Peruvian Climate Policy in the Making:
a process consisting of different climate-related ontologies
Graduate School of Social Sciences
MSc International Development Studies 2017-2018
Peruvian Climate Policy in the Making:
a process consisting of different climate-related ontologies
Name student: Robin van Kuijk
Student number: 10457968
Telephone number: +31650541837
E-mail address: robinvkuijk@gmail.com Submission date: 14th January 2018
Module: Research project IDS – Fieldwork and thesis
Word Count: 27.481
Supervisors: mr. M.A.(Andres) Verzijl MSc mrs. Dr. M.A. (Michaela) Hordijk
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ABSTRACT
Climate change is an increasingly important topic within Peru, due to its high vulnerability. In recent years, Peru witnessed the arrival of indigenous based alternatives with a fundamentally different ontological background in comparison to the modern worldview, as part of the climate movement. Little prior research exists on the presence of these indigenous alternatives in relation to climate change in Peru, instead mostly focusing on the neighboring countries of Ecuador and Bolivia, neither seems there to be much research dedicated to the analysis of so-called ‘climate policy in the making’, which analyses different forms of impact on the creation of policy. This research sheds light on these gaps in research, investigating the influence of different social actors and processes impacting the development of public climate policy in Peru, paying special attention the multiple ontological worldviews or ‘cosmovisions’ that seem to be part of the Peruvian climate movement. Qualitative methods have been used in order to get a greater insight into the different understandings of the human-society nexus people adhere to in Peru and how this relates to the climate change debate. Twenty-nine semi-structured qualitative interviews with a variety of different ‘political’ actors, as well as (non-)participant observations of protest, conferences, vulnerable communities and climate organizations form the bases for the exploration of climate policy in the making. After, this was elaborated upon more with a discourse analysis of the most recent policy document, namely the CPAAAAE’s dictamen Ley Marco frente el Cambio Climático.
What is argued in this research is that the alternative ideas seem to be widely represented in multiple aspects of society. However, general attention for climate change, as well as the construction of coherent policy is lacking. Other priorities such as economic (extraction based) development, corruption, and Fujimori are prioritized and therefore diminishing the importance of climate change policy. This priority for other issues is reinforced further by the diversity within the climate debate, minimizing the climate movements political strength. In the end, this explorative research into Peru’s climate policy in the making gives more insight into the presence of alternatives cosmovision in Peruvian society, as well as an analysis of the processes affecting climate policy in the making, both being topics deserving of more attention than currently given.
Keywords: Peru; climate policy in the making; climate movement; indigenous alternatives; cosmovisions; contested ecologies
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‘Con la aprobación de este predictamen, los congresistas de esta Comisión han asumido responsablemente el compromiso por frenar el cambio climático que ahora aguarda su
debate y aprobación en el Pleno del Congreso. Ojo que seremos el primer país en Sudamérica en tener una legislación especial de cambio climático. Estamos seguros que todo
el parlamento lo apoyará.’
~
With the approval of this ‘predictamen’, the members of congress of this commission have responsibly taken on the compromise to slow down climate change that now awaits its debate
and approval in the Plenary Session of Congress. Eyeing that we will be the first country in South America to have a special legislation in relation to climate change. We are sure that
everyone from parliament will support this.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The process of doing research in the field of International Development and the process of thesis-writing have been an incredibly valuable life experience, which would not have been the same without all the people that contributed in one way or another. There are a few people I would like to thank in particular, but I hope that everyone else that helped in any way is aware of my gratefulness.
First, I would like to thank my academic supervisor, Andres Verzijl, for his advice and support throughout the entire process. Whenever I was in need of guidance, you were available to share your ideas with me, as well as steer me in the right direction. I do not think I could not have wished for a better supervisor. Thank you for all the time and effort you spent on me. Also, thank you to Michaela Hordijk for making time to be my second reader. Secondly, I would like to thank Fabiola Espinoza and Yure Cconislla for dedicating so much time to me during my fieldwork period, accompanying me in visiting the communities of San Juan de Lurigancho in Lima and San Lorenso, close to Ayacucho and for helping me get the understanding that formed the basis of my research.
Thirdly, thank you to Jezús and Oswaldo Bautista Cabezas for doing me the honour in making me godfather of a puquio de agua. This really means a lot to me and I hope I will live up to the responsibility and one day visit again.
Lastly, I want to thank Andrea Gianella and Camila Ferrer, for being so helpful in finding me a place to stay during my time in Lima, and making me feel at home in this huge, overwhelming city.
