IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/padxxx/v32y2012i3p229-244.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Institutional Subversion And Deforestation: Learning Lessons From The System For The Environmental Licencing Of Rural Properties In Mato Grosso

Author

Listed:
  • Raoni Rajão
  • Andrea Azevedo
  • Marcelo C. C. Stabile

Abstract

SUMMARY This article contributes to the public administration and environmental governance literature by proposing the notion of ‘institutional subversion’ as a way of describing how the strategies adopted by local actors may change and even go against the initial aims of institutional development initiatives. The article discusses the case of the system for the environmental licencing of rural properties (SLAPR), an institutional development initiative by the state government of Mato Grosso in the south‐eastern portion of the Brazilian Amazon. It will be shown that even though this initiative has earned the status of ‘best practice’ in controlling deforestation, a closer look at SLAPR reveals that it has led to contradictory outcomes. During the first 8 years of SLAPR, it had no significant impact on reducing deforestation and, in some cases, even permitted the increase of total deforestation by providing authorization for this. According to an institutional analysis of the case study, the article draws particular conclusions that could be relevant to public administrators in the region and in other countries. In particular, it is argued that by accepting the possibility of institutional subversion, public administrators may become more attentive to unexpected consequences and be able to take corrective action. Furthermore, in order to avoid institutional subversion, public administrators should integrate institutional initiatives into broader governmental, technological and economical dimensions. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Raoni Rajão & Andrea Azevedo & Marcelo C. C. Stabile, 2012. "Institutional Subversion And Deforestation: Learning Lessons From The System For The Environmental Licencing Of Rural Properties In Mato Grosso," Public Administration & Development, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 32(3), pages 229-244, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:padxxx:v:32:y:2012:i:3:p:229-244
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bénédicte Niel & Yann Laurans & Renaud Lapeyre & Pascale Combes Motel & Jean-Louis Combes, 2019. "Why do anti-deforestation policies succeed or fail? Review of the Theory of Change emerging from the existing literature," CERDI Working papers halshs-02090658, HAL.
    2. Richard van der Hoff & Raoni Rajão & Pieter Leroy, 2018. "Clashing interpretations of REDD+ “results” in the Amazon Fund," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 150(3), pages 433-445, October.
    3. Miranda, Bruno Varella & de Oliveira, Gustavo Magalhães, 2023. "Assessing the performance of voluntary environmental agreements under high monitoring costs: Evidence from the Brazilian Amazon," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    4. Correa, Juliano & Cisneros, Elías & Börner, Jan & Pfaff, Alexander & Costa, Marcelo & Rajão, Raoni, 2020. "Evaluating REDD+ at subnational level: Amazon fund impacts in Alta Floresta, Brazil," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    5. Roitman, Iris & Cardoso Galli Vieira, Ludgero & Baiocchi Jacobson, Tamiel Khan & da Cunha Bustamante, Mercedes Maria & Silva Marcondes, Nívea Jorgia & Cury, Kátia & Silva Estevam, Luciana & da Costa R, 2018. "Rural Environmental Registry: An innovative model for land-use and environmental policies," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 95-102.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:padxxx:v:32:y:2012:i:3:p:229-244. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0271-2075 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.