Inside Environmental Policy-Making:
The Role of Technocrats in Peru
Credits: Banksy, 2018.
Esteban Valle Riestra Padró
Master Thesis Latin American Studies CEDLA Master’s Programme
November 2018
Student no. 11922656
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Barbara Hogenboom Second reader: Dr. Arij Ouweneel
TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ACRONYMS ... 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... 2 ABSTRACT ... 3 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ... 5 1.1 Thesis structure ... 9
CHAPTER 2. KEY CONCEPTS AND DEBATES ON ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE AND THE ROLE OF TECHNOCRATS ... 11
2.1 Approaches to environmental governance in Latin America and Peru ... 12
2.2 Technocrats: definition and attributes ... 16
2.3 Debate over the role of technocrats in Peru ... 18
2.4 Concluding remarks ... 20
CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH PROBLEM: THE ROLE OF TECHNOCRATS IN PERU’S ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY CHANGES ... 22
3.1 Case study: environmental policy changes in Peru ... 22
3.2 Research objective ... 26
3.3 Research methodology ... 28
CHAPTER 4. BACKGROUND: ENVIRONMENTAL INSTITUTIONS IN PERU (2006-2011) ... 31
4.1 Environmental institutions in Peru between 2006-2011 ... 31
4.2 Ollanta Humala and the Conga conflict ... 33
4.3 Concluding remarks ... 36
CHAPTER 5. THE ROLE OF TECHNOCRATS AT THE MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT ... 37
5.1 MINAM technocrat’s assessment and strategies ... 37
5.2 MINAM technocrat’s policy changes implemented ... 43
5.3 Concluding remarks ... 49
CHAPTER 6. THE ROLE OF TECHNOCRATS AT THE MINISTRY OF ECONOMY & FINANCE ... 51
6.1 MEF’s reaction to MINAM’s policy changes ... 52
6.2 The new environmental policy framework ... 57
6.3 Concluding remarks ... 61
CHAPTER 7. CONCLUSIONS: REFLECTIONS ON THE ROLE OF TECHNOCRATS ... 64
REFERENCES ... 69
APPENDIX A - LIST OF INTERVIEWS ... 77
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LIST OF ACRONYMS
APR Aporte por Regulación (Regulatory Contribution)
CONAM Consejo Nacional del Ambiente (National Environmental Council)
CONFIEP Confederación Nacional de Instituciones Empresariales Privadas (National Confederation of Private Business Associations)
EESI Equipo Especializado de Seguimiento a la Inversión (Specialized Team for Investment Monitoring)
EE Estudios Especializados (Specialized Studies)
EIA Estudios de Impacto Ambiental (Environmental Impact Asessment)
DGAAM Dirección General de Asuntos Ambientales Mineros (General Directorate of Environmental Affairs for Mining)
DGOT Dirección General de Ordenamiento Territorial (General Directorate of Land Use Planning)
DIT Diagnóstico Integrado del Territorio (Integral Territorial Diagnosis)
INDECOPI Instituto Nacional de la Defensa de la Competencia y de la Protección de la Propiedad Intelectual (National Institute for the Defense of Free Competition and the Protection of Intellectual Property)
MEF Ministerio de Economía y Finanzas (Ministry of Economy and Finance) MEM Ministerio de Energía y Minas (Ministry of Energy and Mines)
MINAM Ministerio del Ambiente (Ministry of Environment)
OEFA Organismo de Evaluación y Fiscalización Ambiental (Evaluation and Environmental Supervision Office)
OT Ordenamiento Territorial (Land Use Planning)
PCM Presidencia del Consejo de Ministros (Presidency of the Council of Ministers) SENACE Servicio Nacional de Certificación Ambiental (Agency of Environmental
Certification for Sustainable Investment)
OSINERGMIN Organismo Supervisor de la Inversión en Energía y Minería (Supervising Organism for Energy Investment)
POT Plan de Ordenamiento Territorial (Land Use Development Plan) ZEE Zonificación Económica y Ecológica (Ecological and Economic Zoning)
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, I would like to thank Professor Barbara Hogenboom for her invaluable support throughout my research. Barbara’s advice, suggestions, critical comments and, above all, her close attention to my progress during every stage of my thesis helped me to develop my ideas in a clearer, simpler, and more-effective way. To a large extent, my accomplishments here attained owe her a large debt. Likewise, I would like to extend my gratitude to all CEDLA’s staff and to my classmates of the Master Programme. Each of them contributed to my learning process inside and outside the classrooms, and I will be forever thankful for tolerating my enthusiasm for the Latin American technocracy. This thesis would not have been possible without the generous collaboration of former Peruvian officials willing to share their experience, knowledge and opinions. I am especially thankful with Alonso Segura, former Peru’s minister of Economy and Finance; Mariano Castro and Gabriel Quijandría, ex vice ministers of the ministry of Environment; Hugo Gómez, former president of OEFA; and Fernando Neyra, ex director of the General Directorate of Land Use Planning. Even though we could differ over the direction environmental policies should take in the country, I appreciate their transparent commitment to the protection of the natural resources and their genuine concern for the well-being of all people in the nation. To them I want to express my most sincere gratitude. Last but certainly not least, it is impossible not to mention here the support of my family and friends on both continents, whom accompanied me along this process and made my stay in the Netherlands entertaining, pleasant and absolutely gratifying.
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ABSTRACT
This thesis explores the role of technocrats in Peru’s environmental governance policy-making process. To do so, it focuses on a case study of the environmental policy changes introduced during Ollanta Humala’s administration (2011-2016). Along this period, the government made important strides to heighten its control over the extractive sector and secure the protection of the environment by setting up new institutions and regulations. But at the same time, it pushed forward policies aimed to attract and streamline foreign investments, which watered down previous environmental policy advancements. It is argued here that although these problems of contradictory policies have been addressed under different structural or institutional approaches, the role of technocrats in the design of environmental policies has remained understudied. The key influence of technocrats in the policy-making process is therefore highlighted through a qualitative exploration of how technocrats conceived, designed, backed, or resisted Humala’s policy changes. Findings are mainly based on interviews with technocrats from the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Economy and Finance, which were cross referenced by testimonies from other top public officials, academics, and NGOs executives, as well as supported by governmental institutional reports. In order to explore this phenomenon, this thesis delves into two dimensions of technocrat’s role, which it is argued shaped the policy outcomes: technocrats' mindset and their strategies implemented. Drawing upon examples from three policy areas where significant reforms were staged (land use planning, environmental monitoring and environmental licensing), this thesis exposes how those dimensions interplayed in the redefinition of Peru’s environmental policy framework.
