Launch of [tra:ce] Working Paper No. 9: "Competing State Projects and Contested Green Macrofinancial Regimes"

The growing importance of green macrofinancial governance has renewed interest in the state's role in steering the green transition. Recent scholarship has identified alternative macrofinancial pathways to decarbonisation but says little about the political struggles through which these institutional configurations emerge and change. The paper therefore introduces the concept of contested green macrofinancial regimes. Drawing on a strategic-relational approach to the state, the authors argue that green macrofinancial regimes are contingent outcomes of struggles among competing state projects rather than coherent institutional configurations. They distinguish three ideal-type projects, a green market-liberal, a transformative green and a reactionary high-carbon state project, and apply this framework to Brazil.

The analysis shows that competing state projects with unequal capacities to shape policy outcomes coexist in Brazil. The market-liberal project remains dominant, while transformative and reactionary projects periodically reshape the country's macrofinancial architecture under conditions of financial subordination, economic reprimarisation and climate obstruction. The result is a contested green macrofinancial regime. The paper thus offers a framework for analysing green macrofinancial governance across different structural contexts, with particular attention to emerging markets and developing economies.

The paper is available here.