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ABLE OF CONTENT
Abstract ... iii
Acknowledgments ... vii
Table of content ... ix
List of images , figures and Textboxes ... xiii
List of Abbreviations ... xv
1. Introduction ... 1
Background: ¡Cambiemos el sistema, no el clima! ... 1
Problem statement and knowledge gap ... 4
Outline of thesis ... 5
2. Theoretical framework ... 7
Introduction ... 7
Policy in the making ... 7
The climate movement ... 10
2.3.1 Defining social movements ... 10
2.3.2 Defining the climate movement ... 11
Contested Ecologies as a critique on society ... 13
Conceptual scheme ... 18
Research questions ... 20
3. Methodology - the qualitative nature of the Research ... 23
Introduction ... 23
Researching different cosmovisions and Political Ecology ... 23
Data collection ... 24
Sampling process ... 26
Data analysis ... 28
Ethical reflections ... 28
Reflection quality of research and limitations ... 29
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Introduction ... 32
The International dimension of climate policy ... 33
Peru’s national public policy ... 34
4.3.1 La Estrategia Nacional ante el Cambio Climático (ENCC) ... 35
4.3.2 La Ley Marco sobre Cambio Climático ... 38
4.3.3 The Priorities of PPK ... 39
4.3.4 Presence Buen Vivir and other alternatives ... 40
The Peruvian climate movement ... 44
Chapter Summary ... 46
5. Case studies: communities vulnerable to climate change ... 47
Introduction ... 47
The slums of San Juan de Lurigancho – Cenca Instituto de Desarrollo ... 48
5.2.1 A kaleidoscope of risks ... 50
5.2.2 Connection to politics - ¿En que aspecto nos ayudaría la política? ... 51
5.2.3 Priorities in San Juan de Lurigancho ... 53
The peasant community of San Lorenso - AWAY ... 54
5.3.1 The Andean cosmovision: ‘Entre todos nos criamos cariñosamente’ ... 55
5.3.2 The ‘incommensurable’ contrast with the modern occidental cosmovision ... 60
5.3.3 Climate change in agricultural society ... 61
Chapter Summary ... 62
6. The framework of Peruvian climate policy-in-the-making ... 63
Introduction ... 63
The role of the climate movement ... 64
6.2.1 Organisation for the production of knowledge ... 64
6.2.2 Lack of conversation, lack of force ... 65
6.2.3 Inclusion of nonhuman agents ... 67
The political climate ... 67
6.3.1 Extractive industries – ‘Una droga que no es facil de salir’ ... 68
6.3.2 Political complexity ... 69
6.3.3 Power relations ... 72
Chapter summary – the impact of the climate movement ... 74
7. The discourse of the dictamen Ley Marco sobre Cambio Climático ... 77
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Merging contrasting cosmovisions ... 77
Chapter summary ... 79
8. Conclusion ... 81
Introduction ... 81
Summary of research findings ... 81
Suggestions for further research ... 84
Recommendations for policy ... 85
References ... 89
Appendix A – Operationalisations table ... 99
Appendix B – Actors present at Conferences ... 102
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IST OF IMAGES , FIGURES AND TEXTBOXES
Image 1.1 The phenomenon of the coastal El Niño in Peru
Image 4.1 and 4.2 Examples of the presence of alternative cosmovisions
Image 5.1 Misty slopes of San Juan de Lurigancho
Image 5.2 Constructing a new wall in Faena
Image 5.3 Example of the dependence on 'auto-gestionario', leading to the unsafe construction of houses on top of pircas, slippery stairs and low-hanging electricity cables
Image 5.4 Jezús Bautista Cabezas asking the apus for permission to ascend
Image 5.5 Expression of reciprocity by making an offer to the Apus
Image 6.1 and 6.2 The demonstration ‘el indulto no va’ [the pardon is impossible] against
the early release of the ‘damned Japanese’ Alberto Fujimori, as people have not ‘forgotten’
Image 6.3 The coercive force of the state following conflicting interests, in this case related to the teacher’s strike
Image 8.1 The slums of San Juan de Lurigancho
Image 8.2 The Andean community of San Lorenso
Figure 2.1 Representation by Mario Blaser comparing different ontological conceptions
Figure 2.2 Conceptual scheme
Figure 3.1 Example of some of the coding in Atlas.ti
Figure 4.1 Institutional structure of Peru’s climate policy
Figure 5.1 Representation of the Andean Cosmovison based on Ayllu between Sallqa, Wakas and Runas
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Textbox 1.1 Part of the original statement by la Cumbre de los Pueblos frente al Cambio Climático
Textbox 2.1 Lived Societies
Textbox 4.1 International counterparts of Peruvian strategies
Textbox 4.2 Grupo de Trabajo Multisectoral
Textbox 6.1 Odebrecht
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IST OF ABBREVIATIONS
ABA Asociación Bartolomé Aripaylla ANA Autoridad Nacional del Agua AWAY Asociación Wari Ayacucho BAU business as usual
CDA Critical Discourse Analysis
CEPLAN Centro Nacional de Planeamiento Estratégico CNCC Comisión Nacional de Cambio Climático
CONADES La Conferencia Nacional Sobre Desarrollo Social CONAM Consejo Nacional del Ambiente
COP Conference of Parties CP Contentious Politics
CPAAAAE Comisión de Pueblos Andinos, Amazónicos,y Afroperuanos, Ambiente y Ecología
DAR Derecho, Ambiente y Recursos Naturales ENCC Estrategia Nacional ante el Cambio Climático GTM Grupo de Trabajo Multisectoral
IK Indigenous Knowledge
(i)NDCs (intended) Nationally Determined Contributions LMCC Ley Marco sobre Cambio Climático
MC Member of Congress
MINAM Ministerio de Ambiente
MOCICC Movimiento Ciudadano frente al Cambio Climático NACAS Nucleos de Afirmación Cultural
NSM new social movement
PACC Programa de Adaptación al Cambio Climático PTIM policy in the making
xvi PNA Política Nacional del Ambiente
PPK Peruanos Por el Kambio or Pedro Pablo Kuczynski PPT Political Process Theory
PRATEC Proyecto Andino de Tecnologías Campesinas SDGs Sustainable Development Goals
SPDA Sociedad Peruana de Derecho Ambiental TEK Traditional Environmental Knowlegde
UN United Nations
UNDP United Nations Development Programme UNFCCC United Nations Framework on Climate Change USAID United States Agency for International Development
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1.
INTRODUCTION
Background: ¡Cambiemos el sistema, no el clima!
In December 2014, the city of Lima was chosen to be the host of the 20th annual Conference of Parties (COP20) organized by the United Nations (UN) as part of the Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The agreements reached during this conference were to form the basis for the Climate Convention in Paris the year after. In an attempt to influence this intergovernmental quest for international climate governance, many (inter)national organisations, platforms and networks of diverse origins that somehow incorporated the climate/environment theme into their political dimensions united in the Cumbre de los Pueblos frente al Cambio Climático [People’s Summit against Climate Change]. In this ‘alternative’ climate summit, all kinds of topics were discussed related to the environment and climate change (Fernandez Maldonado and del Carpio, 2014).
The interactions and negotiations between these national and international actors resulted in a very interesting perspective, captivated in the following proclamation: ‘We change the system, not the climate!’* In this way, the thousands of international activists and organisations that came to Lima demanded from states, international organisations and sectoral businesses to come up with alternatives to the models for production, development, and consumption, in favour of the environment and against climate change (ibid.). To fight global warming the system had to change (Entrepueblos, 2014).
The Declaration of Lima written by the ‘Cumbre de los Pueblos’ argued, that the capitalist system was to be blamed for global warming and other adverse environmental changes, amongst other social crises. As such, they renounced any market-based solution to these issues and demanded from the international community of COP20 to adopt agreements that would respect and value the different forms of life; they promoted Buen Vivir as alternative ‘life model’ for society (See textbox 1.1).
* For reasons of clarity, even though they are not direct quotes, I will put participant’s statements or other direct translations made by me within parentheses or physically separate them throughout the thesis, unless they are paraphrased.