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RESUMEN
La presente tesis explora el papel de los tecnócratas en el proceso de formulación de políticas de gobernanza ambiental de Perú. Para ello, se enfoca en un estudio de caso de los cambios de política ambiental introducidos durante la administración de Ollanta Humala (2011-2016). A lo largo de este período, el gobierno realizó importantes avances para aumentar su control sobre el sector extractivo mediante el establecimiento de nuevas instituciones y regulaciones. Pero al mismo tiempo, impulsó políticas dirigidas a atraer y acelerar las inversiones extranjeras, lo que diluyó los avances anteriores en políticas ambientales. Se argumenta en esta tesis que, si bien estos problemas de políticas contradictorias han sido abordados bajo diferentes enfoques estructurales o institucionales, el papel de los tecnócratas en el diseño de políticas ambientales ha permanecido poco estudiado. Por lo tanto, esta tesis destaca la influencia clave de los tecnócratas en el proceso de formulación de políticas a través de una exploración cualitativa de cómo los tecnócratas concibieron, diseñaron, respaldaron o resistieron los cambios de políticas durante el gobierno Humala. Los hallazgos se basan principalmente en entrevistas con tecnócratas del Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y el Ministerio de Economía y Finanzas, que fueron contrastados con testimonios de otros altos funcionarios públicos, académicos y ejecutivos de ONG, y respaldados por informes institucionales gubernamentales. Para explorar este fenómeno, esta tesis se adentra en dos dimensiones del rol de los tecnócratas que dieron forma a los resultados de la política: la mentalidad de los tecnócratas y sus estrategias implementadas. En base a ejemplos de tres áreas de políticas donde se realizaron reformas significativas (ordenamiento territorial, fiscalización ambiental y licenciamiento), esta tesis expone cómo esas dimensiones interactuaron en la redefinición las políticas ambientales en Perú.
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CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION
In one of the sessions of the Council of Ministers that took place during the first days of June 2014, the Peruvian environmental policy framework was about to experience substantial changes. That morning in Lima’s Presidential Palace, without warning, the minister of Economy and Finance, Miguel Castilla, presented the draft version of a law aimed to change the rules applied to extractive companies in the country. Technocrats under his wing had been working for months preparing legislative measures to make the country more attractive to national and foreign investors; namely by granting tax benefits, easing up market-regulations, and introducing economic incentives. However, the minister of Environment, Manuel Pulgar Vidal, sited on the opposite side of the table, quickly realized that this bill was also targeted against policy areas under his control. If the law was to be approved as it was written in Castilla’s technocrats draft, it would cut down the Ministry of Environment (MINAM)’s power to monitor the extractive sector, give licenses to new operations, retract its command of the land use planning process, and therefore undermine his position's authority. The proposal's approval would have entailed an abrupt U-turn in policy changes recently implemented by his own team of technocrat’s, which in this case were aimed to secure the sustainable use of the country’s natural resources. In this moment of turmoil, before the bill was sent off to be voted on in the Council and implemented nationwide1, Pulgar-Vidal called for a pause. He presented a motion to let technocrats from both sides read and discuss the proposal in a side-room. Was at this moment, at this place, when technocrats determined the fate of the country’s environmental institutions.
After the doors opened again, Pulgar-Vidal and his group of technocrats felt that they had managed to withhold a tide that had threatened to damage Peru’s environmental protections. The law, had the draft been fully adopted, would have supposed “prácticamente cerrar el MINAM”, as one of MINAM’s technocrats believed2. Although they could not block the
1 At that moment, Congress had granted the government “facultades legislativas”, which means the power to pass legislation without its approval.
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law entirely, MINAM’s technocrats believed they were able to reduce the reach and several restrictions of the proposal and meet their counterparts halfway. On the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF)’s side, technocrats believed that they had successfully placed legislation that would bring an urgently-needed boost to the country’s economy, while at the same time securing the protection of the environment under a more reasonable, pro-business policy framework.
Nonetheless, consequences ensued soon after. Journalistic investigations denounced that this law, which became known as the “Paquetazo ambiental”, allowed mining and oil companies to save between 9.2 and 19.4 US$ million in environmental fines, some of which were applied to companies responsible of environmental disasters in highly-sensitive biodiversity areas (Convoca, 2015). Also, NGOs decried that the law, in addition to other similar ones placed during this period, was responsible for triggering conflicts among communities and extractive companies, such as the ones around Tía María and Las Bambas mining projects, where operation licenses were allowed to bypass public consultation processes (Cooperacción, 2015; Forum Solidaridad Perú, 2014; Herrera, 2017). The law also had serious repercussions over other policy areas in which, in consequence, environmental institutions found themselves toothless before extractive companies interests and environmental disasters. But in sum, much of this outcome was largely determined by what both sets of technocrats were capable to impose, agreed or uphold during that close-doors discussion in the presidential palace.
Through this brief anecdote based on testimonies collected from public officials3, it is possible to get an idea about the role of technocrats and how do they operate in the Peruvian government. They are not merely subjects of external interests, actors without agency capacity. On contrary, they are active players in the design of the “rules of the game”. In the literature discussing their role in the policy making process, however, technocrats have been frequently regarded as executive instruments rather than discrete political actors (Williams, 2002). As authors suggest, it has not been stressed enough that the ways technocrats conceive, design, implement, sometimes resist or let pass policy changes are all fundamental factors that explain why certain outcomes occur in one place and not in others (Geddes, 1994; Miller, 2007; Robertson, 2015). This makes explanations overlooking this element fall short as it is possible to assert that technocrats’ mindsets, beliefs, and perceptions, as well as their ability to navigate through their particular political and social landscape, play a crucial role in shaping the way
3 Source: A. Barandiarán, personal interview, August 16, 2018; M. Castro, personal interview, June 19, 2018; F. Neyra, personal interview, July 10, 2018; G. Quijandría, personal interview, June 18, 2018; E. Ráez, personal interview, May 17, 2018; A. Segura, personal interview, June 4, 2018.
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policies are devised and delivered (Centeno, 1993; Centeno & Cohen, 2012; Crabtree & Durand, 2017; Orihuela & Paredes, 2017).
Despite technocrat’s significant influence in the policy-making process, the technocratic element has been often neglected or insufficiently explored in the literature of environmental governance. Following a definition of environmental governance as a set of institutions, structures and processes that shape the access, control and use of natural resources conducive to mitigate environmental externalities (Baron & Lyon, 2011; Bennett & Satterfield, 2018; Castro, Hogenboom, & Baud, 2016), it is possible to infer that high-skilled professionals in decision-making positions inside the state apparatus, as the literature defines technocrats (Collier, 1979; Dargent, 2015; Domínguez, 2010), would be fundamental pieces in this puzzle. However, the literature on this topic has often missed the role of the technocrats working inside the government.
