Green Discipline link: The 1AC’s formation of environmental conservation as inextricably tied to concerns of economic growth is an example of the neoliberal state’s masking of disciplinary biopower

Environmental incentives are used to control the behavior of farmers as “rational actors,” squeeze productivity out of them and make them live bare life—their agency is controlled by the state controlling what their “self interest” is

Fletcher et. al 19 (Robert Fletcher, Sociology of Development and Change, Wageningen University, Wageningen, Netherlands; Wolfram H. Dressler, School of Geography, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia; Zachary R. Anderson, Department of Geography and Planning,University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada; Bram Büsch. “Natural capital must be defended: green growth as neoliberal biopolitics,” THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES. 2019. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/03066150.2018.1428953?needAccess=true&role=button) @ehatt

Over the past decade, the global conservation movement has increasingly embraced ‘natural capital accounting’(NCA) as a key strategy for environmental protection. Through an intricate web of partnerships, states, private-sector firms and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have developed a variety of initiatives intended to assign economic value to ‘ecosystem ser-vices’ that are then supposed to be maintained through appropriate pricing and preservation as ‘natural capital’(Sullivan2013 , 2017a). In this way, NCA ‘aspires to incorporate all aspects of valued external nature within accounting practices’ consonant ‘with the contemporary market economy’(Sullivan2017b, 397). This campaign rests on the assumption that if natural resources can be valued financially, a critical mass of people–from global policy-makers to local resource users–will be motivated to defend them.NCA is part of a widespread trend toward neoliberalization within conservation govern-ance evident throughout the world (Büscher, Dressler, and Fletcher2014). This trend pro-motes market-based instruments (MBIs) for environmental management (e.g. ecotourism, payment for environmental services and carbon markets) to incentivize ‘stakeholders’ to favor conservation over resource extraction. Strong concerns have been raised about this strategy, questioning its reduction of environmental value to narrow economic measures (Büscher and Fletcher2015), its contribution to ‘green grabbing’ (Fairhead,Leach, and Scoones2012) and how actual investments in MBIs have lagged far behindtheir lofty promises (Dempsey and Suarez2016). Yet while the vision underlying NCA pro-motion has been explored in various ways by ecological economists (e.g. Jansson1994;Costanza et al.1997, 2014) and others (Dempsey2016; Sullivan2017a, 2017b), how this vision is currently materializing within on-the-ground policy and practice has yet to be sys-tematically investigated. As NCA is frequently introduced into frontier areas harboring rural, resource-dependent populations, investigating NCA’s impacts in the context of rapidly intensifying agrarian transformations remains critically important. Here we explore two cases in which NCA has been introduced to support biodiversity conservation and carbon sequestration in frontier Southeast Asia through the lens of Foucaultian biopolitics. While conservation governance has been previously analyzed as a form of biopower (Biermann and Mansfield2014), such analysis has not yet engaged with Foucault’s recently published discussion of a specifically neoliberal biopolitics. We argue that NCA represents the intensification of a neoliberal biopolitics in which the central aim to nurture and sustain life is sought via incentives that emphasize nonhuman life’s potential to contribute to economic growth (termed ‘green growth’ within NCA par-lance). We conclude that while NCA can strongly influence local behaviors and livelihood changes (Dressler2014), in practice its effects usually remain partial and fragmented. Indeed, our findings suggest that rather than incentivizing conservation, NCA may more commonly encourage precisely its opposite: the expansion of resource-extractive activities that threaten conservation. By encouraging local resource users to further embrace market logic for natural resource valuation while failing to deliver sufficient revenue to make in situ biodiversity preservation more valuable than lucrative extractive practices (e.g. mining, oil palm), NCA may in practice lead local communities to shift to more destructive resource uses, and ultimately to embrace conventional extractivism. We first introduce our conceptual framework and outline the recent rise of NCA among conservationists. We then apply our framework to our empirical case studies. We demon-strate that while NCA can facilitate livelihood changes, the rhetoric and range of incentives on offer commonly misalign with local livelihoods and create conditions leading local farmers to instead embrace more exploitative options. We conclude by highlighting the implications of our analysis for future investigation concerning NCA within the context of neoliberal conservation, biopolitics and landscape change.The analysis is based on long-term ethnographic research in the Philippines and Indo-nesia by Dressler and Anderson, respectively. Data collection for the Philippines ran from2008 to 2016, and that in Indonesia from 2013 to 2016. In both areas this entailed semi-structured interviews with key NGO, government and community organization represen-tatives as well as participant observation and focus group discussions with rural farmers. We spent weeks in homes and fields, documenting past and present