The Politics of Accountability: Indigenous Participation in Colombian and Ecuadorian Oil and Gas Policies
| Autor | Guillaume Fontaine - Esther Sánchez - Marco Córdova - Susan Velasco |
| Cargo | FLACSO (Ecuador) - Consultant - FLACSO (Ecuador) - FLACSO (Ecuador) |
| Páginas | 17-50 |
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The Politics of Accountability: Indigenous Participation
in Colombian and Ecuadorian Oil and Gas Policies
Guillaume Fontaine
FLACSO (Ecuador)
Esther Sánchez
Consultant
Marco Córdova
Susan Velasco
FLACSO (Ecuador)
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7440/colombiaint86.2016.01
RECEIVED: April 29, 2015
ACCEPTED: June 28, 2015
REVISED: October 27, 2015
ABSTRACT: Current literature on social and political accountability hardly explains
why governments are (or are not) interested in including non-state actors in
decision-making and policy implementation. is paper argues that accountability
is the product of the interplay of ideas and institutions to mediate contradictory
interests in the denition of normative, strategic and operational policy aims and
means. Process-tracing is utilized to identify the causal mechanism linking the
adoption of international law instruments to actual enforcement of accountability
in a policy area. e case study is about the indigenous right to prior consultation
on oil and gas policies in Colombia and Ecuador.
KEYWORDS: accountability • public policy • indigenous • Colombia • Ecuador
(esaurus) • neo-institutionalism • process-tracing (author’s keywords)
is paper is a partial product of the research project titled “Participation as a Governance
Problem: e Case of Security and Energy Policies in Ecuador and Colombia,” conducted
from March 2014 to March 2015. e project was nanced by the Academic Development
Fund of FLACSO Ecuador. e authors wish to thank Mike Howlett, Derek Beach, Ernesto
Isunza, Adrián Gurza, two anonymous reviewers and the Editor of Colombia International
for their comments on a previous version of this paper. Special thanks goes to Luis Carlos
Erazo for his invaluable help on logistics.
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Colombia Internacional 86 • Colomb. int. • PP. 236
ISSN 0121-5612 • eISSN 1900-6004 • Enero-abril 2016 • PP. 17-50
La política de rendición de cuentas: Participación indígena en
las políticas de petróleo y gas de Colombia y Ecuador
RESUMEN: La literatura contemporánea sobre el control social y la responsabilidad no
explica con solvencia por qué gobiernos están (o no están) interesados en involucrar
a actores no estatales en los procesos de toma de decisión y de implementación de
políticas públicas. Este artículo argumenta que la responsabilidad es el producto de
las interacciones entre ideas e instituciones para mediar intereses contradictorios
en la denición de los objetivos y medios de políticas normativos, estratégicos y
operacionales. Se utiliza el seguimiento de proceso para identicar el mecanismo
causal que vincula la adopción de instrumentos de derecho internacional con el
fortalecimiento efectivo de la responsabilidad en un área de política. El caso de estudio
es el derecho de los indígenas a la consulta previa en las políticas de petróleo y gas en
Colombia y Ecuador.
PALABRAS CLAVE: control social • responsabilidad • política pública • Colombia •
Ecuador (esaurus) • neoinstitucionalismo • indígenas • seguimiento de procesos
(palabras clave autor)
A política de Accountability: participação indígena nas
políticas de petróleo e gás da Colômbia e do Equador
RESUMO: A literatura contemporânea sobre o controle social e a responsabilidade
não explica com solvência por que governos estão (ou não estão) interessados em
envolver atores não estatais nos processos de tomada de decisão e de implementação
de políticas públicas. Este artigo argumenta que a responsabilidade é o produto
das interações entre ideias e instituições para mediar interesses contraditórios na
denição dos objetivos e meios de políticas normativos, estratégicos e operacionais.
Utiliza-se o acompanhamento de processo para identicar o mecanismo causal que
vincula a adoção de instrumentos de direito internacional com o fortalecimento
efetivo da responsabilidade numa área de política. O estudo de caso é o direito
dos indígenas à consulta prévia nas políticas de petróleo e gás na Colômbia e no
Equador.
PALAVRAS-CHAVE: controle social • responsabilidade • Colômbia • Equador
(esaurus) • política pública • neoinstitucionalismo • indígenas • acompanhamento
de processos (palavras-chave autor)
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Introduction: Why Do Governments Bother About Accountability?
e emergence of citizens’ rights to participation and control over the state in
contemporary literature on democracy came along with the global transformation
regarding the role and nature of state institutions: upwards (through globalization and
regional integration processes), downwards (through decentralization processes)
and outwards (through the politicization of civil society) (Pierre and Peters
). In Latin America, aer the democratic transition of the s and
the governability crisis faced by many countries during the following decade,
the framing of democracy building has challenged the traditional concept of
representative democracy with that of “co-governance” (Fontaine a), a
collaborative system based on participation and social control by dierent actors,
in which the state acts as a coordinator (Kooiman ).
Yet participation and social control over the state are both time-consuming
and economically expensive for governments (Irvin and Stansbury ). ey
are also oen frustrating for social actors wanting more consultation, more
accountability and more controlling capacity (Fung a; b), all of which
aects the political outcomes governments can expect from such measures.
erefore, the reason why governments do (or do not) care for granting citizens
such rights calls for more explanation, especially considering the irreversible
nature of policy change for more accountability, which is comparable with the
irreversibility of previous changes such as the recognition of human rights
and universal surage. ere is a need to know more about how governments
face the need to design and implement eective public policies under growing
scrutiny by non-state actors.
e argument in this paper is that such changes actually become
irreversible when they materialize at three levels of objectives and means of
policy content. is process is consistent with the neo-institutional three-order
change framework (Hall ), according to which rst-order change, through
calibration of policy instruments, and second-order change, through denition
of policy objectives and means, result from social learning, while third-order
change, through paradigmatic shi (or a new cognitive framework), results
from the adjustment obtained by inuential actors through “puzzling” and
1 On neo-instit utional frameworks and t heories, see Lowndes and Robe rts 2013.
2 Drawing on t he theory of scientic revo lutions (Kuhn 1971), this framework a lso considers the
process of a polic y paradigm sh i which exp eriences a moment of incom mensurability (Hall
1993), since it is a sociologica l, rather than a scienti c process, that depends on the pos itional
advantages of ex perts wit hin a broader in stitutiona l framework and on e xogenous factors
aectin g the power of one set of actors over the other.
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