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In essence, Buen Vivir as a concept presents an alternative approach stemming from indigenous worldviews or ‘cosmovisions’ (the indigenous denomination) that reject the idea of development and proclaim a different ontological understanding between human society and nature, as well as a bigger emphasis on the local community. In 2008 and 2009, Ecuador and Bolivia, respectively, appeared as the protagonists of this perspective for national public policy making, when they altered their constitutions in order to include the concept of Buen Vivir. It is Peru, however, that is considered a country extremely vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
Textbox 1.1 – Part of the original statement by la Cumbre de los Pueblos frente al Cambio Climático
‘We unite to continue debating and sharing the multiple forms of struggle and resistance for the construction of social justice against the capitalist, patriarchal, racist and homophobe system; for respect to different forms of life, without exploitation, nor spoliation of the goods of nature; for the capacity of the peoples to decide over their communal energy sources; for the reduction of the social inequalities; as well as promoting Buen Vivir as life model in harmony with nature and Mother Earth.’ *
In February and March of 2017 Peru fell victim to some intense weather events in relation to the so-called coastal El Niño. The resulting mud flows and landslides eventually cost the lives of 113 people, left more a 178.000 people homeless (Redacción La República, 2017) and destroyed essential infrastructure and agricultural works, as such affecting the lives of even more Peruvians.
While some argue that ‘it is very difficult to link climate change or even global warming to these events’ (Collyns and Watts, 2017), others do predict an increase in extreme El Niño occurrences as a result of climate change (Caí et al., 2014). The current debate about the relation between climate change and the (coastal) El Niño, is perhaps best summarized by Lisa Goddard, director of the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, when she explains that ‘we have to think climate change will influence El Niño in some way and will impact its impacts. But how El Niño events themselves change because of global warming? […] It’s a tough question to answer’ (Cho, 2016). So, while it seems to be difficult to accurately predict in what manner climate change and future El Niño events are connected,
* For the complete declaration in Spanish see:
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the events related to the extreme weather of Peru’s latest coastal El Niño have at least intensified the debate in Peru surrounding climate change (Collyns and Watts, 2017).
While climate change in the ‘Anthropocene’ is central to the conventions of the UNFCCC as a global crisis, Peru seems to be particularly susceptible in comparison to other countries. In 2004, the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research declared Peru to be the third most vulnerable country to the effects of climate change. Due to climate change, the country experiences increased intensity, frequency, and duration of extreme weather events, like droughts, excess precipitation, frost, hail, hurricane winds, mud flows, etc. (López Tarabochia, 2014; Valladolid Rivera, 2009). Additionally, Peru is home to many different climates, great biodiversity, and 71% of the worlds tropical glaciers, which all are directly affected by global warming (López Tarabochia, 2014). According to Postigo (2013), the retraction of glaciers is the most notorious manifestation of climate change in the Andean region, because of its direct impact on the lives of the Peruvian people as it hampers availability of water for human consumption, energy generation processes, and agriculture. Just like Valladolid Rivera and López Tarabochia however, he also highlights the linkage between climate change and changes in weather patterns, modifications in water regimes and an increase in the occurrence of extreme weather events. Appropriately dealing with these trends needs a response from society.
Image 1.1 The impact on society of the 2017 (coastal) El Niño in Peru
Picture made by Guadalupe Pardo, source: http://www.eluniversal.com/noticias/internacional/fenomeno-climatico-nino-castiga-costa-norte-peru_644330 [Accessed on 9 January 2018].
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This study intends to elaborate further on the development of Peru’s public policy process concerning climate change and how ideas about ‘the system’ that needs to be changed are central to this debate.
Problem statement and knowledge gap
In the face of climate change and the rapid destruction of the environment […] there is wisdom to be found in Buen Vivir which rejects the anthropocentric perspective of our modern culture, and places a high value on the importance of preserving, protecting, and respecting Nature. Human beings are no longer the only ones who have values and rights (Mercado, 2015).
Similar to Ecuador and Bolivia, a large portion of Peru’s society consists of Quechua- or Aymara-speaking indigenous peoples, having comparable ways of understanding the world around them. Actually, Buen Vivir has even made its way into the discourse of several national actors (see the example of the Cumbre de los Pueblos), leading Merino (2016) to argue that ‘the current context of socio-environmental conflicts and the rise of indigenous activism and organisations demonstrate how Buen Vivir has the potential to be developed in Peru as a powerful political discourse and agenda’ (p. 280). As such, in light of Peru’s vulnerability to climate change, making climate policy should be at the top of the agenda and alternatives to development could play a significant role in the process.
Buen Vivir in Ecuador and Bolivia has been the subject of much research and simultaneously much criticism, due to the stark contradictions in the adoption of Buen Vivir into their constitutions and their actual progressive (neo-)extractive based social development model (Viola Recasens, 2014; Villalba, 2013). Even leading some scholars to claim that ‘the language of sumak kawsay [Buen Vivir] has been used to cloak postcolonial development as usual’ (Radcliffe, 2012: 248).
Similar to its neighbours, Peru has a colonial legacy of indigenous struggles against state dispossession and an economy that is highly dependent on the extraction of its primary resources, which at the same time forms the foundation for its social development programs (Merino, 2016). Interestingly enough, where the influence of alternatives to development have thus received loads of attention in Ecuador and Bolivia, not much research seems to have been done on the presence in Peruvian society. Most likely, because Peru did not adopt the principles of Buen Vivir into its constitution.
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Furthermore, while plenty of prior research exists on many aspects of the debate surrounding climate change in Peru, there seems to be a gap in research investigating how different governmental organisations (i.e. ministries, governments, municipalities and universities), civil society (i.e. social movements, NGOs, civilians), and other actors contribute to making public climate policy.
The goal of this research is to address these gaps, to uncover and get a better understanding of the relations between different social actors and climate policy, with specific attention for the anticipated influence of alternatives coming from contrasting paradigms. This contribution to understanding these processes and characteristics could help the development of effective climate policy and practice in Peru. The main research question is as follows: How do different social actors shape public climate policy in Peru?
Outline of thesis
To answer this research question, the following chapter will elaborate more thoroughly on the theory behind researching this particular research question, as well as the development of the necessary sub-questions based on this theory. Chapter 3 will set out the methodology of the research. In chapter 4 a historical overview of Peruvian climate policy will be discussed, to contribute to an understanding of previous, influential trends. Chapter 5 will elaborate on the two case-studies of the research, as examples of typical vulnerable communities, essential for the framework around which the climate debate takes place. Chapter 6 will turn to the ‘climate policy in the making’ and discuss the factors that contribute to this and in what manner. The Critical Discourse Analysis of chapter 7 will function as a tangible example of the process of policy in the making discussed in previous chapters. Lastly, chapter 8 will form the concluding chapter in which the different research questions will be answered and their implications discussed.
