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The objective of the present paper is to analyze if policies of the Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America (IIRSA) - applied to the borderline region between Brazil/Bolivia - include social participation in the decisions about environmental resources exploitation. It was used the followed methods: textual analysis of public policies of IIRSA, photography, maps and interview analysis with experts in the subject of regional integration. The research is based mainly in the theories of David Harvey, Neil Smith, David Held and Bertha Becker. The current paper discusses about: 1) how policies have a "lacunar discurse2" conduced by Brazil. 2) how laws are planed exclusively by the decision makers, often without the vote of the citizens. Consequently, there is a loss of autonomy in the management of natural resources done by the people, and decisions are taken according to the international economic demands. The physical consequence of the policies on the environment is an increase of fragmentation not only ecological but also cultural, both reflecting negatively on the economy of the region involved in integrative policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the final years of the Brazilian dictatorship, the Sarney administration adopted a nationalist position towards the protection of the Amazon. This position was taken in response to the perceived threat of a US directed intervention to protect biodiversity and limit CO2 production attributed to deforestation within Brazil's border. This nationalist position strongly asserted the sovereign right to exploit the natural resources within Brazil's borders in order to expand its economy and improve its relative position in the international sphere. By the end of the Sarney administration, decision makers had adopted a more 'internationalist' approach to dealing with environmental issues in order to preempt 'environmental conditionality' by US influenced international lending institutions. By the early 1990s, Brazil had become a leading advocate for an international regime on the environment. This paper argues that the international diplomatic community and Brazilian decision makers mutually constituted an identity shift that integrated Brazil into global norms and institutions through a combination of transnational activism, coercion, and social interaction. In contrast with orthodox theoretical explanations that posit causal powers to deep structures of the international system, this paper traces the processes that form the causal mechanisms behind an identity shift in an empirical case study. These causal processes are inherently reductionist, as change in the international system is produced by the embodied actions of the representatives of different institutions. It uses Foucault's theorization of governmentality to explain how environmental conditionality was used to introduce environmentalism into Brazil's foreign policy, and Checkel's theorization of social interaction to explain how environmental regulation was introduced into Brazilian governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at analyzing the recent changes in the US foreign doctrine and Brazil’s strategy of international relations under thenew government that took power in January 2003. The U.S. and Brazil agendas and strategies are discussed in light of the FTAA process. Several questions are addressed in the paper, including: How can the ganeda be reconciled to accommodate national interests and at the same time to keep the momentum of the FTAA process? How can US hegemony be accommodated in a more cooperative hemisphere? How does Mercosur fit in with the FTAA project? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Never has humanity had so many instruments and mechanisms at its reach to protect human rights. Yet, the passage from a defensive attitude of negation of the state’s responsibilities for gross human rights violations to one of transparency and acceptance of monitoring by international multilateral bodies and civil society organizations has not come easily. Despite persistent high levels of human rights violations, Brazil enters the twenty-first century with an institutional structure that will promote the advance of a society more respectful of human rights. Indeed, the official recognition of the gravity and centrality of human rights for national development has broken the hegemony of the state in the realm of justice and engaged the participation of non-state actors in the construction of a more just and democratic Brazil. In a new context of shared responsibilities, the Brazilian government has argued that human rights norms are not against but rather complementary to sovereignty, reinforcing the idea that there is an effective gain in legitimacy attached to the norm. This paper will argue that there are concrete gains in following a human rights agenda, even in a country like Brazil. In this perspective, I suggest that there is now a political economy of human rights in the sense that a mosaic of actors have entwined norms and interests in promoting the cause. In Brazil, perhaps as in the case of other developing, emerging democracies, the interests are gains in international legitimacy (imported legitimacy), as well as the desire for development at home. The process is neither evident nor self-assuming, and this paper is aimed at retracing the sociology of power embedded in the construction of a human rights discourse and regime in Brazil during the 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence abounds that transnational advocacy networks (TANs) have played an important role promoting environmental causes and human rights issues, especially in the last quarter-century. Less well explored, however, are the long-term impact that advocacy networks have on ?developing? countries where TANs have focused their campaigns. For example, Brazil saw a steep decline in deforestation throughout the late 1990s despite the fact that the international campaign to protect Amazonian resources peeked in the early 1990s. As such, unless we believe the World Bank flawlessly executed the supervisory policies suggested by many international non governmental organizations (INGOs), we need a better causal explanation of why environmental conditions in Brazil continue to improve. While a leverage politics/?boomerang? story best explains environmental policy changes during the 1980s and early 1990s, it is not sufficient to explain the role that TANs have played in Brazilian environmental politics during the past decade, nor does an ?INGOs-as-primary-actors-within-networks? model correctly describe the current composition of environmental advocacy networks in Brazil. In this paper, I argue that continued improvement in Brazilian environmental policy can only be explained