farming practices(e.g. swidden) as well as responses to and outcomes (both socio-economic and biophysi-cal) of NCA interventions. Data analysis focused most on patterns of response within andbetween interviews. The corresponding researchers are conversant in Filipino (Tagalog)and Bahasa Indonesian and used local translators when Pala’wan and Dayak languageswere spoken. All informants gave informed consent, and all areas and respondent names are pseudonyms. Neoliberal biopolitics Foucault introduced ‘biopower/biopolitics’ to describe the historical change from the pre-modern sovereign’s prerogative to ‘take life or let live’ to the modern state’s claim to ‘make live and to let die’(2003, 241). While Foucault himself focused on the exercise of biopower in defense of human populations, others have extended the concept to analyze diverse phenomena (Lemke2011; Mendieta2014), including forms of environmental governance in defense of nonhumans, such as protected area enforcement (Luke1999; Youatt2008;Fletcher2010; Cavanagh2014).What remains underexplored within this growing literature on environmental biopolitics, however, are the different ways in which biopower can be exercised. Initially, Fou-cault (1978 , 2003 ) described biopower as largely synonymous with the ‘governmentality’ analytic he developed simultaneously, in that both addressed power exercised at the level of (national) populations rather than over a collection of subjects or discrete individuals. This resulted in the famous ‘sovereignty–discipline–government’ triad (Foucault1991 ,102) that inspired the now-massive governmentality literature (Rose, O’Malley, and Valverde2006 ; Lemke2012 ). Yet in subsequent lectures Foucault (2007 , 2008 ) reworked the govern-mentality concept, such that it ‘progressively shifts from a precise, historically determinate sense, to a more general and abstract meaning’(Sennellart2007 , 388) encompassing various strategies for the ‘conduct of conduct’. In the process, ‘discipline ’ceases to be opposed to ‘government’ but becomes instead one of several forms of an expanded governmentality. In The birth of biopolitics, Foucault (2008) distinguishes ‘disciplinary’ and ‘neoliberal’ modes of governmentality (cf. Fletcher2010). While disciplinary governmentality seeks to propagate social norms and ethical standards compelling individual conformance due to fears of appearing deviant or immoral, a neoliberal governmentality aims to create external incentive structures within which subjects can be influenced through manipulation of incentives. Neoliberal governmentality thus constitutes ‘an environmental type of intervention instead of the internal subjugation of individuals’; ‘a governmentality which will act on the environment and systematically modify its variables’(Foucault2008,260, 271).Importantly, disciplinary and neoliberal modes of governmentality can also be under-stood to prescribe divergent (yet overlapping) strategies for the exercise of (bio)power. In Foucault’s early analysis, disciplinary techniques function as one of the principal means by which the (emerging modern) state exercised biopower, allowing for the manipulation of individuals’ behavior in pursuit of an optimized human existence. The subsequent rise of neoliberalism, he suggested, introduced a novel approach to biopower, prescribing different strategies for influencing subjects’ attitudes and behavior. While Foucault did not develop this idea of a neoliberal biopower further, a nascent body of literature has begun to do so (see esp. Lemm and Vatter2014). Thus far, this analy-sis has not been systematically applied to environmental governance, although Fletcher(2010) speculates concerning how neoliberal biopower might manifest within conserva-tion politics specifically. He suggests that a neoliberal perspective would likely focus less on subjects’ internal states than on the external structures within which they act...interventions would be framed less in terms of morality than cost–benefit characteristics...[and]...would likely place less emphasis on nurturing and sustaining life directly than on supporting economic growth. (2010, 175) Building on this, we explore how neoliberal biopolitics manifests within contemporary conservation governance in remote frontier settings. In the process, we contribute to the study of neoliberal conservation in conjunction with agrarian change. While neoliberal conservation has been analyzed extensively (Igoe and Brockington2007; Büscher et al.2012; Büscher, Dressler, and Fletcher2014,Holmes and Cavanagh2016), the lens of biopolitics adds a productive new dimension by focusing on how neoliberal interventions seek to optimize rural peoples’ valuation and use of the resources in question. While previous conservation governance tended to foreground ethical concerns and hence pursue the creation of ‘environmental subjects–people who care about the environment’ (Agrawal2005, 162), contemporary interven-tions often minimize such concerns, seeking to instead promote decision-making via economic valuation. Here, stakeholders are encouraged to behave as ‘rational actors[who] can be motivated to exhibit appropriate behaviors through manipulation of incen-tives’(Fletcher2010, 173). This demands a different perspective, one that the concept of neoliberal biopolitics facilitates. We do not claim that neoliberal biopower necessarily displaces other processes entirely, as different forms of biopower may ‘overlap, lean on each other, challenge each other, and struggle with each other’(Foucault2008, 313). As our case studies demonstrate, a disci-plinary biopolitics may thus continue to be promoted alongside neoliberal interventions. Indeed, a certain mode of the former may underpin the latter, in that