European and German Raw-Material Policy in Latin America
2014–2015 · CAPES · Postdoctoral Research · NAEA/UFPA & Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut (IAI), Berlin · Latin America
Raw-Material Policy · Critical Raw Materials · Brazil · Mineral Markets · Supply Security · Resource Governance · Regional Development
Project Overview
European and German Raw-Material Policy in Latin America was a CAPES-funded postdoctoral research project conducted in connection with the Núcleo de Altos Estudos Amazônicos (NAEA) of the Universidade Federal do Pará (UFPA) and the Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut (IAI) in Berlin.
The project examined European and German raw-material policies from the perspective of resource-producing countries in Latin America, with particular attention to Brazil. It investigated how transformations in global mineral markets, European concerns about access to mineral resources and emerging bilateral raw-material partnerships affected relations between resource-consuming and resource-producing economies.
The research developed from my earlier work on mining and regional development in Amazonia. It extended the direction of observation beyond mineral extraction within producing regions toward the international economic and political relations through which mineral demand, investment and resource policies become connected to extraction.
Brazil occupied a particularly important position in this analysis. It could not adequately be understood simply as a supplier of mineral resources: Brazil was simultaneously a major mineral producer, an emerging industrial economy and the home country of internationally operating mining companies.
Research Context
During the first decade of the twenty-first century, international mineral markets underwent substantial transformations. Growing demand from emerging economies, particularly China, altered established patterns of mineral consumption, while the internationalization of mining companies from emerging economies changed the organization of global mineral production.
European governments and industries increasingly interpreted these developments in terms of supply security and access to critical mineral resources. The European Union's Raw Materials Initiative and Germany's Raw Materials Strategy responded through policies concerned with international market access, diversification, resource efficiency, recycling and cooperation with resource-producing countries.
The project approached these developments from the perspective of producing countries. Its underlying concern can be summarized in the question:
What do strategies designed to secure mineral supply in consuming economies imply for resource-producing countries and regions?
This connected European and German raw-material policy to wider questions concerning global mineral markets, corporate strategies, investment relations, development policy and regional development.
Brazil & Global Raw-Material Relations
The research examined Brazil both as an important supplier of mineral resources and as an emerging industrial economy with its own growing demand for raw materials. It also considered the internationalization of Brazilian mining companies, particularly the transformation of Vale from a state-owned enterprise into a major transnational mining corporation.
These developments challenged a simple distinction between resource-consuming industrial economies and resource-producing countries. They raised questions about the growing importance of transnational corporations originating in the Global South and about changing relationships between states, companies and mineral-producing regions.
Particular attention was given to niobium. Brazil's dominant position in global niobium production provided an example of the relationship between geographically concentrated mineral production and the supply concerns of importing economies. The research examined Brazilian niobium production, major producers and the position of niobium within European discussions of critical raw materials and import dependency.
European & German Raw-Material Policy
The project analysed the European Raw Materials Initiative and the identification of critical raw materials, with particular attention to economic importance, import dependency and geographically concentrated production.
At the German level, the research examined the German Raw Materials Strategy of 2010, the role of industry and the development of bilateral raw-material partnerships with resource-producing countries. These partnerships were of particular analytical interest because they connected governmental relations, corporate investment, foreign economic policy and development cooperation.
The research explored the proposition that raw-material partnerships could be understood as political attempts to establish communication channels through which companies interested in investment gained legitimate access to political arenas in partner countries. This shifted attention from raw-material agreements as purely commercial instruments toward their political and institutional architecture.
The analysis also identified tensions between supply security and investment interests on the one hand and demands for transparency, governance, environmental and social standards, and development-policy responsibility on the other. European and German raw-material policies were therefore examined as part of a broader relationship between mineral supply, investment, governance and development.
Research Approach
The research was based principally on:
- analysis of European and German raw-material policy documents;
- examination of critical-raw-material strategies and bilateral raw-material partnerships;
- secondary analysis of mineral-production, market and import-dependency data;
- analysis of corporate development and investment relations;
- comparative interpretation of relations between resource-consuming and resource-producing economies.
The available documentation supports document and policy analysis, secondary-data analysis and comparative institutional analysis as the principal research approaches. It does not provide evidence for presenting systematic interviews or primary field research as components of this specific postdoctoral project.
Project Output
Postdoctoral Research Report
The principal output of the project was a postdoctoral research report examining European and German raw-material policy and its implications for Latin America, with particular attention to Brazil.
The project did not result in academic publications.
Research presentations documented the development of the analysis, including a presentation in Berlin in October 2014 on the European raw-material strategy and its implications for Latin America, particularly Brazil.
Contribution to My Research
The postdoctoral project marks a distinct widening of perspective within my research on mining and regional development.
Earlier research had examined mineral extraction primarily from the perspective of producing regions, including labour, economic organization, technological change, regional development and, subsequently, formalization, conflict and resource governance. The postdoctoral research shifted the direction of observation toward the global markets and policies surrounding mineral extraction.
It connected three fields that subsequently remained relevant to my research: global mineral markets, policies concerned with access and supply security, and the differentiated consequences of these relations for resource-producing countries and regions. The explicit treatment of critical raw materials and niobium also represents an early documented engagement with questions that later re-emerged, in a different research context, in my work on responsible mineral extraction and global raw-material relations.
The project preceded Regional Development in World Society and was not conceived within its theoretical framework. In retrospect, however, its shift from mining regions toward the economic, political and organizational relations extending beyond those regions became relevant to later questions concerning how broader societal processes acquire differentiated regional consequences.
Its significance within my research trajectory therefore lies less in the scale of the project or its outputs than in this change of analytical perspective:
from mineral extraction within producing regions toward the global relations through which resource extraction is organized, enabled and contested.
Related Research
Mining & Extractive Transformations →
Research on artisanal and industrial mining, resource governance, responsible extraction, global raw-material relations and regional transformation.
Amazonia as a Comparative Observation Field →
Amazonia as a field for examining how global economic, political and organizational processes acquire differentiated regional consequences.
Regional Development in World Society →
The current theoretical programme examining how heterogeneous world-societal processes become selectively connected and consequential within historically evolving regional configurations.