Framing REDD+ in the Brazilian national media: how discourses evolved amid global negotiation uncertainties

Reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD+) in tropical countries is an important and contested element of the post-Kyoto climate regime. For policy options which generate controversy between diverse actor groups, such as REDD+, mass media plays an important role in defining and supporting policy possibilities. Analysis of the way in which national media frames issues of climate change and deforestation can offer insights into the nature of the contested domains of the REDD+ policy process. Here, we examine the Brazilian national media discourses surrounding REDD+ because it contributes to setting the tone of policy debates at the federal level. Specifically, we ask the following: (i) How was REDD+ portrayed in the Brazilian national print media and whose opinions and perceptions were represented? and (ii) How have media frames on REDD+ in the national print media changed over time? Our results contribute with new knowledge for understanding the observed progress of REDD+ in Brazil. We identify two main themes that dominate the focus in the national media coverage of REDD+, specifically “politics and policymaking” (representing half the coverage) and “economics and market” (with over a third). Results show that discussions around carbon markets were amongst the most contested and that optimism in relation to REDD+ effectiveness declined over time. The analysis suggests that positions adopted on the national REDD+ strategy were shaped by state and federal collision of interests. We demonstrate an evolution of national concerns from an initial focus on efficiency (e.g. finance and carbon markets) to a recentred focus on equity issues (e.g. implementation of safeguards). We conclude with some thoughts on the implications of these features for REDD+ interventions and implementation in Brazil

Distinctively Dysfunctional: ‘State Capitalism 2.0’ and the Indian Power Sector

State intervention in India has persisted but has proved far from immune to critiques of traditional dirigisme. An examination of the power sector shows that waves of reforms since 1991 have together created a hybrid and regionally differentiated state-market system. Blurring the public-private boundary, this reinvented “state capitalism 2.0” displays both refurbished modes of intervention and new governance arrangements with private players. Nonetheless, as the power sector’s continually dismal condition suggests, this state-capitalist hybrid has not (yet) provided a coherent alternative to older dirigisme or the Anglo-American mode of “deregulatory” liberalization. Instead, between 1991 and 2014 its ad hoc, layered emergence generated distinctive forms of dysfunction. Coupled with competitive politics, its ever-increasing institutional complexity rendered it internally incoherent and vulnerable to rent seeking on multiple fronts. Power sector evidence suggests that state intervention in India has remained simultaneously indispensable and dogged by persistent administrative and financial difficulties. Examining its internal institutional transformations helps to explain the apparently contradictory nature of the contemporary Indian state: at once business-friendly, populist, and often underperforming

Methods and Global Environmental Governance

10.1146/annurev-environ-072811-114530Annual Review of Environment and Resources38441-47