When it comes to extend an explanation for countries’ environmental shortcomings, authors are used to stress structural factors, such as commodity prices in the global market, meddling of foreign powers, pressures exerted by financial institutions or multinational corporations (Ballón, Molina, Viale, & Monge, 2017; Gallagher, 2016; Ray, Gallagher, Lopez, & Sanborn, 2015). Likewise, it is commonplace to call attention to institutional factors linked to post-neoliberal policies, namely the “extractivist imperative” or the (re)politization of the mineral extraction among pink tide countries (Arsel, Hogenboom, & Pellegrini, 2016; Gudynas, 2015; Hogenboom, 2012a; Svampa, 2015; Veltmeyer, 2012). Although it is possible to associate these factors with Latin American countries’ policy-advancements (or miscarriages), through these mentioned lenses technocrats appear as actors dispossessed of a capacity for agency, mindlessly working according to external stimuli and acting under the influence of powerful superior entities.
To abridge this gap, I suggest here that an analysis based on the technocratic role can bring new light to analyze recent environmental governance shifts in Latin America. In order to show the whole picture, my thesis therefore aims to highlight the role of these actors by addressing a particular case: environmental policies introduced in Peru during Ollanta Humala’s administration (2011-2016). During this period, attempts to balance a sustainable use of natural resources with the promotion of new extractive investments disrupted the country’s environmental governance. Humala’s administration, for instance, delivered set of policies contradictory among themselves towards its objectives, thus creating a hybrid policy framework. While the government pushed forward important reforms in order to ensure the sustainability of the country’s natural resources, at the same time new institutions and regulations were set up indulging corporations’ wishes, working against the public interest and
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environmental protections (Ballón et al., 2017; Dargent, Paredes, Ulfe, & Orihuela, 2017). These inconsistent policies triggered conflicts between communities and companies, but also unsettled potential investors during Humala's period as president.
My research objective here is to address these problems of contradictory policies by exploring how technocrats conceived, designed, backed, or resisted Humala’s policy changes. As the literature abovementioned suggest, technocrats are highly influent actors in the definition of the rules of the game. But this asseveration needs to be tested by exploring to what extent technocrats played a significant role in the Peruvian case. Therefore, I formulated the following research question: “What was the role of technocrats in the design and implementation of environmental policy changes in Peru during Ollanta Humala’s government?”.
Since there is sufficient, albeit scattered, evidence of technocrats’ involvement in the policy-making process, and drawing on the literature that has studied their performance, I operationalize their role by exploring two dimensions. First, I analyze of how technocrats framed the policy options. In this case, my objective is to establish a link between their mindset, perceptions, experience and personal beliefs and the policies they deemed more efficient and thus necessary to be implemented in the country. Second, I observe the strategies devised by technocrats to bring their policy proposals to fore, coupled with a description of their policies’ immediate effects. In this regard, I trace back how they navigated through political-setting constrains, how they interacted with interests of other actors involved, and the results of this dynamic. Both dimensions are here considered as secondary objectives in this thesis and will be explored throughout the empirical chapters.
To explore how technocrats’ mindset and strategies configured their role, I recurred to a research methodology based on a process tracing analysis approach (Aguirre, 2017; Collier, 2011; Mahoney, 2012) and the key informant technique (Houston & Sudman, 1975). These research methods entail the observation of the unfolding of events to identify recurring patterns between technocrat’s decisions and policy outcomes, and to target sources directly involved in the policy-making process in order to delve into actors’ motives behind each resolution adopted. As a result, I ended up conducting semi-structured interviews with top level technocrats from MINAM and MEF, which were carried out between May and August 2018 in Lima. The information provided by these sources was cross referenced by additional interviews with academics, NGO officials and mid-level bureaucrats, coupled with secondary sources and reports produced by Peruvian governmental agencies.
Here I draw upon examples from three policy areas where important reforms were staged: land use planning (ordenamiento territorial); environmental monitoring (fiscalización ambiental); and environmental licensing (certificación ambiental). These areas are central
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elements of the country’s environmental governance, illustrative examples of how Peru is shaping the relations between natural resources and economic activities. Land use planning policies aims to regulate and plan the occupation of the territory. Environmental monitoring enforces extractive companies’ environmental obligations aiming to prevent environmental damages. Finally, environmental licensing relates to the process through which the government grants permits to extractive operations. These are mechanisms the government has at its disposition to prevent environmental externalities, as this is environmental governance’s goal. By rendering an analysis of the technocratic role, it will be possible to observe a clearer portrait of the Peruvian environmental governance. The academic relevance of this exercise rests on its potential to provide a transparent, more-direct account of the factors driving environmental governance shifts in the continent. Thus far, in my opinion, there is a gap in the literature in relation to the internal dynamics of the policy-making process inside governments, even though this process leads to the implementation of policies affecting the lives of millions. In this vein, the black box requires to be unveiled. Regarding this thesis social relevance, it will serve to recognize elements where environmental policies in Peru could be improved by drawing a connection between people, ideas, policies, and the consequences of these particular arrangements for society. In a country facing the structural problems of poverty, inequality, low education, and low institutionalization (Dargent & Muñoz, 2016; Levitsky & Murillo, 2009), and which is heavily reliant on the extraction of natural resources, policies set up in relation to the extractive sector play a central role in its socioeconomic development. Moreover, in a context signed by global efforts aimed to tackle climate change, political decisions taken in connection with the extraction of natural resources at this level of governance could lead to irreversible world-wide repercussions. It becomes necessary then to take a closer look over the factors playing a substantial role in this process.
1.1 Thesis structure
This thesis is divided into six chapters. The first chapter served as an introduction to the research problem and key concepts addressed in this thesis. The second chapter builds an analytical framework employed in this study by presenting an overview of different approaches used in the literature to explain environmental governance policy changes in Latin America, zooming its attention to Peru. Upon this literature, in this chapter my thesis takes position for an approach centered on the analysis of the role of technocrats, and presents the debates related to the technocrat’s definition and role in policy reforms. The third chapter provides an account of
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recent environmental policy shifts in Peru, followed by an outline of the research’s objective and a description of the methodology implemented to analyze the technocrat’s role.
Chapter four, five and six present the empirical evidence collected in my fieldwork about technocrats’ role in Peru’s environmental policy-making process. Chapter third starts providing background information about the country’s environmental institutions before my research’s period of analysis, which is key to understand further policy developments. Empirical chapter five delves into MINAM’s technocrat’s mindset and strategies leading to their policy changes implemented. A similar account from technocrats working for MEF will be extended in chapter six. In this case, the chapter details the actions by these technocrats taken in order to roll back MINAM’s policy advancements, followed by a summary of actions taken by MINAM’s technocrats to uphold their reforms. Finally, the thesis will end with conclusions.
