Environmental Governance and the Politics of Property in Chile

Abstract

This study seeks to contribute to an understanding of the patterns of environmental governance in Chile which is both an international model for natural resource-led economic development and an emblematic case of "free market" policy-making. It asks how the typical challenges of environmental governance--the coordination of multiple uses of land/seascapes and resources, the resolution of conflicts, and the reconciliation of competing claims--are addressed given the constraints on state regulatory capacity and authority associated with decades of neoliberal restructuring. My general research proposition is that in this context, property rights have become the key sites where the political and institutional logics of environmental and resource governance are expressed and contested. The dissertation consists of four appended articles that analyze different aspects and implications of this "property-centric" approach to governance. These cover the emergence of environmental legislation, the growth of private land conservation and the political and legal barriers it faces, the policy and political dynamics associated with the allocation of public coastal waters, and the role of property rights in shaping the development and regulation of aquaculture. The analysis draws on and integrates political ecology-oriented literature on environmental governance, legal property theory, and a focus on institutions for common resource management. From this theoretical foundation it develops a legal geographic approach that moves between a focus on formal policy-making and a ground-level view of law as it is interpreted and enacted in specific contexts. Research relied on a combination of primarily qualitative methods and materials including the review of archival and documentary sources, semi-structured interviews with key informants, participant observation, and the mapping of resource rights. Common or overlapping findings in the four studies provide support for several general conclusions regarding the relationships between environmental governance, neoliberalism, property rights, and the management of common resources. a) In the first place, and contrary to expectations, market-based environmental regulation (in a strict sense) has been limited in Chile. b) The legal frameworks which, following neoliberal prescriptions, are designed so as to avoid public deliberation and governmental interference in the economy have facilitated rapid growth in many areas but only by deferring key governance tasks. c) These same arrangements tend to displace and channel politics through property rights, and in the process produce a variety of unintended consequences. d) The privileged position of property rights has resulted in self-reinforcing and path dependent tendencies associated with the collective action of resource users in the pursuit of various political and economic ends. e) At the same time, this project documents the institutionally diverse nature of private property rights, including a multivalent orientation toward markets. f) Finally, the research documents how common property arrangements and ideas have emerged through efforts by various actors to address governance challenges in contexts as diverse as private land conservation and the management of salmon aquaculture production.