by a second-order process which occurred during the original Amazonian campaign: an information cascade that catalyzed Brazilian NGOs and raised the salience of environmental issues amongst both voters and politicians. By examining how international forces increase the resource base of domestic NGOs and raise public awareness regarding environmental issues, we can explain more of the current improvement in Brazil?s implementation of development programs. In addition to the Brazilian case study, this paper concludes with a research design that seeks to generalize the information-shock model across both countries and issue-areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will provide an explanation for the recent rise of business-related organizations in Latin America that seek to promote corporate social responsibility in a period of sluggish economic growth. With a focus on Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Mexico, and Peru, the paper will describe a changing political economy context, in which the private sector has gained power and space relative to the public sector, as a background for the analysis of relevant variables. These will include a comparative assessment of the role of: social pressure from civil society organizations; changing views from within business elites, and the dissemination of new management concepts (such as stakeholdership). The paper will also identify and explain a major difference within this set of countries: Brazil stands out for the depth and breadth of, and relative success in the promotion of corporate social responsibility. While in the other countries the rise of these organizations may be viewed as a response to crises, in Brazil it must be viewed as the result of the social relations established by business elites as they turned to opposition to the military regime in the late 1970s and early 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is part of a larger project on central bank independence (CBI) in developing countries. My theory explains central bank reform in developing countries as a function of the need for capital, and of domestic institutional hurdles. The theory has found quantitative support in a sample of developing countries between 1973-2007. This paper explains the evolution of central banking in Argentina and Brazil. An analysis of the reforms affecting CBI, and of instances of lack of reform, provides qualitative evidence of incumbents' motivations for central bank reform, and of the obstacles they face. The Argentine case shows how a need for capital motivates incumbents to delegate monetary authority to the central bank. It also shows that when incumbents are not constrained by need of capital they are more likely to restrict CBI and use monetary policy as another instrument of domestic policy. Even when the Brazilian reforms are fewer and more limited, qualitative evidence helps to explain the reasons of the timing of reforms affecting CBI. The evidence presented here was gathered through the analysis of primary and secondary sources, and semi-structured interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explains how Brazil answered the competing alternatives of regional integration (FTAA and ALBA), focusing in representative critical junctures for Brazilian strategy in the period as a contextual analytical strategy. The paper sheds light especially in the critical moments such as the rise of unilateralism by the Bush administration and the breakup of Mar del Plata Summit, analyzing the consequences for the regional political scenario. The research used the theoretical background of the theories of regionalism and regional integration, influenced by international insertion studies. The explanation logic starts with the assumption that MERCOSUR, as core of the South American regional integration, is the main base for the Brazilian project of consolidating itself as a regional power and global player, overcoming its status of middle power. Paper uses combined new institutionalisms and foreign policy analyses techniques, supported by methods of single case studies and historical series. We conclude that Brazil seeks to reinforce its South American integration axis in a broader agenda of power projection in the regional and international scenarios. This is done by a progressive adoption of a deeper integration agenda and through the creation of arrangements and interdependences that favors the Brazilian leading position in the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is driven by two major questions: Why there is a big gap between the strong rhetoric of all South countries supporting regional integration and the poor outcomes achieved so far?; and, Why Brazil, having a low carbon intensive energy matrix, has not taken a leading global and regional role in climate change mitigation and adaptation? The paper has two parts. The first one "Integration and Fragmentation in South America" analyses the dynamic of the South American countries and consider the attempts of economic and political integration. The second one "Brazil in the global and regional politics of climate" analyses the evolving of Brazilian policy in the global arena of the Kyoto Protocol and the failed efforts of the country to produce governance of energy and climate in South America. The final remarks talks about the key Brazilian role in the current negotiations of a post-Kyoto architecture for climate change mitigation and adaptation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper aims to examine the different approaches to regionalism, comparing those of the two largest Latin American countries - both economic and population-wise, Brazil and Mexico. The paper aims to identify the determining factors of the foreig ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the broader context of globalization as politics, this paper adopts the following assumption: cities through their transnational cooperation networks and economic projects are the expression of a new political actor having shifted their operation scale, and partly emancipated themselves from the monopoly of the nation-state in the deployment of transborder public action. As the world's population became increasingly urban and complex globalization-fragmentation processes advanced, cities have challenged the Westphalian imaginary and the exclusive role of the nation-state as "the" bounded political community with a capacity to frame and control a fixed and vertical national territory. In pursuance of developing this assumption, this paper approaches the discussion in two general parts: firstly, it looks into the empirical reality of 72 Brazilian municipalities and their paradiplomatic actions in the international arena; secondly, it presents a series of critical questions for analyzing cities and their transnational networks as new political actors in the global arena. Empirically authors intend to analyze the multiple ways through which these 72 municipalities across Brazil develop paradiplomatic activities, but also to better understand the soft-border approach, the economic strategies that they deploy, whether or not they build a political identity, thus questioning unconditioned national sovereignty as a fundamental tenet of the international system. