Ruptures in the agroecological transitions: institutional change and policy dismantling in Brazil
Paulo André Niederle, Paulo Petersen, Émilie Coudel, Cátia Grisa, Claudia Job Schmitt, Éric Sabourin, Evandro Pedro Schneider, Alfio Brandenburg, Claire Lamine
Abstract
Brazil is one of the few countries that has implemented policies aimed at supporting agroecological transition processes on a national scale. While its experience has caught the attention of the international community interested in building sustainable and healthy food systems, recent literature points to the dismantling of these policies. This article identifies the variety of dismantling strategies to analyze how they are linked to the modification of the policy paradigm. Results suggest that the formation of a ‘clientelist–corporocratic’ paradigm legitimized active and visible dismantling strategies, such as the extinction of policy instruments and the delegitimization of agroecology through discursive mechanisms.