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2.
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HEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Introduction
The intention of this chapter is to outline the role of multiple worldviews in the whole process of making climate policy. First, the chapter sets out to explain how external factors can shape the background against which policy is made, especially highlighting the influence of the social movements on policy in the making. Thereafter, it discusses the dimensions of the climate movement as a particular multi-focal social movement, before finally elaborating more on different nature-society ontologies that give rise to alternative manifestations within this very climate movement.
Policy in the making
Peru can be considered a country vulnerable to climate change and different conceptions of society seem to play a part in the debate. Exactly how these different visions are positioned and impact this climate change debate is the actual focus of this research. It is however clear that these climate change leads to changing politics.
The emergence of a new political field – the environment – set the stage for new kinds of politics that transcended unions, parties, and the state without abandoning an awareness of class relations. (Gustafson and Guzmán Solano, 2016: 146)
Politics, however, can be considered to consist of many different aspects, of which policy-making is probably the most vibrant and it is contested (climate) politics that is the focus of this research.
This research does not seek to give a description of the institutionalized process of ‘policy making’ (PM), which entails the drafting and implementing of policy, explaining the bureaucratic role of different political organs. Instead, it aims to analyse the ways factors external to politics impact this formal process, determining the framework in which policy making takes place, which I shall refer to as ‘policy in the making’ (PITM). There are
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multiple theoretical conceptions of analysing the processes that affect new policy in the making. This chapter elaborates further on this based on an understanding of the concepts of Contentious Politics (CP) and Political Process Theory (PPT). These concepts help analyse the processes and relations, the ‘collective political impact structures’, that affect policy in the making.
Tarrow and Tilly (2009) call the political debate surrounding policy in the making Contentious Politics. According to these authors, the concept of contentious politics describes the ‘episodic, public, collective interaction among makers of claims and their objects when (a) at least one government is a claimant, an object of claims, or a party to the claims, and (b) the claims would, if realized, affect the interests of at least one of the claimants’ (p. 4). Another approach to a theoretical understanding of the process of policy in the making is called the Political Process Theory perspective or ‘Political opportunity theory’, which by some is considered the ‘dominant theoretical perspective […] within sociological study’ (McAdam, 2013: 1).
Not all external processes can be considered having similar impact on policy in the making, but multiple general forms can be distinguished. Tarrow (2013) differentiates three major forms of political contention, namely revolutions, civil wars and social movements. All three forms have their own peculiarities, but also contain much overlap and possess essential similarities. The different forms of contention ‘involve similar causal processes’ (Ibid., p. 1), making them similar for analysis of their influence on policy making.
Analysis of social movements can thus not be seen as identical to analysis of the contentious political process, but it represents one particular manifestation of contentious politics. The theory behind contentious politics ‘encompasses social movements but extends to a wider range of conflictual phenomena’ (Tarrow, 2015: 1). However, it can be considered the only form that in general does not revolve around violence. Therefore, analysis of policy in the making, very often focusses on analysis of the social movements. PPT similarly ‘offers an explanation of the conditions, mind-set, and actions that make a social movement successful in achieving its goals’ (Crossman, 2017).
Both approaches share a lot of commonalities. Based on these similarities, analysing policy in the making can be defined as a process to which multiple aspects contribute. A first essential aspect is the concept of political opportunity, which refers to possibilities within the current political regime and institutionalisation for other ideas to develop. Crossman (2017) explains
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how opportunities arise when a political system experiences vulnerabilities, which generally depend on the population no longer supporting the authority of the system. This is both facilitated by weakness of the current regime, but also by experienced threats, because ‘people who mobilize do so to combat threats or risks’ (Tarrow and Tilly, 2009: 7). In my understanding, many factors can have an influence on the political opportunity for a social movement. The related nature of political processes, makes it hard to exclude seemingly unrelated developments from impacting the particular policy in the making. As such, opportunity could depend heavily on processes and/or actors external to the climate movement. A second important aspect affecting policy in the making are the so-called repertoires of contention. The repertoires typically are the means through which claims are made and usually include strikes, demonstrations, and petitions. A third general aspect are the mobilizing structures in society. Mobilizing structures refer to already existing organisational structures among the group looking for change, such as NGOs, student organisations, churches etc. (Crossman, 2017).
The aforementioned, can be understood as the ‘structural’ part of analysing the influence on politics, understanding the ‘process’ of policy in the making as the product of structural constants and variations. Risk (or its equivalent, vulnerability) however, is a contentious term, as its definition is subject to interpretations of space and time and as such determines priorities. Slovic (1999) argues that ‘human beings have invented the concept risk to help them understand and cope with the dangers and uncertainties of life’ (p. 690), therefore having a subjective nature. Political opportunity Thanks to the ‘cultural turn’, discourse and framing, collective identity, and emotion should also be considered part of analysis, because different forms of social interaction not only are representations of realities, but can figure as active sites of creation and change (Tarrow and Tilly, 2009). McAdam (2013), one of the founders of PPT, similarly explains how subjective social construction can actually have a substantial influence on how political opportunity is ‘perceived’ and therefore also on the impact of a social movement.
Policy making is never just is a pre-defined bureaucratic process, involving anticipated actors. It actually is an comprehensive process which is, in large part, takes shape in the arena of conflicting ideas, where opportunities for changing structures are pursued and exploited by different political actors. Getting an idea of the context provides a much more in-depth understanding of how the actual process of policy making is impacted and policy developed because of this.
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More specifically, this research intents to elaborate on the diverse aspects of climate policy in the making as it is influenced by the climate movement. The next section will say more about the contemporary development of the climate movement.
The climate movement
A prominent impact on policy in the making thus comes from social movements, as they contest hegemonic societal structures (which in their eyes are failing), ‘politicizing and delegitimizing power holders’ (Goodman, 2016: 4) This section will clarify what constitutes a social movement, but also in what way it is possible to speak of a climate movement and what its presence is in current society and the process of policy making.
