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Corridors of Power: The Politics of Environmental Aid to Madagascar

Millions of dollars are spent globally on biodiversity conservation each year. Despite prolonged financial and institutional support, biodiversity decline continues at a rapid rate. Catherine Corson’s Corridors of Power: The Politics of Environmental Aid to Madagascar helps explain the complex social, political, economic, and discursive drivers of conservation failure in one of the world’s most treasured biodiversity hotspots: Madagascar. Corridors of Power provides a deep dive into the history and inner workings of transnational environmental politics. It is an ideal read for graduate students and scholars interested in conservation governance, international aid, and the role of science in policy-making. While the book focuses specifically on Madagascar, it highlights power dynamics and processes endemic to most international conservation and development efforts. Corson digs into the dynamics of who is invited to the policy-making table, who benefits most from decisions made at the table, and who builds the table—that is, who frames the problem being addressed. The title’s double entendre draws attention to how the size and location of protected areas in key ecological corridors in Madagascar (forested areas with high concentrations of biodiversity) stem directly from high-level negotiations and decision-making occurring at international conferences and the headquarters of conservation organizations. By highlighting this connection, Corson argues that throughout Madagascar’s history, foreign interests and ideas have shaped how resources have been used, as well as who benefits most from their use. Corson brings insider status to this work, having held positions at the White House, State Department, and USAID. This perspective allows her to trace the formal and informal processes that shifted environmental management away from comprehensive integrated conservation and development to a more narrow focus on biodiversity research and the establishment of protected areas. This narrowing of the conservation agenda was enabled by the neoliberal push to reduce the role of the state, in combination with the participatory turn in international development that empowered nongovernmental, largely foreignrun, organizations to determine the goals and strategies of conservation in Madagascar.