On the Limits and Possibilities of Environmental Governance

This work aims to analyze partnerships between communities and businesses in the Forestry sector in Brazil and the question to be answered is whether business-community partnerships can be considered a governance mode in the Brazilian context. While the theoretical framework for the analysis relies on recent political science literature on governance and policy implementation, the analytical framework is based on a neo-institutional approach to the interaction between the partners. The model of analysis identifies the main actors in the partnership and aims to analyze the fulfillment of socio-economic demands by looking into the contractual agreement between these parties, examining the partners' perception of the agreement itself, touching the role of the state and its agencies as mediators and issues such as culture and identity. The puzzle to be solved is whether, given the economic benefits out of the contractual agreement between partners, such partnerships can be considered a durable win-win situation.