2.3.1 Defining social movements
For a long time, social movements have been assumed to play a central role in political-economic and cultural transformation. Social movements are not just conceived as pathos, resistance, dysfunction, or extra systemic challenge but also ascribed a constitutive and constructive role, key to progressive institutional and political transformation (Gustafson and Guzmán Solano, 2016). Social movements represent ‘processes of political protest that mobilize human, material, and cultural resources in networks linking individual actors and organisations together in pursuit of a common cause. They provide spaces in the broader culture for new forms of knowledge-making and socio-cultural learning as a central part of their activity’ (Jamison, 2010: 813) and as such creating a social and political force to be reckoned with.
So, what social movements do is challenge institutionalised political-economic and cultural politics. However, this does not yet explain who are the recipients of these coordinated challenges, who are at the flipside of the contentious spectrum. Tarrow and Tilly (2009) defined the social movement as ‘a sustained challenge to power holders [emphasised by author] in the name of a population living under the jurisdiction of those power holders by means of public displays of that population's worthiness, unity, numbers, and commitment’ (p. 24). In light of modern day problems, science tends to speak of new social movements (NSM), which criticises ‘new risks and threats relating to economic growth and technological progress’ (Eggert and Giugni, 2012, 337), which relates very well to climate change. This new social movement is trying to ‘render visible the peculiarly modern form of power
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[emphasised by author] that resides behind the rationality of administrative procedures’ (Buechler, 1995: 446). Social movements look beyond institutionalised politics, focussing instead on existing forms of power.
2.3.2 Defining the climate movement
Climate change is becoming ever more recognized as a genuine threat in modern society. Existing institutions continue to fall short in providing answers, while ‘the horizon of politics is suddenly extended into millennia and magnified into universal planetary scope’ (Goodman, 2016: 3), giving leeway for criticism and other social realities.
During the initial period, scientific and economic discourse dominated the climate change debate. Because of this, the climate crisis was merely discussed in terms of governance and economics. Climate scepticism or denialism and incorporating climate change into commercialization of the climate were the most dominant trends that followed in the eighties and nineties. However, it has become more and more evident that the intensive accumulation of resources within modern society causing the climatic crisis, also affects social development and multiple dimensions of social justice. Only of late, are cultural, social and political questions surrounding the problem taken into consideration (Jamison, 2010; Goodman, 2016).
Jamison (2010) describes the field of climate change knowledge, the foundation for the climate movement, as existing of three main positions, characterized as dominant, oppositional and emergent. The dominant position is associated with the initial participants in the climate debate that during the past decade focused on raising awareness. The oppositional position is that of a sceptical understanding of climate change that questions its importance. Lastly, the emergent position is convinced of climate change, but also stresses the importance of incorporating issues of ‘justice’ and ‘fairness’. A few years later, Goodman (2016) argues that recent literature distinguishes between three different categories within the climate movement, all with a different grasp of the relation between society and nature. Firstly, the transition movement, concerned with ecological modernisation, seeking to dominate nature by decoupling growth from emissions. Secondly, a post-political movement related to de-growth and ecological sufficiency, based on ecological limits. Thirdly, an anti-systemic movement promoting redefinition of the relation between capitalist society and ecology, with an alternative regenerative model for social development.
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The awareness of the impact of society on the climate forces humanity to rethink many of its previous ideas about society. However, we only have a ‘tentative understanding of the implications’ (Hulme, 2010: 1) of the different positions. Therefore, we can also ‘think of climate agency as having a distinct logic that remains emergent, producing a “climate dialectic” that envelops multiple aspects of social action’ (Goodman, 2016: 3) and in this way hampering its own ‘purposeful agency’ and force. As such, being an obstacle to the very thing it is trying to accomplish, i.e. effective climate action.
This growing recognition of climate change as an existential crisis of the relation between the ‘dominant model of “carboniferous” consumer capitalism’ (Goodman, 2016: 7) of modern society and ecology, thus gives rise to new perspectives. Social injustices have advanced the role of indigenous movements in general and with indigenous people being amongst the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, also increased their role in the climate movement. Powless (2012) argues that these indigenous grassroot actions have formed a unique movement [manifestation within the climate movement] that contests and engages the dominant understanding of climate change and its hegemonic and (neo)colonial bases and simultaneously creating spaces to emphasize their own understandings. An emergent international indigenous climate alternative could ‘potentially serve as a beacon for the larger climate justice movement going forward’ (Powless, 2012: 412). Goodman (2016) describes this anti-systemic justice alternative within the climate movement as having a focus on the ‘lived experience of climate change in terms of the social impacts of climate disruption, the impacts of climate policy, and the process of political engagement’ (p. 4).
The realization of the impacts and more deeply rooted causes of climate change thus gives rise to agency for change in the form of a social movement. This so-called climate movement should be characterised as a pluralistic entity, wherein multiple approaches of how to improve the situation are being adhered to simultaneously and some of these even have the potential to shake the foundations of society as we currently understand it. This potential for contesting dominant practice is particularly big within alternatives coming from indigenous communities, like in Peru. Based on this, I define the Peruvian climate movement as ‘all climate agents challenging power holders in current Peruvian climate policy’. The next section will elaborate more on current Andean ways of relating to nature as alternatives to modern occidental paradigms.
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Contested Ecologies as a critique on society
We argue that Buen vivir serves as a political platform on the basis of which different social movements articulate social and ecological demands based on indigenous principles, in order to challenge the economic and political fundamentals of the state and the current theory, politics and policy-making of development (Merino, 2016: 271).
Much of the conceptual climate movement’s fundamental discourse is derived from a criticism on the organisation or even the ontological ways of knowing modern society. Especially in countries with indigenous communities, the climate movement encompasses multiple notions of our worldly surroundings. As part of the climate justice movement, ‘the resurgence of traditional and alternative thought needs to be understood as a resistance to the ways in which modernist ontologies offer nature up as a resource to be exploited, an approach that is part of the alienation of ‘moderns’ from environment’ (Green, 2013: 3). Together with ‘modern’ criticism on development-thinking, this fuels an ontological debate, in which many aspects of society are re-evaluated. This is more elaborated on in this part.
On many occasions, environmental conflict involves indigenous communities. Blaser (2013) argues that these conflicts often ‘go beyond the issues of access to and control over ‘natural resources’ to involve the very definition of the ‘things’ that are at stake’ (p. 14). What is at stake are the ‘conventional wisdoms about a division between sciences and alternative ways of knowing environments’ (Green, 2013), which is also referred to as ‘contested ecologies’.