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CHAPTER 2. KEY CONCEPTS AND DEBATES ON ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE AND THE ROLE OF TECHNOCRATS
Environmental governance alludes to the set of institutions society uses to mitigate environmental externalities (Baron & Lyon, 2011). It comes about from the fact that the finite nature of natural resources demands from society rules for controlling and/or limiting their accessibility, as well as actions to avoid collateral damages from their extraction. It is also related to the technologies and strategies set up to prevent potential damages provoked by natural disasters or to adapt society to their recurrences at different latitudes. Environmental Governance therefore covers a wide array of mechanisms invoked at different scales of governance to reduce externalities to the minimum. At its core, it is the analysis of the institutions, structures and processes set in place to tackle problems arising from the relationship between society and nature (Bennett & Satterfield, 2018).
Environmental governance therefore addresses interactions between actors in different sectors of society and the full set of pressures and incentives build up in order to encourage or deter environmental behaviors, and thus shape the access, control and use of natural resources (Castro et al., 2016). Moreover, according to Lemos & Agrawal (2006), it covers the set of regulatory processes, mechanisms, and organisms through which actors influence environmental actions and outcomes. These particular political, social and economic relations results in different mechanisms and strategies being adopted for governing the environment. In other words, environmental governance arrangements embody these relations, actions, and outcomes. In this sense, it is possible to define environmental governance as a continuous and ever-changing process of institutional challenges attempting to develop new solutions.
With this definition in mind, an important question that arises is how environmental governance institutions are designed and implemented. As environmental governance is a dynamic process wherein multiple actors, scales and layers collaborate and contradict each other, what determining factors lead to an institution being set up in one place and not in another? Answers to this question often calls to attention towards structural forces and top-level actors involved in environmental reforms, implying a direct correlation between domestic
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social interests, external dynamics, and policy reactions. However, I consider here that the literature so far has no delved enough into the factors that explain why some countries are going further than their counterparts in expanding or lowering their environmental standards. It is clear that institutional change is the result of interactions in the political arena, but the literature often traps in a black box the internal processes within the governments that conceives the reach and limits for these institutions (Moe, 1990).
In order to illustrate this point, the first section of this chapter will give an overview of the literature on factors driving environmental governance changes in Latin America, with special attention to the literature on Peru. Upon this overview, I will take position for a perspective centered on the role of technocrats as it stands out a suitable for exploring the dynamic of environmental institutional changes within the state apparatus. In turn, the last two sections will present key concepts about the definition of these actors and debates over their role in the Peruvian case.
2.1 Approaches to environmental governance in Latin America and Peru
Environmental governance in Latin America is undergoing intense transformations. According to the literature, in recent years new actors and dynamics have been brought into the picture and, as a consequence, a wide array of hybrid and often contradictory strategies are being implemented. In a context marked by lingering economic hardships, social inequality, and poverty, worsened by the states' historical institutional weaknesses and lack of territorial consolidation, countries are now also being called upon to address the spreading of environmental degradation and the increasing frequency and intensity of natural disasters (Castro et al., 2016; Martinez-Alier, Baud, & Sejenovich, 2016; Martinez-Alier et al., 2016). Governments are seeking to answer their citizens' demands for furthering social and economic development through the expansion of the extractive sector, whilst they make efforts to balance these out with the challenge of protecting the environment in the era of climate change (Andrade, 2016; Hogenboom, 2012b; Odell, Bebbington, & Frey, 2018; Strange, 2014). It is safe to then say that the friction between conservation and extraction, or, as Silva (2012) puts it, between forces advocating either for the “commodification of nature” or for the “safeguard[ing] of nature”, is adding a new layer of complexity to the ongoing demands for socioeconomic redistribution, civil rights, and institutional capacity-building in the region.
According to literature, shifts in environmental governance could be explained by the power exerted by emergent economic actors. For instance, in recent decades, the rise of China as a new powerful actor in the global economic landscape has radically disrupted the
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established dynamics in Latin America (Gallagher, 2016; Jilberto & Hogenboom, 2013; Ray et al., 2015). The commodity boom, spurred by China’s demand for raw materials, has seen the prices of minerals such as oil, gold and copper skyrocket, in turn setting off an unprecedented economic bonanza. Moreover, the growing presence of Chinese companies in Latin America has counterbalanced the power long-held by western countries and their corporations. The current flow of revenues and the shifting of the economic polarity has provided Latin American governments with a wider margin of maneuver to discuss and set up new rules for governing their mineral wealth. In this new setting, environmental governance in Latin America stands out as a contested field where different actors are competing to rule over the process of designing and implementing procedures and practices to control the access to and use of natural resources. Voices advocating for the wider liberalization of markets, and promoters of even more intensive mineral extraction, are leading the way; however, movements campaigning for state-controlled models and keeping nature untouched are also gaining momentum.
In the same vein, political phenomena trending in the region could be also brought into account to analyze policy changes. One of the most noteworthy regional phenomena has been the emergence of left-wing leaders championing pathways to move their countries away from the extractive neoliberal economic model. In recent decades, “pink tide” leaders such as Rafael Correa in Ecuador, Evo Morales in Bolivia, and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, have been characterized by their progressive economic policies and their attempts to reinstall and increase the state’s control over their countries’ commodities. In spite of the advancements made and pitfalls encountered during their endeavors (which have been intrinsically linked with the varying flows of mineral revenues) those leaders have re-politicized the process of mineral extraction and have changed the ways in which their countries were governing the extractive industries (Andrade, 2016; Hogenboom, 2012b, 2012a; Philip & Panizza, 2011). However, this shift has not necessarily led to closer attention being paid to the environment, or to the protection of citizens' rights, as notorious cases like the Yasuni-ITT in Ecuador and TIPNIS Highway in Bolivia (Fierro, 2016; Hope, 2016) demonstrate. Each example shows the attempt (in the case of Ecuador, a success) to push forward the extractive frontier into biodiversity hotspots.
Authors have also underscored ideological trends driving institutional developments. Although each country is paving its own way, and regardless of their current political alignments, natural resource extraction occupies a central position in Latin America's national development strategies. Revenues generated from extraction, whether considered as a mean to keep up countries' social expenditures or to maintain the economy, has led governments to implement measures to sustain this steady flow (of both income and minerals) in spite of the socio-environmental concerns. Even though a large majority are signing international agreements
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designed to foster a sustainable management culture of the natural resources, they are not showing real signs of giving up to the economic models that rely on the large-scale exportation of raw materials without or limited industrial processing (Andrade, 2016; Fontaine, Narvaez, & Velasco, 2017; Veltmeyer, 2012). The alternatives to the extractive model are hard to envisage. From a structural perspective, scholars have named this phenomenon as the “commodity consensus” (Svampa, 2015), “extractivismo” (Gudynas, 2015), the “extractive imperative” (Arsel et al., 2016), or “post neoliberal extractivism” (Veltmeyer & Petras, 2014). Given governments’ need to secure extractive revenues in order to afford their social expenditures, countries in bulk would have decided to bend over their own rules in order to expand the extraction of their natural resources. As a consequence, seeking to attract new foreign investments, they have introduced less stringent policies over environmental standards. This trend, called the “race to the bottom”, is pushing countries to lower their standards by “deregulating or streamlining social, labor and environmental standards or granting tax benefits to companies as a way to reduce their costs compared to other countries” (Ballón et al., 2017, p. 19).