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the link between the financialisation of a government bond market and a government's capacity to borrow on a sustainable basis, without following the policy preferences of lenders. Greater levels of financialisation increase the ability of investors to exit, therefore decreasing investor loyalty. The paper suggests a use of Hirschman's concept of voice, exit and loyalty that reduces the focus on voice, emphasises loyalty, and adds the idea of 'disloyalty' through short selling. The greater a government's capacity to borrow from loyal investors, it is argued, the higher is a government's policy autonomy. The paper suggests a framework for this link between financialisation and government policy autonomy in an 'autonomy curve', and thereby seeks to update Zysman's work on the importance of financial structure, and to provide an analysis of processes of change in that structure. The study focuses on the middle-income countries commonly called 'emerging markets', and on three case study countries with very different levels of financialisation of their government bond markets: Brazil, Lebanon and Turkey. It considers specific investor types, both domestic and international, in these markets. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper has two parts. The first one "Brazil in the Global System" summarizes the most important dynamics in the Brazilian society in the last two decades. The second part "The evolving Brazilian role in the global politics of climate" analyses the Brazilian standing in the negotiations of the Kyoto Protocol (1996-2001) showing how Amazonian deforestation shaped deeply alliances of Brazil and finish analyzing the progress toward a more responsible regional and global position in the recent period. The paper argue there is a good possibility of a change in Brazilian position after a moving in the American position with the next president. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the first time, Latin America's two giants, Brazil and Mexico, are both under democratic regimes. But the democratization of these two countries has led them into two very different international paths in the United Nations. Brazil seeks to be a world leader in the forum, while Mexico has pursued a passive role in the organization. The paper explains why Brazil and Mexico have pursued different strategies in the UN. It uses domestic politics variables to analyze Brazil's preference for activism and Mexico's choice for relative isolationism. In particular, the paper focuses on domestic processes and institutions to explain variation in behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latin American countries do not define their security agenda. In fact the regional presence of the United States conditions the security agendas of the countries in the region and their capacity to establish autonomous national policies on the global , regional and sub regional spheres. Nevertheless the regional integration process in the southern cone and the international role that Brazil has been signaling it would like to play since the transition to democracy have allowed the governments of Brazil and Argentina to define some strategic orientations. During the last fifteen years the civil authorities have established some defense and security policies in the absence of direct intervention on the part of the armed forces, in contrast to previous periods. In this paper we shall analyze the conceptual sources incorporated by the political elite in both Argentina and Brazil and the means and resources available for decision making in the security sphere in these countries . We shall investigate the process of securitization in the regional context taking into account the interaction between endogenous and exogenous variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Countries, which have implemented for the first time or reformulated their domestic water management policies after the 1970s-1980s, have had the opportunity to choose from a series of water management models around the world. Brasil is one of these countries. In 1997, the Brazilian Federal State defined (Law 9,433) the new water management model to be implemented throughout the country. The model is based on the integrated management of multiple water uses, defining the river basin as its unit of analysis and management. These principles reflect a trend towards decentralization and participation, which requires a close collaboration and negotiation among the different government levels ? federal, state and municipal, as well as between these and water users and civil society organizations. This collaboration and negotiation is to be developed within River Basin Committees, where representatives from all the above mentioned sectors participate. Despite this legislative and implementation dynamics at the federal level, since the 1988 Federal Constitution, several Brazilian States had approved state legislation (re)organizing their water management systems. Most of them already encompassed the basic principles later adopted at the federal level. The result is a mosaic of water management institutions, which, in some river basins, arguably hold overlapping functions and responsibilities. Why have these overlapping water management models persisted? Why have not they been consolidated in one or just replaced one by another? The answers to these quesitons may shed some light over governments’ choices of water management models and the paths which the implementation of these models have followed (and are following). The Watermark Project ? Projeto Marca D’Água ? is a long-term study (5-10 years), which seeks to investigate the institutional and social aspects of the water management decentralization in diverse physical, social, and organizational contexts across Brasil. The project strives to better understand the decision making process used by emerging river basin organizations and how factors such as the type of water related problem and the level of social organization, influenced their creation and their management activities. The Watermark Project research team has currently over 30 collaborators from institutions in Brasil and the United States of America, representing a diverse group of universities, governmental agencies, and non-governmental organizations. During 2001-2002, baseline and follow-up studies were conducted in 27 basins throughout