Blaser (2013) explains how in Peru not all forms of ‘knowing nature’ are at equal footing within, what he calls, ‘reasonable politics’ (i.e. politics wherein parties agree on what is at stake). Culturally specific ways of understanding nature are colliding with each other. The ‘modern’ that sees nature to be exploited or protected versus the ‘indigenous’ that sees the environment as non-human with agency, with whom they have relations of kinship. The author continuous by saying that within the arena of reasonable politics these different ‘cultures’ of knowing nature are of unequal standing, as whether something is real or reasonable or not, is based on scientific knowledge. Anything not supported by the sciences is considered irrational and therefore something outside of the political reasonable spectrum. Indigenous forms of knowing are rarely supported by science and as such fall within the domain of culture. Indigenous knowledge can thus be ‘considered’ within reasonable politics, but it will never be taken seriously as it has a different ‘cultural’ understanding of what nature entails.
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Further developing the argument, Blaser (2013) explains that social scientists within the domain of development, conservation and natural resource co-management, recently have advanced the argument that other cultures also produce valid knowledge, labelled Traditional Environmental Knowledge (TEK) and/or Indigenous Knowledge (IK). However, like this they are presented as an epistemological difference, which promotes the cultural aspect of the debate and consequently the dominance of the scientific. It puts indigenous knowledge in a similar culture/nature framework, instead of within its own relational structure. The difference between different cultural understandings does not concern an epistemological conflict (perspectives of an established world), but an ontological conflict (about what is actually there). (See figure 1.1)
If the indigenous knowledge is presented as knowledge based on another ‘cultural’ understanding of nature and not as ontologically different, it is often deemed less rational and thus inferior to the scientific.
In similar fashion, De la Cadena (2010) explains how the hegemonic occidental focus on science has diminished the role of, what she calls, ‘earth-beings’ within the realm of politics. ‘The pluriverse, the multiple worlds that Schmitt deemed crucial to the possibility of the political [defined as a relation of disagreement among worlds], disappeared’ (De la Cadena, 2010: 345). However, the rise of the indigenous movement within Andean countries,
Figure 2.1 Representation by Mario Blaser comparing different ontological conceptions Source: Contested Ecologies: Dialogues in the South on Nature and Knowledge. by L. Green, ed. p. 20.
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and their capacity to impact political agendas and conceptual understandings, promoting the inclusion of ‘sentient’ earth-beings, changes this.
Their public emergence contends […] with both science and politics; it may house the capacity to upset the locus of enunciation of what “politics” is about – who can be a politician or what can be considered a political issue and thus reshuffle the hegemonic antagonisms […] that gradually articulated through modern scientific paradigms, banned earth-beings from politics’ (De la Cadena, 2010: 343).
This understanding of multiple antagonistic ontologies is given more credibility due to critical approaches within modernity as well. Evidence is mounting that climate change has its origin in the intensive accumulation of resources and goods as the driver of the global economy. The relation between climate change and development is derived from this nexus. The unaltered root of development is understood as unlimited (usually economic) growth (Villalba, 2013), assimilating more to better, intrinsically contradicting the sustainability of the system, because infinite growth needs infinite environmental input.
As countless sustainability theorists have shown, no matter how efficient and virtual you can make a commodity, it always has a material basis—you can’t angelicise GDP, as Herman Daly has put it. So, by definition, capitalist economies have to grow, both in financial terms and in terms of impacts on the planet (Blackwater, 2014: 5).
In my view, development is to be considered a process of growth strongly connected to economics, due to the omnipresent consumptive attitude of modern society. Improved quality of life as the ultimate goal of (social) development too often is understood in accumulative, materialistic forms, with the economy as its driving motor. Climate change and development-thinking can thus not be understood independently of one another, resulting in anthropogenic climate change being a hefty critique on modern society based on development, capitalism, consumption and materialism. Some alternatives therefore declare the bankruptcy of the foundations of modern society, because of its adverse ecological effects.
Besides this ecological dimension, development-thinking also affects society in another way. The idea of development came into being almost overnight. On the 20th of January 1949 President Harry S. Truman’s inaugural address signified the arrival of the development paradigm. Truman expressed the need to ‘embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas’ (Truman, 1949). However, framing people as developed, in its wake also creates the notion of underdeveloped. According to Escobar
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(1995) development ‘gives rise to an efficient apparatus that systematically relates forms of knowledge and techniques of power’ (p. 10). As such, it is an incredibly powerful and unparalleled semantic constellation with the capacity to guide thought and behaviour (Esteva 2010). Development ‘implies a favourable change […]. The word indicates that one is doing well because one is advancing in the sense of a necessary, ineluctable, universal law and towards a desirable goal’ (ibid.: 6). This favourable connotation makes a person want to develop and the idea that development is achievable is what gives this construct such great presence in modern-day thought. The problem with development theory is that it defines so many of the world’s population as what they are or have not. Based on this criticism of development-thinking as creating inequality in society, post-development theory slowly made its appearance.
Environmentalism imposes a drastic revision of the paradigms of unending progress and perpetual development which continue to guide our economic doctrines and ideological pipe-dreams. Our linear and cumulative conception of history – structurally blind to structure, to systemic circularities and reverse causalities – took too long to wake up to the fact that misery, hunger and injustice are not the result of the still partial and incomplete character of the march of progress, but two [sic] of its necessary by-products which increase as the march continues to move in the same direction (Viveiros de Castro, 2013: 30).
So, due to the environmental crisis, disaffection with development increased at the turn of this century and simultaneously provided a platform for the rise of ‘alternatives to development’ (Villalba, 2013). ‘Anthropologists, geographers, and political ecologists are demonstrating with increasingly eloquence that many rural communities in the Third World “construct” nature in strikingly different ways from the prevalent modern forms’ (Escobar, 1998: 61). Ecological and social organisations increasingly recognize the adverse effects of (neo-)
extractivism and believe there is no future in the mechanistic and endless accumulation of material goods at the expense of Nature (Acosta, 2015). Instead, they are advocating ‘alternative’ solutions to measure progress, or better quality of life, based on principles like solidarity, harmony, diversity and oneness within nature, while rejecting the development-as-growth way of thinking (Kothari et al., 2015).