Finally, authors have called to attention dynamics of extraction and how are they being reconfigured. As authors suggest, the resource boom produced by the rise of commodity prices is prompting changes in environmental governance such as opening new ways to govern the subsoil, setting up new mechanisms to control the extractive industries, and placing new institutions to attend increasing social demands. For instance, the expansion of the extractive frontier is heightening historical pressures against native communities and their territories, triggering social conflicts, as well as introducing new institutional responses (Bebbington, 2011; Haarstad, 2012; Rasch, 2017). Furthermore, new mechanisms with which to govern the environment have been set in place at different levels of governance (J. C. Brown & Purcell, 2005); new links are being established between environmental activists and regional elites (Bull & Aguilar-Støen, 2016; Hochstetler & Keck, 2007; Urkidi & Walter, 2011). It should be noted that these do not always succeed in securing the protection of the environment and citizens’ rights (Bebbington, Abdulai, Bebbington, Hinfelaar, & Sanborn, 2018; Bebbington & Bury, 2014; Dargent et al., 2017).
The literature on environmental governance has also touched upon the Peruvian case. In the country, recently introduced policies have transformed its environmental legal framework. Studies have placed their attention over structural, economic and institutional factors driving these policy swings. First, authors have stressed commodity prices’ decline as the leading cause of changes. This event would have forced the government to reduce their environmental standards in order to capture new revenues from the extractive sector, and thus keep up with the country’s productivity in a context of dwindling economic growth rates (Ballón
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et al., 2017; Gudynas, 2016). The dynamics of extraction in Peru has also been explored by stressing the links between social conflicts and institutional responses, but often offering evidence from specific, case-studies. An example can be given by Bebbington (2011) on the reappraisal of the land use planning process by communities in Peru as an strategy to contest potential extractive projects on their territories; also by Paredes & De La Puente (2017) on the expanding role of the national ombudsman office, the Defensoría del Pueblo, in the arbitration of social conflicts. Furthermore, authors have explored the ties between political actors and corporate interests. They have suggested that the Peruvian government has been captured by the interests of the business elite, which connected with the most important national economic conglomerates, would have been successful in bending the policies to their favor, getting rid of what they consider unreasonable environmental regulations (Arriola, Alva, Calisaya, & Trujillo, 2018; Crabtree & Durand, 2017; Durand, 2016).
An alternative and recently developed explanation underscores the connection between policy networks and technocrats working within the Peruvian government, allowing thus a better understanding of internal dynamics framing the policy-making process. From this perspective, environmental policy-advancements could be related to the diffusion of global green state blueprints by -what Orihuela calls as- “institutional entrepreneurs” (bureaucrats and policymakers), who are in charge of putting these new ideas and models into practice; on the other hand, policy shortcomings could be explained by the institutional legacies favorable to the market economy over the sustainable management of the natural resources (Orihuela, 2013b, 2013a, 2014; Orihuela & Paredes, 2017). Similarly, Li (2015) has unveiled the “black box” by stressing the role played by bureaucracies and experts in the development of the social conflict revolving the Conga mining project in Cajamarca. In this case, these actors were responsible for framing the interpretation of the potential impacts of the mining project, and thus taking side for the development of the extractive operation.
From this account, it is possible to observe that changes in the Latin American environmental governance have been studied under different approaches, but little has been said about the intricacies of policy making process inside the state apparatus. To unveil the “black box” of environmental governance entails, as Robertson (2015) observes, to acknowledge the fact that the state, at all levels, is staffed by individuals with contexts and interests, and motivations. Hence, in order to understand why a certain outcome occurs in one place and not another, in this case the factors driving Peru’s environmental policy changes, “we need to think about who the people are who make policies, what their interests are, and what shapes those interests”, as Geddes (1994, p. 113) suggests. In the next two sections, I will zoom into the
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technocrats’ definition and common characteristics, and then present the academic debate over their role in Peru.
2.2 Technocrats: definition and attributes
According to the literature consensus, the essential feature of technocrats is their knowledge. In relation to other actors in the public administration, technocrats could be briefly described as individuals with a high level of specialized academic training. They could be singled out for their expertise in a particular field (specially in applied sciences, such as economics or engineering) and their position in key decision-making or advisory roles within the government; a description that allows to distinguish them from politicians, bureaucrats and low ranking officials, as well as individuals working in the private sector (Collier, 1979; Dargent, 2015). They also could be recognized by their group characteristics. As the literature states, technocrats could be easily observed as a sub-set within the public administration as they share in common similar academic and professional backgrounds; during the neoliberal adjustment, for instance, they were actively related to transnational think tanks, financial institutions, and North-American universities (Domínguez, 2010; P. Silva, 2010; Teichman, 2003).
It is also possible to define technocrats as a pivotal point around which knowledge is transformed into power. They can be seen taking part in “epistemic communities”, which are by definition professional networks with authoritative and policy-relevant expertise in a particular domain or issue-area, where its members share principles and values, as well as similar interests and a knowledge-base (Cross, 2013; Haas, 1992). In this sense, epistemic communities could be considered as channels through which ideas circulate from societies to governments, with technocrats their carriers. Decision makers are heavily reliant on epistemic communities for advice in specific issue-areas, especially when high complexity problems demand translation or when decisions are needed to be made in against a backdrop of considerable uncertainty. These communities are responsible of producing information to orient (or sway) policymakers’ decisions. However, as Haas (1992) argues, despite their veneer of objectivity and neutrality, it is necessary to not lose sight that technocrats' policy choices remain highly political and even biased.