the inculcation of a neoliberal orientation often necessitates disciplining to produce the rational actors con-sidered capable of appropriately evaluating incentives. We also acknowledge that aspects of neoliberal (or other forms of) biopower promoted via environmental governance are seldom wholly internalized by target populations. Analysis from the perspective of governmentality/biopower, after all, tends to be less con-cerned with ‘what happened and why’ than ‘to start by asking what authorities of various sorts wanted to happen’ Rose (1999, 20). Whether this intention is actually realized is explored by a body of research investigating the correspondence between ‘vision’ and ‘execution’ in environmental governance (see Carrier and West2009; Anderson et al.2016). Dempsey and Suarez (2016), moreover, demonstrate that despite worldwide pro-motion of neoliberal conservation over the past decades, very little actual market exchange has taken place thus far, while most trade that does occur has been directed by states. They thus describe ‘free’ market transactions among private parties as ‘slivers of slivers of slivers’ of general financial transactions (Dempsey and Suarez2016, 654).Yet earlier research suggests that while finances often do not flow from direct market transactions per se, significant funds do manifest by way of project delivery, infrastructure development, accounting and monitoring activities and, crucially, the various incentives and conditions intended to convert rural residents into environmental defenders (Dressler2014). Indeed, as Dempsey and Suarez point out, in failing to develop substantial markets conservation mechanisms may still function ‘to reinforce neoliberal political rationalities among conservationists’ and local stakeholders (2016, 655). To what extent this actually succeeds in creating the envisioned (eco)rational subjects is an empirical question, one that animates our analysis below. The rise of natural capital While having existed for some time, the concept of natural capital has been increasingly pro-moted within environmental governance as part of an expanding coalition of the world’s most influential environmental organizations and corporations. In 2006, The Nature Conser-vancy (TNC) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) partnered with Stanford University to create the Natural Capital Project (Kareiva et al.2011 ), after which the United Nations Environment Pro-gramme (UNEP) championed natural capital in its TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) initiative (TEEB2010). This inspired the World Bank to develop its own WAVES(Wealth Accounting and the Valuation of Ecosystem Services) program (World Bank2017a)These organizations, along with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature(IUCN) , World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and many more, have since come together in a‘Natural Capital Coalition’(NCC) which recently released a ‘NaturalCapital Protocol’ intended to ‘harmonize existing best practice and produce a standardized,generally-accepted, global approach’(Gough2016 , 1). At the 2016 IUCN World ConservationCongress in Hawaii, NCA was prominent, with a launch celebration of the Natural CapitalProtocol and announcement of an expanded coalition to develop financial instrumentsfor NCA including new players Credit Suisse and JP Morgan Chase (IISD2016 ).Within this coalition the definition of natural capital remains ambiguous. In early con-ceptualization by ecological economists, the concept designated measurement of ‘stocks’ or ‘flows’ of natural resources (Daly2014). Yet within NCA the concept’s meaning has changed significantly to emphasize the monetary value of natural resources specifically. The Natural Capital Declaration thus states:‘The term “capital” has been borrowed from the financial sector to describe the value of the resources and ability of ecosystems to provide flows of goods and services such as water, medicines and food’(NCD2012, 1).To incorporate natural capital into decision-making demands appropriate measurement and accounting procedures, since it is natural resources’ ostensible ‘ economic invisibility’ that ‘has thus far been a major cause of their undervaluation, mismanagement and ulti-mately resulting loss’(UNEP2011 , 8). Consequently, ‘successful environmental protection needs to be grounded in sound economics, including explicit recognition, efficient allo-cation, and fair distribution of the costs and benefits of conservation and sustainable use of natural resources’(TEEB2010 , 3). The overarching aim is to incorporate this valuation into benefit–cost analysis, which ‘offers a rather convenient way of measuring the overall social values of alternative policies. Thus it provides a basis for making difficult policy decisions’(Goulder and Kennedy2011 ,16).Benefit–cost analysis can then inform compre-hensive accounting procedures assessed at various scales, from individual firms to particular sectors and beyond, such that‘[i]deally, changes in stocks of natural capital would be eval-uated in monetary terms and incorporated into the national accounts’(UNEP2011 ,5). Fundamental to NCA is thus the creation of markets in which natural resources can be bought and sold in ways that both sustain these and generate financial return to investors;to make conservation ‘not only affordable, but profitable’(Thiam2016, 3). This demands‘[t]ruly sustainable market growth that also delivers measurable conservation benefits’(Credit Suisse and McKinsey2016, 7), commonly termed ‘green growth’. NCA thus builds on efforts over the last few decades to create global markets for trade in ecosystem services. As UNEP asserts,‘[t]ried and tested economic mechanisms and markets