Many different worldviews or ‘cosmovisions’ can be found around the world, from Ubuntu in South Africa, to Ecological Swaraj in India, and from degrowth in western countries, to reclamation of indigenous territory and ways of life in Latin America (Kothari et al., 2015). According to Escobar (1998) ‘one of the most commonly accepted notions is that
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many local models do not rely on a nature-society dichotomy. Unlike modern constructions, with their strict separation between biophysical, human, and supernatural worlds, local models in many non-Western contexts are often predicated on links of continuity between the three spheres and embedded in social relations that cannot be reduced to modern, capitalist terms’ (p. 61).
A good example of an indigenous-based, anti-systemic, post-development perspective in relation to climate change is presented by the idea of Buen Vivir, roughly translated to Good Living in the simplest English translation, but having a different meaning than the popular idea of life in abundance. It is based on indigenous traditions as Sumak Kawsay, Suma Qamaña and Allin Kawsay, from the Andean countries of Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru respectively. As such, ‘the term Buen Vivir is best understood as an umbrella for a set of different [similar, but varying] positions’ (Gudynas, 2011: 444). Firstly, Buen Vivir rejects the conventional domination of utilitarian values, reducing life to economic values. Secondly, it seeks decolonisation of Eurocentric understandings, but actually respecting a plurality of conceptions without hierarchies. Thirdly, Buen Vivir moves away from the society-nature dualism, seeing all as mutually connected and interdependent, thereby deploring instrumental and manipulative rationality. It rejects the idea that all things are to be dominated or controlled in order to become means to our ends. Lastly, sharing of feelings and affections with others, also forms a significant aspect of the concept (Gudynas, 2011).
Many alternative approaches thus exist and these alternatives present a ‘reworking of the relationship with nature, searching for options for individual and collective responsibility, rethinking global-local economic dynamics of capitalism and the state, and recuperating the philosophical principles through which indigenous peoples relate with their environments’ (Ulloa, 2015: 324). However, it can be problematic generalising these alternatives into one alternative to development, as they consist of many different aspects. Ulloa (2015) explains how we run the risk of homogenizing the various indigenous alternatives into one idealized development critique and as such losing a critical stance towards them, which coincides with Gudynas (2011) emphasising the specificity of the different traditions united in Buen Vivir, which are particular ‘to each culture, with its own language, history, specific social and political contexts, and placed in diverse environments’ (p. 444).
Indigenous traditions thus provide the climate change debate with different perspectives to climate change’s dimensions and causes, derived from different paradigmatic
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backgrounds. In the Andean countries of Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru, a new understanding of the debate is rendered by the concept of Buen Vivir, which appears in many forms of society.
Conceptual scheme
The conceptual scheme (see figure 2.2)* demonstrates how the three core concept are interlinked. Climate policy in the making is subject to particular influences, either institutionalized or not, depending on many processes and social actors. The Climate movement is one manifestation of several processes of contention and can be understood to consist of different alternative perspectives, derived from different ontologies or worldviews. This subdivision is more visible in countries with indigenous populations, such as Peru.
Related to these concepts are the importance of power relations affecting the process of policy in the making and the different social actors that can be considered part of or external to the social movement, impacting policy in the making.
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Research questions
The situation in Peru, discussed in the opening chapter, led me to ask and want to research how Peru copes with climate change. Especially how public policy is being impacted by the influences of different social actors. Therefore, the main question of this research is:
How do different social actors shape public climate policy in the making in Peru? Based on the theory behind climate policy in the making, which was elaborated upon in this chapter, being able to give a well-reasoned answer to the research question will depend on answering a number of sub-questions.
First of all, an insight into Peru’s history of climate policy would be a preliminary prerequisite, as positioning of Peru’s previous climate policy and the role of different actors will help give a contextual background and substance to the framework of Peru’s current climate policy in the making. With this, current policy can be explained more clearly in relation with or differing from national historical trends and it will help distinguish important factors or participants to making climate policy. This leads to the following sub-question:
1) How has climate policy in Peru evolved over the years?
Secondly, the debate surrounding climate change is closely related to questions of development. Different visions on the nature-human relation result in different approaches to climate change. One point of view sees nature as the provider of the resources for human society to exploit and seek development. Other perspectives do not proclaim this schism and sees nature and human society as inherently intertwined. Nature is not there solely for people to utilize, but both are much more mutually dependent. This way of thinking sees human development with a global market and extractive economic activities as the cause of climate change. Together with the idea that development functions as a discourse that also creates underdevelopment, this leads to the upsurge of alternatives to this development paradigm. In order to understand how climate policy is formed, it is thus important to take these differing ontologies into account, for both will shape policy in different ways. In other words:
2) What different perspectives to climate and societal development are being adhered to by social actors in the climate change debate?
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Thirdly, the social movements are considered a pivotal contributor to impacting policy in the making, having a key role in transformation. Besides focussing on the existence of different perspectives in the climate movement, the manner in which these perspectives, the dynamical aspect of the debate, will also have to be considered. In what manner does the climate movement try to influence the process? How does it create opportunities and make use of already existing opportunities? The third sub-question will focus on these dynamic aspects of policy in the making and will therefore be:
3) What methods are being used by the climate movement in order to create or use opportunities for impacting national climate policy?
A final important dimension that needs to be considered is the fact that policy in the making is not always as straightforward as it might seem. Powerful actors can have great impact on society, while there may also be many hidden social structures that construct society in a particular way, influencing the things observed. Many social movements focus on these power relations. So, in order to get a proper understanding of how different social actors influence policy, power relations should be included in the research. Therefore, the final sub-question is:
4) How are inequities and forms of power in society affecting ‘lived societies’? (see textbox 2.1)
Together, these sub-questions should give a full and elaborate multi-layered answer to the research question posted. Climate policy is subject to multiple forms of influence and these influences should be considered if one intends to properly answer the question.
Textbox 2.1 – Lived Societies
I define society like this in order to accentuate the multitude of subjective understandings and position of different actors towards it. Society is conceived differently by all that are part of it, and trying to get an insight into this very society, should pay attention to personal construction and diversity of realities that understanding the world can have.
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3.
M
ETHODOLOGY - THE QUALITATIVE NATURE OF
THE RESEARCH
Introduction
This chapter presents the qualitative methodology used for doing the research. Firstly, it discusses the philosophical background and the connection to Political Ecology. Secondly, the techniques for data-collection and analysis are discussed. The chapter ends with a reflection on the ethical aspects, as well as the quality of the research.
