Fuelling friendships or driving divergence? Legitimacy, coherence, and negotiation in Brazilian perceptions of European and American biofuels governance

TY - JOUR

T1 - Fuelling friendships or driving divergence? Legitimacy, coherence, and negotiation in Brazilian perceptions of European and American biofuels governance

AU - Afionis, Stavros

AU - Stringer, Lindsay C.

N1 - Funding Information: This research was funded by the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under Grant Agreement No. 251132. Funding was also obtained from the Sustainability Research Institute (SRI) of the University of Leeds and a 2015 Researcher Mobility Award from the University of Leeds. Finally, this research was also supported by a Philip Leverhulme Prize (2013). The second author is a Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award holder. We thank the anonymous reviewers, the journal's Editor, B.K. Sovacool, as well as James Van Alstine, for their helpful comments on earlier drafts. Funding Information: This research was funded by the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under Grant Agreement No. 251132. Funding was also obtained from the Sustainability Research Institute (SRI) of the University of Leeds and a 2015 Researcher Mobility Award from the University of Leeds. Finally, this research was also supported by a Philip Leverhulme Prize (2013). The second author is a Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award holder. We thank the anonymous reviewers, the journal's Editor, B.K. Sovacool, as well as James Van Alstine, for their helpful comments on earlier drafts. Publisher Copyright: © 2020 Elsevier Ltd

PY - 2020/9/1

Y1 - 2020/9/1

N2 - Traditional global powers like the European Union and the United States are seeing the rise of emerging powers like Brazil as prospective cooperation partners. Examining how traditional powers are perceived by their emerging counterparts offers critical insights into the prerequisites for effective and durable partnerships. While the literature on external perceptions has expanded considerably, a comparative perspective on how emerging powers perceive the policies of the two transatlantic powers in issue-specific areas is lacking. We present a framework of explanatory variables (legitimacy, coherence and negotiating style) and apply it to interview data and the literature to unravel Brazil's relations on biofuels with the EU and US, including through trilateral partnerships with third countries. Our data show that while Brazil's partnership with the US has progressed, the one with the EU has struggled to advance. Our paper seeks to explain these differences using our framework, advance understanding on the external perceptions of the international role and collaborative posture of the EU and US, and provide policy insights for the fruitful conduct of partnerships.

AB - Traditional global powers like the European Union and the United States are seeing the rise of emerging powers like Brazil as prospective cooperation partners. Examining how traditional powers are perceived by their emerging counterparts offers critical insights into the prerequisites for effective and durable partnerships. While the literature on external perceptions has expanded considerably, a comparative perspective on how emerging powers perceive the policies of the two transatlantic powers in issue-specific areas is lacking. We present a framework of explanatory variables (legitimacy, coherence and negotiating style) and apply it to interview data and the literature to unravel Brazil's relations on biofuels with the EU and US, including through trilateral partnerships with third countries. Our data show that while Brazil's partnership with the US has progressed, the one with the EU has struggled to advance. Our paper seeks to explain these differences using our framework, advance understanding on the external perceptions of the international role and collaborative posture of the EU and US, and provide policy insights for the fruitful conduct of partnerships.

KW - Biofuels

KW - Ethanol diplomacy

KW - Renewable energy

KW - Renewable Energy Directive (RED)

KW - Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS)

KW - Transport fuels

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85082514127&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.erss.2020.101487

DO - 10.1016/j.erss.2020.101487

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85082514127

SN - 2214-6296

VL - 67

JO - Energy Research and Social Science

JF - Energy Research and Social Science

M1 - 101487

ER -