PHD THESIS
Co-Supervisors: Prof. Graziella Moraes Silva & Prof. Grégoire Mallard
Expected Completion: 2024/2025
Profile
My dissertation project, entitled “The Amazon as a Carbon Sink: how transnationalism makes and brakes climate mitigation in Rainforest States?”, explores the transnational and domestic origins of effective climate mitigation in Rainforest States. This project relies on (i) in-depth interviews with policy elites, (ii) a novel grant-level dataset on the financial income of diverse policy organisations scrapped from multiple sources, and (iii) archival work to process-trace the emergence and dismantling of deforestation policies in Brazil from 1985 to 2022. Empirically, I demonstrate how effective climate mitigation policy in Brazil was triggered by a group of transnationally connected technocrats, who had developed policy solutions for climate change outside the state. They exploited a unique opportunity to implement these policies unilaterally, leading to a organisation of rural elites in Brazil. Theoretically, I combine political economy and sociology to provide a theory of climate regimes in the Rainforest States. My theory posits four ideal types of climate regimes depending on (i) the strength of transnational environmental policy networks within government and (ii) the elite support and mobilisation of opposing coalitions.
ACADEMIC WORK EXPERIENCE
Lecturing
Together with Henrique Sposito, I designed and lectured Fundamentals of R, which is a gentle introduction to R programming for social scientists and practitioners. The course has been offered for IHEID’s graduate students (MINT338) as well as a summer school.
Research Assistantship
I am a research assistant at the Elites & Inequality project, led by Prof. Graziella Moraes Silva. In this project, we contribute to the debate about elites and inequality by shifting the focus from how elites benefit from inequality to how elites may support redistributive policies in Brazil and South Africa. Combining novel survey data and in-depth interviews with elites (CEOs, parliamentarians, and top civil servants), we (1) estimate the average effects of perception on elite support for redistribution and (2) identify the cultural processes that enable this support.
Fellowships, grants and awards
- Swiss Leading House for the Latin American Region- Early Career Grant (2023)
- SNIS International Organization Research Stipend (2021)
- Davis Projects for Peace Grant (2018)
- Japan Student Services Organization Scholarship (2015)
Relevant Publications and Works
- Silva-Muller, L., & Sposito, H. (2023). Which Amazon Problem? Problem-constructions and Transnationalism in Brazilian Presidential Discourse since 1985. Environmental Politics, 0(0), 1–24.
- Silva-Muller, L. (2022). Payment for ecosystem services and the practices of environmental fieldworkers in policy implementation: The case of Bolsa Floresta in the Brazilian Amazon. Land Use Policy, 120, 106251.
- Silva-Muller, L., & Faul, M. V. (2022). Protecting the Amazon and Its People: The Role of Civil Society in the Local Effectiveness of Transnational Partnerships. In Partnerships for Sustainability in Contemporary Global Governance. Routledge.
- Silva-Muller, L. (2022). Payment for ecosystem services and the practices of environmental fieldworkers in policy implementation: The case of Bolsa Floresta in the Brazilian Amazon. Land Use Policy, 120, 106251.
- Silva-Muller, L., & Faul, M. V. (2022). Protecting the Amazon and Its People: The Role of Civil Society in the Local Effectiveness of Transnational Partnerships. In Partnerships for Sustainability in Contemporary Global Governance (pp. 83-103). Routledge.
- (2019) Silva-Muller, Livio. “‘We Are Not Here to Monitor You:’ Payment for Ecosystem Services in the Brazilian Amazon: The Case of Bolsa Floresta in the Sustainable Development Reserve of Uatumã.” Geneva: The Graduate Institute of Geneva.
PERSONAL PAGES