O agronegócio e as negociações comerciais internacionais: uma análise da ação coletiva do setor privado / Agrobusiness and international comercial negotiations: an analysis fo the collective action in the private sector

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2008

RESUMO

This research discusses the evolution of the efforts made by the private sector of the Brazilian agribusiness to defend its agenda of liberalization of international markets. It is especially focused on the period between the Uruguay Round (1986-1994) of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (Gatt) and on the Doha Round (since 2001) of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The aim of this research is to analyse how the increase in the international competitiveness of the Brazilian agribusiness in the last few decades has affected the private sector interest in elaborating an offensive agenda. In addition, it is our purpose to indicate how this interest has generated collective actions by the private sector. Collective action can be understood as the action by a group of individuals, or just one individual, who are interested in reaching a collective good. The characteristics of this collective good are primarily the jointness of supply, meaning that an individual who has access to that good will not diminish the amount available to another individual, and non-excludibility, meaning that all the individuals of the group will have access to that good. Organizations are the mainly way to reach the collective goods. Associations that represent agribusiness firms are the objects of study in this research. The analysis will be made on two types of associations: those that represent different segments of the agribusiness and those that represent one segment of the agribusiness. Due to the strong competitiveness of the Brazilian agribusiness, the discussion will be concentrated on the actions taken by the players with an agenda demanding higher trade liberalization. This study indicates that after the restructure of the agribusiness in the late 80s and in the 90s, with the end of the heavy state intervention in the sector and the trade liberalization of the country, part of the agribusiness faced the challenge of modernisation and looked for new markets abroad. The result was a diversification of the products exported and the continuous expansion of the exports. Such diversification and increase in the exports added new players to the group formed by those interested in the liberalization of international markets, including the reduction of protectionist barriers against Brazilian products. In the last few years Brazil has participated in a number of international trade negotiations with the aim to put pressure on the reduction of those barriers. From an incipient organization to participate in the Uruguay Round, the private sector headed for a higher technical understanding of the international obstacles to its products and the possible solutions to open more markets. This resulted in it being also better organized to defend its agenda in the negotiations occurred during the 90s and the beginning of this century, such as the Doha Round. One of the conclusions of this study is that the private sector movement was made by collective actions organized by those associations representative of specific segments of the agribusiness, which are seen by the private sector as the main channel to articulate their interests, when compared to associations that represent different segments of the agribusiness, such as the Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock of Brasil (CNA), the official representative of the sector. This indicates that small groups are more successful in mobilizing a collective action than large groups. However, there is an heterogeneity inside those associations that represent one specific segment, with members of different sizes, different interests and different resources. The members more interested in the collective good and with more resources to provide it form a critical mass that seems to better explain the movements of the small groups

ASSUNTO(S)

agribusiness rodada doha uruguay round and doha round rodada uruguai ação coletiva collective action agronegócio

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