Dependent Transitions? The Global Political Economy of Bioeconomy Development

The global political economy is being shaped by a drive for decarbonisation and sustainability transitions in industrialised countries with important implications for countries in the Global South where much of the natural resources needed for the proposed transition pathways are located. While there is an emerging IPE research agenda on energy transitions, there is still a lack of empirical analyses and theoretical concepts on sustainability transitions beyond energy and from the perspective of the global South. This paper brings dependency theory to the study of sustainability transitions. It introduces the concept of dependent transitions, with three interlinked dimensions: structural, economic and socio-environmental. Empirically, we focus on the development of bioeconomy in Argentina. We first examine how the bioeconomy concept coming from industrialised countries was adapted in Argentina and then look at the biofuels sector. Our findings demonstrate how the focus of the bioeconomy concept changed when it was appropriated by agrarian elites in Argentina, changing from an emphasis on sustainability and decarbonisation to a focus on development that frequently sidelines significant socio-environmental concerns. This bioeconomy reinforces existing power structures, benefiting influential actors within the agribusiness sector without addressing economic inequalities or fundamentally changing the country’s longstanding commodity dependence.