Let’s Fight for the Forest. State-Society Coalitions around the Process of Formulating the Forest Law in Argentina (2002-2009)

Abstract

In November of 2007 was passed the Native Forest Protection Law after a social and institutional controversial debate. This law has two differences regarding the others environmental laws. First, by the number of social and state actors who confronted about the standards of the law and, second, because it was the only law that use the tools of the General Law of Environment. This paper seeks to determine, how social and state actors act in the process of environmental policies formulation in Argentina? And what impact have these acts in the process? Applying the micro-political approach to the case, I argue that the heterogeneity of bureaucracies and the social distributive conflicts allow the conformation of state-society coalitions. The standards environmental policies, in this case the Forest Law, is result of the conformation, confrontation and negotiation of state-society coalitions.