Global Capital and Social Difference by V. Sujatha

Author:V. Sujatha [Sujatha, V.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781000176872
Goodreads: 52993237
Publisher: Routledge Chapman & Hall
Published: 2020-08-31T00:00:00+00:00

What is substitutive governance? Main features of substitutive governance

As mentioned, in South America, the notion of governance acquires specific forms and does not necessarily respond to ideal types. In that direction, we observe modes of governance with a tendency to privilege a bilateral bond over a tripartite one (State, Market, Civil Society), excluding the third actor by explicitly ignoring or replacing its specific functions. While the canonical notion of governance refers to mostly symmetric and collaborative linkages between three fundamental realms and agents, our conception of substitutive governance supposes the intentional exclusion of one of them.

In the field of natural resource governance, this type of substitution is increasingly common, marginalising one of the three realms or agents from the process of public policies and from the associated management of resources. What one can observe is quite different and deeper than a mere strengthened or privileged relationship between two agents promoting a by-pass of the third part. This kind of bilateral linkages has many examples in the field of environmental politics, particularly in developing countries: potential conflictive Civil Society actors are often excluded from large-scale projects secretly negotiated between powerful corporations and hungry-for-investment nation-states. Moreover, the substitution takes place not just by eliminating the functions and tasks of one of the agents but by deliberatively assuming the role originally and traditionally associated with the other. Another form of substitution is possible when one of these three realms or agents occupies a vacant space left by the other because of ineffective action or of a lack of capacities and resources. In this sense, the substitution tends to be a ‘second-best option’: an artificial and failed version in the performance of functions and tasks that are being replaced, according to Adorno’s concept of Ersatz (substitution, replacement).

That substitution among agents can assume different forms beyond the classical by-pass, and it also develops distinct affinities with different development models that directly impact the governance of natural resources.

Market + Civil Society replacing the State in neoliberal contexts.

 In these cases, corporations assume the functions of promoting development and mediation, facing or preventing conflict with local communities. This is the most common substitutive relationship in different parts of the world introduced by large investors and wide-ranging projects. For example, in Chile, it is increasingly frequent to observe corporations willing to go beyond corporate social responsibility. These private actors seek to be the real developmental agents by being equipped with more information, resources and territorial embeddedness than the State itself (Pelfini and Mena 2017).

State + Market replacing Civil Society in neodevelopmentalist contexts.

 In these cases, the State assumes the function of legitimisation and of representation of Civil Society’s collective interests. This substitution tends to be found within populist regimes and was typical in Argentina under Kirchner’s administration, where the State incorporated part of Civil Society’s agenda in its antagonistic dynamic (Godio 2008). Within a populist logic, the State knows ‘more’ and ‘better’ than those directly affected. Those that still resist being incorporated under this dynamic are stigmatised as fundamentalist or particularistic with the accusation of hindering the general interest (De Ipola 1982).

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