exist, which can be replicated and scaled up, including from certified timber schemes, certifica-tion for rainforest products, payments for ecosystem services, benefit-sharing schemes and community-based partnerships’(2011, 9). Similarly, Credit Suisse and McKinsey high-light ‘proven project types and business models’, particularly in ‘sustainable forestry, sus-tainable agriculture, and ecotourism’(2016, 10).Payment for ecosystem services (PES) is commonly considered the archetypal natural capital market–the‘main model’for future‘scaling up’of NCA. PES is also widely seen as the main model for the global REDD+ (Reduced Emissions through avoided Deforesta-tion and land Degradation) mechanism, an ambitious effort to link campaigns to halt deforestation, conserve biodiversity and mitigate climate change. Generally conceptual-ized as a quintessential MBI in its aim to incentivize forest conservation by ascribing mon-etary values to standing forest that would cover the opportunity costs of alternative land use and so make conservation more profitable than destruction, over the last decadeREDD+ has been aggressively promoted by conservation organizations and others who have initiated more than 500 pilot projects worldwide (Sunderlin et al.2015). EarlyWorld Bank forecasts anticipated a USD 30 billion global market for REDD+ trade by2030 (Mollicone et al.2007).In building on pre-existing mechanisms, such NCA schemes can be understood as an intensification(Nealon2008) rather than a wholesale reinvention of the neoliberalization already promoted via conservation policy and programing in many locations over the last several decades. Yet it aims to go far beyond this as well. As place-based conservation initiatives, PES and REDD+ are limited in their capacity to generate significant liquid capital that can be grown directly through investment in financial markets. Consequently, the current emphasis in NCA is to move from concrete markets in goods and services to engagement in global financial markets–what Büscher (2013) calls the pursuit of ‘liquid nature’ (see also Sullivan2013). This entails abstracting value from investment inconcrete projects so that it can become fungible and hence convertible across a greater range of instruments. The aim is then to combine different instruments in order to ‘bundle a diverse set of cash flows...and mold them into a single investment product’(Credit Suisse and McKinsey2016, 13) with the ultimate goal of eventually establishing conservation mechanisms as a new ‘asset class’ within conventional finance markets. On the ground, these diverse sets of cash flows work through conservation mechanisms that supposedly offer the rural poor ‘co-benefits’ and ‘low-carbon’ futures as they contend with their own political and economic struggles. As we show, these schemes obviously articulate with local livelihood needs and concerns, but typically not in ways that match poor rural residents’ hopes and aspirations. Rather than foster agency and empowerment, then, NCA promotion may also constrain it. Such promotion is typically envisioned in neoliberal terms wherein human beings are considered rational actors functioning as‘entrepreneurs of themselves’ who can therefore be influenced by manipulating costs versus benefits of certain courses of action (Foucault2008; Fletcher2010). This can clearly be observed within promotion of PES that commonly ‘constructs human behavior as determined by individual, material self-interest’(McAfeeand Shapiro2010, 595) The World Bank, for instance, states, ‘Market-driven PES programs are more likely to be sustainable because they depend on the self-interest of the affected parties rather than on taxes, tariffs, philanthropy, or the whims of donors’(McAfee andShapiro2010, 593).The neoliberal biopolitics informing NCA is clearly apparent in this frame. As NCA becomes a concerted campaign to unite influential conservation actors and direct conser-vation policy throughout the world, it urgently demands further scrutiny. Some of this has already begun with respect to underlying assumptions (see Sullivan2013, 2017a; Dempsey2016), but how the NCA vision materializes via on-the-ground conservation practices–and how it is perceived and negotiated by the rural residents it targets–has yet to be system-atically investigated. As one of the most prominent new processes influencing the lives of rural landholders around the globe, critical analysis of NCA is particularly important for peasant and agrarian studies. In the following, then, we explore two case studies in rural southeast Asia where NCA has been explicitly promoted as the rationale for reno-vated conservation interventions. Defending natural capital The following analysis draws on a comparison of empirical research from southern Palawan,the Philippines, and East Kalimantan, Indonesia, where key actors have increasingly empha-sized the need to enlist rural residents as defenders of natural capital. The cases demon-strate a common process wherein domestic and international civil-society organizations seek to enroll poor farmers within projects informed by a neoliberal biopolitical logic. These projects have encouraged shifts from‘traditional’forest use and horticultural prac-tices to more ‘value-added’ production involving performance-based incentives, such as payments for tree planting, rotating funds for sustained livestock production, and similar mechanisms that will ostensibly generate revenue by and for ecosystem services conserva-tion. Both cases evidence a move from earlier integrated conservation and developmentprojects (ICDPs) to newer NCA-based interventions that center on financially valuing astock of resources as‘natural capital’and protecting this from loss or degradation.