level? Glob Environ Polit 13(2):46–64
Bastos Lima MG, Persson UM, Meyfroidt P (2019) Leakage and boosting effects in environmental
governance: a framework for analysis. Environ Res Lett 14:105006
Bastos Lima MG, Persson UM (2020) Commodity-centric landscape governance as a double-edged
sword: the case of soy and the Cerrado Working Group in Brazil. Front For Glob Chang 3:27
Battilana J (2006) Agency and institutions: the enabling role of individuals’ social position.
Organization 13(5):653–676
Baumgartner FR, Jones BD (1991) Agenda dynamics and policy subsystems. J Polit 53(4):1044–
1074
Bernstein H (2010) Class dynamics of agrarian change. Agrarian change and peasant studies series.
Kumarian Press, Sterling
Biermann F (2007) ‘Earth system governance’ as a crosscutting theme of global change research.
Glob Environ Chang 17:326–337
Biermann F, Pattberg P (2008) Global environmental governance: taking stock, moving forward.
Annu Rev Environ Resour 33:277–294