Researching different cosmovisions and Political Ecology
The main focus of the research was on understanding different ways of seeing the world, or ‘cosmovisions’, that are part of the climate movement and exploring how they influence the making of Peruvian public climate policy. Intended as an exploration of particular cases of alternative approaches to climate change, a preference was given to qualitative methods, in order to come to a most representative description of the personal accounts of multiple realities.
The unit of analysis of my research is the climate policy in the making in Peru. This debate around climate change and development thinking revolves around both different ontological, as well as epistemological views.
This research starts out from the notion that human society and climate change are interconnected and mutually constitutive, resulting in multiple worldviews. As such, I approach this research from a post-positivist, critical realism point of view, meaning that conceptions of reality are constructed by the observers of this world. Post-positivist critical realism is ‘an inquiry into the nature of things’ (Archer et al., 2016). The qualitative nature of understanding subjective views, already pushed me in a particular direction when it comes to the methods and techniques used.
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As Escobar (1998) argues, political ecology demonstrates alternative worlds and ‘the constructions of nature and culture’ (p. 54). This research therefore approaches the connection between climate policy and different social actors in Peru from such a perspective. ‘Perhaps more than anything else, political ecology was an epistemological project, which set out to shatter comfortable and simplistic “truths” about the relationship between society and its natural environment.’ (Bridge et al., 2015: 5) Bridge et al. (2015) explain how political ecology’s coherence is derived from several characteristics held in common in all political ecological work. Firstly, a theoretical commitment to critical social theory and post-positivist understandings of nature and knowledge production. Secondly, political ecology follows a methodological commitment to in-depth, direct observation, combining qualitative research with quantitative methods and/or document analysis. Lastly, it is considered to be a political commitment to social justice and structural political change, not only seeking to explain processes but also to promote alternative understanding.
Some aspects of political ecology allow for critically studying the nature-society nexus in relation to different cosmovisions surrounding climate policy in Peru, which is the aim of this research. It digs deeper into social constructions and/or relations that influence the hegemony of a particular discourse.
The research shall be combining qualitative methods with document analysis, which will have some beneficial side-effects. As both have differing characteristics, using them in unison leads to triangulation, complementarity, and expansion of the research. Grounded theory, i.e. the iterative development of theory out of data (Bryman, 2012: 387), also figures prominently in the research, as data collection and analysis constantly referred back to one another.
Data collection
Archival research and expert consultation
As soon as I arrived in Lima, getting an initial general understanding of the research topic was done with exploratory conversations with experts, as to get a more realistic view of the actual effects of climate change in Peru and the debate around it, as opposed to the information gathered in Amsterdam. The first two or three weeks I had casual conversations with people from environmental organisations, political advisors, and people living in Lima and this helped develop an initial sense for the research topic and area.
25 Semi-structured interviews
The main focus during the course of the fieldwork was on semi-structured interviews with a variety of actors related to climate policy in Peru. The semi-structured interview is a qualitative form of interviewing that allows the researcher to get an insight into the interviewee’s point of view, loosely based on an interview guide of important topics that need to be covered (Bryman, 2012). In total, I conducted twenty-nine in-depth semi-structured interviews, with political agents, a variety of members of environmental organisations and people vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
Throughout the research period, the interview guide would change continuously based on new information and depending on the role of each participant in the climate policy process. The interview guides provided the basic structure for my interviews. However, interesting remarks or things deemed important by the interviewees, could still be pursued due to the flexibility of the semi-structured interview. The interview guides were all designed to incorporate the different sub-questions of the research. Generally, I would first ask for consent and contextual information about the interviewee, before focussing on the specific perspectives and specific knowledge of the interviewees.
Observation techniques
During the research I documented notes of the different observation moments in a field diary. Participant observations helped me in getting a direct understanding of phenomena, beyond people’s accounts of it (Green and Thorogood, 2004). Participant observations can be divided in two different categories: of the ‘active’ and ‘inactive’ agents of the climate movement.
For obtaining a more complete understanding of how the active agents would contribute to the climate policy debate, I participated in two conferences on climate change: el Encuentro nacional del Agua (Yaku 2017) and La Conferencia Nacional Sobre Desarrollo Social (CONADES). A great variety of actors, from politicians, to vulnerable communities and from social organisations, to academia, partook in these conferences and as such gave an interesting representation.
In the second category, of inactive agents, participant observation would focuss more on their daily lives. Trying to get an understanding of their priorities, conceptions and motivations, within their community and therefore perhaps partly outside the climate change debate. For this, I spend two weeks in communities vulnerable to climate change.
26 Critical Discourse Analysis
A final aspect of the research is a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of the dictamen Ley Marco sobre Cambio Climático (LMCC) [assessment of the Framework Bill on Climate Change], as the outcome of climate policy in the making.
Critical Discourse Analysis theory is based on the idea that language can (re)produce social realities. Language not solely is to be seen as ‘a vehicle of communication, or for persuasion, but a means of social construction and domination’ (Machin and Mayr, 2012: 24). Each single text is based on particular ideologies, but not always is this ideology as clear as in some other cases. Critical Discourse Analysis is an academic discipline that tries to ‘denaturalise’ language in order to reveal underlying ideologies (ibid.).
With help of the fieldwork period findings, the discourse of this proposal for a climate law was analysed, to see how they reflect the realities of Peruvian society, but also, perhaps more importantly, how they contribute to the creation of these realities through its design, implementation, discussion, etc.
Sampling process
This research hopes to be able to contribute to some sort of understanding of the factors pivotal in the construction of Peru’s climate debate. The Peruvian case was chosen as it is one of the few countries home to Buen Vivir, with the effects of climate change being very prominent at the same time. The research hopes to contribute to an understanding of what determines the outcomes of Peru’s climatic approaches.
So, what different actors will be the focus of my research, or in other words, which actors are most relevant in the process of policy in the making? It can be extrapolated from the research methods that I used, that sampling was to be done in a purposive and non-probabilistic manner, which is very common for qualitative research. ‘This type of sampling is essentially to do with the selection of units (which may be people, organisations, documents, departments, and so on), with direct reference to the research questions being asked’, says Bryman (2012: 416). The research questions thus guided the sampling process. There was no point in taking random samples, as these most likely would not have anything to contribute to understanding the processes at work. In combination with snowball sampling this led to the selection of participants connected to multiple aspects of climate policy in the making, such as representatives of a variety of environmental organisations, members of congress [MCs], members of the Ministerio de Ambiente (MINAM) [Ministry of
