Brazilian Government Action in the Strengthening and Dismantling of MERCOSUR’s Family Farming Institutionality

Abstract

Abstract The article analyses the changes in the Brazilian government’s actions at the Specialized Meeting on Family Farming of Mercosur (REAF). Created in 2004, REAF is a regional forum for political dialogue between governments and social organizations to develop public policies for family farming. Drawing on dialogues between historical neo-institutionalism and debates on policy paradigm and dismantling, the article defines four dimensions (political context and power relations, ideas and policy paradigms, characteristics of institutions, and interests and strategies of political actors) to explain and typify the processes of institutional strengthening and dismantling. Based on such dimensions and on data collected through participant observation, document analysis and interviews with key actors, the article analyses the Brazilian government’s actions in comparison to prevailing types of institutional change. The analysis shows that, between 2004 and 2016, the prevailing strategy for institutional strengthening was ‘discursive and symbolic’ and operated through ‘institutional densification’; in turn, from 2016 on, strategies of ‘discursive and symbolic’ dismantling and ‘dismantling by change in the institutional linkages’ prevailed.