Drawing upon this last idea, it would be possible to recognize a common approach across all technocrats. According to Centeno (1993, p. 311), “technocrats deny allegiance to any particular dogma other than the pursuit of systematic efficiency”. This pursuit of efficiency, as Centeno explains further, defines technocracy as “a state elite and allied institutions that seek to impose a single, exclusive policy paradigm based on the application of instrumentally rational
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techniques” (Ibid, pp. 314). In this sense, rather than sharing an ideology in terms of left or right in the political spectrum, technocrats may be seen as sharing a mentality or cognitive framework, a unique way of analyzing problems, formulating solutions, and implementing policy. Technocrats embody a way of understanding the State’s civic duties, and therefore a way to structure society (Gálvez & Grompone, 2018). Similarly, technocrats could be considered as carriers of ideas, but more precisely of a technocratic rationality that is far from neutral. As authors suggest, there is an affinity between technocracy and market capitalism; it is possible to relate their pursuit of efficiency to neoliberalism, as the hegemonic approach to render efficiency is equated with arranging government institutions in a way that privileges the market’s interests. In other words, they can be seen as transferring economic power and control from governments to the market (Centeno & Cohen, 2012; Gálvez & Grompone, 2018)
Technocrats possess a significant range for maneuvering that has been taken into consideration in the analysis of policy reforms. As Williams (2002) suggests, technocrats have often been viewed as executive instruments rather than discrete political actors. The notion that political leaders lead and delegate institutional reforms while technocrats formulate and implement them assumes a prominent position in reform literature. However, evidence suggests that technocrats play a critical role in the process in both “identifying the institutional impediments to reform, and in formulating innovative strategies that presidents embrace” (Ibid, p. 407), as well as “framing the policy alternatives” (Centeno & Silva, 1998, p. 11). This capacity of framing and devising strategies has been observed in great depth by the literature on the role of technocrats in Latin America during the neoliberal market reforms, where their performance was key to push forward policies that we later introduced (Centeno, 1993; Centeno & Cohen, 2012; Dargent, 2015; Teichman, 2003). For instance, in the 90s, “Technopols”, as they were labeled by Domínguez (2010), sought to transform government from “fat to fit”, recrafting the state into an efficient apparatus capable of rendering an optimal solution to any social problem. However, despite orthodox economic paradigm they were socialized within, they veered away, in some degree, from policy-consensus and delivered reforms on their own terms. Also, while they sought to cut back the government’s reach into society and the economy, they also attempted to increase government revenues and the quality of their services in order to gain people’s support. That led them to fight for the implementation of their programmes in the political arena.
Analysis of technocrats’ engagement in the policymaking process have observed a transformation of government in a certain ideological direction, which has been considered by authors as another of their distinctive features. Brown (2003, pp. 39-40) considers that technocrats act based on the principle that the state must respond to market demands, a belief
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that entails “extending and disseminating market values to all institutions and social action” (Brown 2003, pp. 39-40). The underlying side-effect of the technocratic rationality is that it ends up submitting the political sphere to the neoliberal economic rationality. In this sense, their source of power is intricately connected with their ability to position themselves as the only actors capable of understanding and of harnessing the technical complexities of the act of governing, thus closing the space for alternatives. In this vein, as Scott (1998) suggests, whomever wants to challenge any technocratic decision has to engage technocrats using their own professional discourse and technical slang. This in turn transforms every “political” decision into a “technical” one by hiding an argument's essential features under a veil of technical complexity.
2.3 Debate over the role of technocrats in Peru
In Peru, the role of technocrats has been studied in connection with the continuity of neoliberal economic policies implemented since the 90’s decade. Technocrats’ role on the formulation of policies related to the management of the natural resources has been derived from this account.
First, authors have highlighted technocrat’s presence in the policymaking process, although they have questioned the extent to which technocrats should be deemed agents autonomous enough to determine policies’ reach and goals. Some authors argue that technocrats’ influence over the policymaking process in Peru is very limited as they are agents of corporate interests, mostly connected to the extractive sector. In these texts, the Peruvian state is characterized as being “captured” by the interests of the economic elites (Arriola et al., 2018; Crabtree & Durand, 2017; Durand, 2016, 2017), and this elite’s influence over government would be exerted through the appointment of technocrats closely related by professional ties and aligned with their economic interests and ideology. Technocrats are hence considered as mere carriers of the economic elite’s agenda; mere a human-shaped mechanism through which dominance is maintained. Authors allege that the neoliberal market reforms carried out in the 90s made more common “revolving door” practices between public and private sectors. Technocrats have been seen moving from top CEO positions to running the Peruvian Ministry of Economy and the Central Bank through orthodox economic policies and fiscal prudence sensitive to elite interests. It is necessary to address the nuances of this approach. For the elites, it is sufficient to have the power of influence over the offices and departments in which the rules of the economic game are forged. One of these areas in particular, according to Durand, would be relative to the extractive sector (Durand, 2016).
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Even though the existence of veto players is not denied, other authors consider that the state capture approach outline above overstates the direct control of the private sector. In these criticisms, technocrats are not deemed as mere subjects of a dominant actor, as they play a critical role in the design and implementation of the public policies in Peru (Dargent et al., 2017; Gálvez & Grompone, 2018; Vergara & Encinas, 2016). For example, in spite of theories deeming technocrats as informal agents of economic elites, case-studies show that business and technocratic interests are not always aligned; indeed, they are often in conflict and contradict each other. Furthermore, even though the proximity between government officials and the business-community is acknowledged, this fact is not enough to substantiate a collusion between them, let alone to explain cases in which implemented policies worked against business’ interests.
Critics of the state capture approach point to other institutional determinants to explain the leniency of the Peruvian government towards the economic elite’s demands. Vergara & Encinas (2016), for instance, correlate the continuity of the neoliberal policies established in the 90s with actions taken by the technocrats to shield and expand the neoliberal regime from within the state. As they suggest, through a slow and gradual process, technocrats successfully introduced institutional gridlocks (such as laws, trade agreements, internal regulations) and infiltrated other ministries and agencies with people from “pro continuity” organizations. On the other hand, Acuña (2015) and Gálvez & Grompone (2018) stress that the technocratic neoliberal mindset is embedded in policy decision making. According to these authors, technocrats’ fixation with rendering policies efficient, which under neoliberalism means to comply or to not interfere with the market’s demands, should be regarded as evidence of how deep this paradigm is instilled in their minds. Through this lens, the capture of government is more “cognitive” than empirical. This could be illustrated by their view about socio environmental conflicts as a problem of good governance or ill designed policies when, as Acuña states, an alternative explanation would point out to their embeddedness in the long history of coloniality; the technocrat’s analysis thus obscures and downplays the permanence of colonial patterns of domination. As a consequence of this cognitive capture “most policy proposals are biased, reinforcing the current extractive governance by assuming that all conflicts can be contained and solved within the boundaries of the political economy of extraction” (Acuña, 2015, p. 1). It is also necessary to address the nuances of these authors' approaches. Technocrats should not be seen as a single and monolithic entity. As Gálvez & Grompone assert, even though technocrats move along a restrictive margin of the ideological spectrum, discrepancies arise from their discussions around the optimal level of government intervention in society.
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Finally, other authors consider that technocrats power is signficant, although it is exerted under important restrains that should be taken into account beforehand (Dargent, 2015; Orihuela, 2013b, 2013a). For instance, according to Dargent (2015) technocrat's autonomy is determined by set of conditions related to four dimensions: policy complexity, understood as the level of technical expertise required; consensual expertise, the degree of agreement among experts over what constitutes an adequate policy; the political cost of bad policy performance, which decreases the possibility of intrusions of external actors; the constellation of stakeholders, which is connected to the power balance between actors. In brief, the right arrangement of these factors, and their ability to navigate through their domestic setting, allows technocrats to muster a high degree of autonomy and set the political agenda. On the other hand, Orihuela (2013a, 2013b) underscores the “path dependence”, which refers to the institutional legacies that model and determine the interaction between the government and society in the present; in other words, the “weight of history” and its long-term effects. This historical contingency situates agency and limits the technocrat’s options for pursuing institutional reforms relative to the environmental sector. In the Peruvian government, past decisions and institutional inertias had set up the conditions under which actors perform their roles, and thus limits their movement range. Governments would have intentionally kept environmental institutions weak in order to clear the path for the elite’s interest. There is room for maneuver for whom Orihuela name as “institutional entrepreneurs”, however institutional entrepreneurship depends on actors with the capacity, resources, and will to take on the necessary actions to overcome the path dependence constraints and reshape the institutions.
