Subnational government and EIA in the developing world: Bureaucratic strategy and political change in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil☆

Abstract EIA has been instituted in developing countries in the last decade largely in response to outside pressures. Governments have been quick to initiate reforms rather than jeopardize projects that might be key to national development plans. At the subnational level, most projects are not financed by foreign aid. The application of EIA at this level is often the result of pressure exerted on policy elites by the bureaucracy. This paper describes the reorganization of environmental protection agencies in the state of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. This reorganization provided the setting for a bureaucratic initiative on EIA. The authors also analyze two cases in which EIA was applied unsatisfactorily and comment on the political realites of implementing EIA at the subnational level.