South American Developmentalism: Identifying Dependency Situations in the bioeconomy

MELISA DECIANCIO

Workshop; Workshop of the European International Studies Association (WEISA); 2022

EISA

This paper addresses the expansion of the bioeconomy in South America and its potential political, economic, and socio-environmental outcomes through the lens of dependency approaches. The bioeconomy was introduced by countries in the Global North to replace fossil-based with bio-based resources and expanded to other regions. Its implementation in South American countries carried out impacts related to their condition as economically peripheral and highly dependent on external sources worth considering to avoid reproducing existent structural disparities. The main objective is to combine the dependency approaches with the bioeconomy literature to explore the potential implications of the expansion of the bioeconomy in the region and whether the bioeconomy could be a new mechanism of South American dependency. It seeks to identify dependency situations arising from the bioeconomy related to the dependence on natural resources and technology and the risk of locking countries into export-oriented development, and the socio-environmental impacts of outsourcing environmental costs to peripheral countries. As a result, the work highlights the need to expand the dependency research program to agendas beyond pure economic growth. Without considering inequalities, structural conditions, and actors within the global economy, the bioeconomy can potentially become a dependency mechanism, hindering development and deepening structural dependency.