2.4 Concluding remarks
This chapter, has explored the academic discussion about environmental governance policy shifts in Latin America and the role of technocrats, with a special attention on the literature about Peru. Firstly, it is clear that shifts in Latin America’s environmental governance have been explained through different perspectives. As examples have shown, it is possible to single out factors driving policy changes by stressing, for instance, the agency of powerful economic actors or political trends in the region. Likewise, the analysis of ideological trends or the reconfiguration of the dynamics of extraction have shed light over alternative factors underlying the institutional responses. In this sense, each perspective allows to highlight different aspects of the countries’ environmental governance. However, technocrats’ agency capacity inside the state apparatus has been frequently overlooked or downplayed in the literature of environmental governance.
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About technocrats, literature distinguishes this particular group from other bureaucracies for their expert knowledge and authority in the policy-making process. As authors here mentioned suggested, in governments technocrats hold the responsibility of framing of policy alternatives. It is important to note however that the selection of one policy instead of other, rather than arbitrary, would be correlated to their background and mindset. First, their adherence to epistemic communities makes them carriers of specific policy trends or orientation in the design of public policies. In this sense, technocrats can be regarded as the pivotal point between knowledge and practice. Second, they share as a common value the pursuit of systematic efficiency in government’s institutions, but as authors have observed, their understanding of how efficiency should be rendered would be biased towards ideological positions lenient to market capitalism. In other words, they share a common approach to government as a process of delivering policies efficient under this particular paradigm.
The literature about Peru’s economic policies has explored the role of technocrats in the policy-making process, yet it has only indirectly addressed the policies related to the use of the country’s natural resources. However, it is possible to say that either considered carriers of corporate interests, autonomous players acting according to a particular ideology, or actors constrained by their political setting, technocrats are important players in the definition of the “rules of the game”. According to this literature, their autonomy or range of maneuvering hinges on their capacity to navigate through their domestic political landscape and act upon.
In conclusion, a further exploration of their role can provide new insights to understand the process behind the environmental policy changes in Peru. Stressing the role of these actors could bring new evidence about factors driving forward specific reforms, their scope and goals, as well as to unveil the internal dynamic of the policy-making process. With this in mind, the next chapter introduces the case study of this thesis, environmental policy reforms placed during Ollanta Humala’s administration, and the methodology chosen for this research.
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CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH PROBLEM: THE ROLE OF TECHNOCRATS IN PERU’S ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY CHANGES
As mentioned in the introduction, my research seeks to understand recent environmental policy shifts in Peru. Several explanations can be put forward in order to observe the factors driving these changes, either by stressing the underlying structural factors or institutional developments. However, as it will be presented, it is also possible to underscore the role of agents working within the state apparatus. In the upcoming sections I will delve into details of policy reforms placed in Peru. Upon this exposition, I will present my research objective, my main an secondary research questions, and sketch a methodology to analyze this particular case.
3.1 Case study: environmental policy changes in Peru
Environmental governance in Peru has undergone major changes. Recently introduced policies have transformed the environmental institutional framework, and therefore the way the country deals with environmental externalities. From a situation in which environmental agencies were few and scattered among several sectors, underfunded and lacking technical capacity to take on its duties, they are now arranged following a centralized institutional architecture with larger capacities to ensure the sustainable use of natural resources. But the current situation is far from ideal. As in other countries in the region, claims for furthering extractivism has led the Peruvian government to roll back a handful of their environmental policies in order to attract new investors, curtailing the environmental agencies’ power. As a result, even though the Peruvian government has made significant strides to heighten the protection of the environment, the ambivalence among policies and institutions appears as a defining feature of the country’s environmental governance. This hybrid environmental policy framework frequently appears toothless before several social conflicts, human rights abuses and threats to communities’ traditional livelihoods along the territory.
It is possible to illustrate the transformation of environmental institutions by using examples from three policy areas closely-connected with the extractive sector: land use
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planning policies (ordenamiento territorial); environmental licensing (licenciamiento ambiental); and environmental monitoring (fiscalización ambiental). First, drawing upon FAO’s definition (FAO, 1993), Land use planning relates to the systematic assessment of the potentialities of the territory for the purpose of adopting most beneficial and less-degrading land-use options. In Peru, it is regarded as a technical and political process aimed to identify economic potentialities within a specific territory, looking to foster or discourage certain activities; in other words, it seeks to attain the right balance between economic, environmental and social goals (Damonte & Glave, 2012; Gustafsson, 2017). Regarding environmental licensing, it is defined as a tool to regulate activities that may cause harmful pollution or environmental degradation (Ahmed, 2012). In the country, through mechanisms such as an Environmental Impact Assessment (Estudio de Impacto Ambiental, EIA), government sets legally binding requirements upon the extractive companies in order to protect human health and the environment. On the other hand, environmental monitoring refers to the actions taken to ensure the companies’ compliance with the environmental standards. It also refers to the application of sanctions in case of infractions.
Changes in these policy areas occurred gradually. First, at the beginning of Alan García’s government (2006-2011), the power to rule over the extractive sector and to ensure companies comply with the national environmental standards was in hands of the Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM). This institutional arrangement was accused of introducing a perverse incentive given MEM’s vested interest in promoting extractive investments; it was an open conflict of interests, as authors considered (Aldana, 2013; Dyer, Alza, Alza, & Prieto, 2013). The authority of granting licenses to new extractive projects fell on MEM’s General Directorate of Environmental Affairs for Mining (Dirección General de Asuntos Ambientales Mineros, DGAAM), while monitoring companies’ environmental performance on the Supervising Organism for Energy Investment (Organismo Supervisor de la Inversión en Energía y Minería, OSINERGMIN), agency under MEM’s umbrella. The rest of the environmental institutions in the country, on contrary, were placed in a lower hierarchy within the state apparatus; they had a very limited powers and were often ignored by the ministries. The most prominent institution was the National Environmental Council (Consejo Nacional del Ambiente, CONAM). This agency was in charge of articulating the country's environmental efforts, although it was an entity attached to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers (Presidencia del Consejo de Ministros, PCM), thus lacking power to veto initiatives of other ministries or establish regulations by itself. CONAM was considered a toothless institution: it lacked of any legal capacity or resources to bring any significant change (Aldana, 2013; Dyer et al., 2013). Its functions were mostly restricted to provide information and support environmental initiatives of the productive sectors; its
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resolutions were advisory and non-binding. For instance, regarding its functions, CONAM was the entity responsible of promoting the development of the Land use planning across the country, yet little advancements were being done as the regional governments, in charge of conducting the process in their territories, did not recognize CONAM’s authority.
