Doctoral Dissertation Research: Governing the Environment Privately: Politics, Property, and Markets in Chile's Aquaculture and Forestry Sectors

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Chile's natural resource industries have experienced explosive growth within market-oriented policy frameworks since the sweeping neoliberal restructuring imposed by the military government beginning in the 1970s. Conflicts and coordination problems over alternative uses and values of forest and marine resources in the multifunctional landscapes of southern Chile have been pervasive, however, and in 2008, the country's booming salmon aquaculture industry all but collapsed due to failures in environmental management and disease epidemics. This doctoral dissertation research project will focus on a crucial question: When state regulation is constrained by design, how are the environmental conflicts and coordination problems associated with export-oriented agricultural industries addressed? To explore answers to this question, the doctoral student will conduct comparative analyses of aquaculture and forestry sectors in Chile, focusing special attention on why ecological markets developed to address environmental quality have not developed to address natural resource problems and the extent to which private forms of governance can resolve the internal coordination problems and the external conflicts associated with different agricultural industries. The cross-sector comparison of environmental governance mechanisms will focus on institutional arrangements (the configurations of rules, norms, and conventions), politics, and practices of governance. The student will conduct research in south central Chile, using multiple methods, including archival research, semi-structured interviews, the observation of regulatory venues, and a survey questionnaire. In order to explore the paradoxical absence of ecological markets in these sectors, the student's fieldwork will include both a "top down" focus on the policy arena as well as an examination of the "bottom up" efforts by conservation projects to create ecological rights and markets.The project will enhance understanding of environmental regulation within neoliberal policy contexts and help to fill a gap in the understanding of environmental governance within Chile's globally emblematic natural resource sectors. Project findings should provide valuable information and insights that can be used by stakeholders and policymakers in the study areas as well as in other nations seeking to effectively manage natural resources in free-market contexts. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.