Bringing states back into commodity-centric environmental governance: the telecoupled soy trade between Brazil and China

Victor Thives, Niels Søndergaard and Cristina Yumie Aoki Inoue

Third World Quarterly, 2022, vol. 43, issue 9, 2129-2148

Abstract: Brazil and China share important vantage points in environmental fora, actively coordinating their positions within Brazil, South Africa, India, and China (BASIC) and Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS). Both countries have incorporated sustainability concerns in their multilateral stances, but their bilateral strategic partnership lacks a clear environmental orientation. This study analyses the discrepancy between multilateral commitments and the realities of their bilateral interactions. The low degree of priority of, or outright non-attendance to, environmental concerns on the operational level of Sino–Brazilian diplomatic relations illustrates the detachment of official rhetoric from effective engagements. We explore these contradictions and their repercussions for the commodity-centric governance of the telecoupled Sino–Brazilian relations, focusing on the soy sector and on its environmental impacts within Brazil. We caution against the trend of exclusively paying attention to private regulatory initiatives, and highlight the importance of bringing states back into the analysis.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01436597.2022.2081144 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:ctwqxx:v:43:y:2022:i:9:p:2129-2148

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/ctwq20

DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2022.2081144

Access Statistics for this article

Third World Quarterly is currently edited by Shahid Qadir

More articles in Third World Quarterly from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().