Since 2008, however, upon the creation of MINAM, Peru’s environmental institutional framework changed substantially. Important steps were made in order to secure the sustainable use of the country’s natural resources; changes were aimed to balance environmental protection and extraction of natural resources (Orihuela, 2014; Orihuela & Paredes, 2017). Right after its installation, MINAM absorbed the responsibilities held by CONAM. In so doing, the government enhanced CONAM’s former authority by elevating its duties to the same status as other ministerial counterparts. During this period MINAM settled down its functions and jostled for its position within the Council of Ministries. But it was not until the presidential election of Ollanta Humala (2011-2016) that the situation really started to shift. From the end of 2011 onwards MINAM started gaining more power to rule over the extractive industries. In addition to CONAM’s duties, most of the environmental responsibilities were transferred to MINAM’s hands or agencies under its control. Since 2011, The Evaluation and Environmental Supervision Office (Organismo de Evaluación y Fiscalización Ambiental, OEFA), created alongside MINAM in 2008, started to grapple with the monitoring responsibilities. In 2012, The Agency of Environmental Certification for Sustainable Investment (Servicio Nacional de Certificación Ambiental para las Inversiones Sostenibles, SENACE), was enacted with responsibilities over the licensing process of extractive operations (Buzzi, 2015).
It is important to note that during the same period the national environmental policy framework experienced significant setbacks. As mentioned, in between this process of institutional reorganization the government undid previously adopted protectionist measures. In this case, Humala’s government watered down several environmental policy-advancements in a context of economic growth-deceleration. The Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) was responsible for passing legislation aimed to streamline foreign and national investments (Durand, 2016). Among many, the most salient MEF’s initiative came in 2014 with the approval of the Law N° 30230, labeled as the “Paquetazo Ambiental”, which undermined MINAM’s authority in several policy areas. As it will be discussed later, for example, related to the environmental monitoring, the Law decreed a temporary moratorium to the fines imposed to extractive companies for environmental infringements, curbing the power previously gained by OEFA (Aguilar, 2017). Furthermore, regarding land use planning, it prevented the process of assigning or limit economic activities in the territory (Gustafsson, 2017). The environmental licensing process also suffered: the same law indicated the EIAs had to be approved by the
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council of ministers, undermining SENACE’s authority from the start. By these means, MEF aimed to pave the way for potential investors.
Consequences of these changes were felt shortly after in each policy-area. For instance, regarding environmental monitoring, according to journalistic investigations policy changes allowed mining and oil companies to save between 9.2 and 19.4 US$ million in fines (Convoca, 2015). In some cases, it allowed fines placed upon companies for notorious ecological disasters to be pardoned, such as the 2013 oil spill caused by Pluspetrol that swept away the Laguna Shanshococha and affected dozens of native communities in the Amazon region (Luna, 2015). Also, the law reduced the sanctions formerly imposed to controversial operations; Doe Run, the company running the obsolete multi-metal smelter in the Peruvian city of La Oroya, considered one of the most contaminated places on earth, saw cut by half its 3.5 US$ million fine imposed for polluting the air and harming the city dwellers’ health (Valle-Riestra & Castro, 2015). On the other hand, the adjustments in the land planning framework aimed to prevent the regional governments from blocking extractive investments. Before changes were introduced, in the northern-Peruvian region of Cajamarca, due to the push of a large grassroot conservation movement, the regional government used its power to forbid mining operations in the watershed areas, thus conflicting with Yanacocha mining company’s investments in the zone (Damonte & Glave, 2012; Eaton, 2015; Glave, 2012). Finally, instruments introduced to speed up the approval of mining operations were one of the major reasons that provoked the social unrest around Las Bambas mining project. The company managed to obtain permits to introduce significant modifications to their operations bypassing the mandatory consultation to potentially affected local communities, sparking protests against this irregularity (Cooperacción, 2015).
In sum, it is possible to observe three policy trends affecting Peru’s environmental institutional framework (See Table 3.1). Firstly, a starting point in which environmental institutions were under control of MEM and obeyed a national-development strategy aimed to further extractivism. They were weak and lacked power to impose conditions over the extractive sector. Secondly, from 2008 onwards, a shift to an agenda based on ensuring the sustainable use of the natural resources in the country, commanded by MINAM. In consequence, environmental institutions stated to gain autonomy and strength. And finally, in 2014, a redefinition of the environmental policy framework substantiated by a need for keeping up the country’s economic growth in order to streamline new investments, upheld by MEF. In this scenario, environmental policy advancements were backpedaled. Although each policy-trend overlaps the other, meaning that the periods mentioned are not fixed but a subjective suggestion, institutional changes are tangible in each period. As for the agencies in charge of environmental monitoring, environmental licensing and land use planning policies, they
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changed hands or their goals were adjusted in order to align them with the dominant perspective at that time.
Table 3.1: Changes in Peruvian Environmental Policy Framework
2000-2008 2008-2014 2014-2016
Institution MEM MINAM MEF
Perspective Extractivism Sustainable development Streamline investments
Examples of policy areas (agencies in control)
Environmental monitoring
OSINERGMIN (MEM) OEFA (MINAM) OEFA (MINAM)
Environmental licensing
DGAAM (MEM) SENACE (MINAM) SENACE (MINAM)
Land use planning
CONAM (PCM) DGOT (MINAM) PCM
Elaborated by the author.
3.2 Research objective
The role of technocrats inside the Peruvian government stands out as a factor that has remained overlooked in the analysis of changes in the country’s environmental policy framework. Under Collier’s definition (1975), complemented by Dargent (2015), technocrats appear as individuals with high level of expertise working in key decision-making or advisory roles in the public administration. In connection with what has been mentioned the previous chapter, technocrats are considered by the literature as key political actors as for their role framing the policy options. In other words, they are in charge of designing public policies, fixing their goals and reach. As also mentioned before, authors suggest that technocrats have power to impose conditions to society through their public policies -although under certain restrains. They are ultimately agents in charge of bringing policies to shore.
Upon this approach, it is possible to substantiate an exploration of the role technocrats within the Peruvian government. The particular characteristics and bias of their expert knowledge is potentially a powerful determinant of the policies’ political orientation, likewise of policies’ success or failure. Is a surprise, hence, that just a few actors have stressed these elements in their evaluation of the Peruvian environmental governance. Deemed thus fundamental pieces the country’s environmental governance, my research seeks to answer the