Brasil. The Piracicaba, Capivari and Jundiaí River Basin (PCJ) is one of the case-studies researched and being followed within The Watermark Project. The paper will analyze the Piracicaba, Capivari and Jundiaí River Basin case, where a distinct water management model was implemented in the 1980s ? PCJ Consortium. This water management model was subsequently followed by the implementation of a second model of water management as a result of the State of São Paulo Water Law (1991) ? PCJ State Committee ? and recently, by the implementation of yet a third water management model as a result of the Federal Water Law (1997) ? PCJ Federal Committee. The reasons for choosing one water management model over another and for their overlapping existence and functioning will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A common theme in the literature on international rivalries concerns the role of war. War can exacerbate rivalries, but by acting as a shock, war can also catalyze changes that help to deescalate or terminate rivalries. Using William Thompson?s integrative framework as a guide, this paper examines the impact of wars on the Argentine-Brazilian rivalry, from independence in the early nineteenth century through the deescalation and apparent termination of the rivalry during the 1980s and 1990s. War between Argentina and Brazil did not catalyze the deescalation process, but examining Argentina?s entire rivalry profile reveals that the threat of war does play an important indirect role, in conjunction with the realization of a widening capability gap between the two states. Other factors include Brazil?s program of domestic liberalizing reform (abertura) and Brazil?s attempts to distance itself from the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how economic crises create dislocations affecting social reproduction and provisioning of basic needs. It seeks to go beyond economistic understandings of financial crises by focusing on their social dimensions and consequences for human security in recent Asian and Latin American crises. While many writers have sought to explain recent financial crises from a macroeconomic standpoint -- chiefly concerned with why and how fixed exchange rate regimes collapse, here an alternative approach focuses on how financial crises create massive social upheavals that impact the daily lives of the most vulnerable members of society, as well as simultaneously generating strategies for cultural and moral resistance to hegemonic/supremacist power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the relation between politics and inflation control in developing countries by comparing cases of Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Israel and Turkey. It is focused on how one aspect of politics, the degree of democracy, affects the ability of a country to introduce and pursue effective economic policies, particularly ones related to inflation. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses are used to assess the how inflation is related to the degree of democracy and the findings indicate that not the degree of democracy itself but its stability is the most important political condition for decreasing inflation. Therefore, both stable authoritarian regimes and consolidated democracies are able to eliminate inflation. Democratization increases inflationary pressures in the short term. Thus, it may be difficult to decrease inflation immediately after a transition from an authoritarian regime to a democratic regime. However, as democracy matures, it becomes easier for governments to introduce and implement anti-inflationary policies. On the hand, unstable authoritarian regimes are as ineffective as new democracies in ending inflation problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores Brazilian foreign policy goals in the development and maintenance of MERCOSUR and the role Brazil played in the stalled Free Trade Area of the Americas negotiations. The goal of this work is to determine if Brazil is engaging in balancing behavior toward the United States through MERCOSUR and FTAA negotiations. Furthermore, the authors will investigate whether this balancing behavior constitutes a more traditional form of hard balancing or a nuanced form of soft balancing. The authors utilize a detailed case study on Brazilian foreign policy behavior in the context of MERCOSUR and the FTAA using structured focus questions. We conclude the creation of MERCOSUR and scuttling of FTAA negotiations do in fact constitute balancing behavior in the more traditional form of hard balancing behavior toward the US. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the left wing government of Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva, Brazil has made a far-reaching turn in its foreign trade policy. Since 2003, the government has started active coalition building both within the WTO as well as on a regional scale: Firstly, Brazil has created several negotiation groups inside of the WTO. It is playing a leading role in the G-20, NAMA-11 and the G-110. The "Lula" administration is also focusing on alternative south-south coalitions outside the WTO, with the new India-Brazil-South Africa Dialogue Forum (IBSA). Secondly, Brazil has begun to oppose the US project of a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Together with Venezuela and Argentina the country has blocked further negotiations.Brazil has apparently returned to a policy similar to 1970's "terceiro mundismo" (Third Worldism). Its move towards a "New Axis of the South" has already changed trade flows. For example, between 2001 and 2008 the share of the traditional core countries (US, EU and Japan) in Brazilian foreign trade decreased about 15 %.This paper analyzes Brazil's project of "Neo-Third Worldism". It is argued that both a coalition of left wing nationalists in the Brazilian foreign ministry as well as the Workers' Party PT are pushing forward the new agenda. However, there have been constraints. For instance, Brazil's attempts to achieve a deeper regional integration of South America have hardly made progress. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Triggered by the distress around climate change and security of supply, European countries struggle to diversify their energy portfolio with other energy sources while producing less of CO2 emissions. To avoid a system collapse they prefer a transition. This situation, however, is not new. Already thirty years ago, Brazil started its transition to a less oil-dependent economy, which was triggered by the oil crisis, a drop in sugar prices, and low employment rates. Although the pace and pattern of their economic evolution was variable, Brazil has reached a stable bio-ethanol economy today.This paper analyses the historical bio-ethanol transition of Brazil using an approach elaborated on the synergy of Institutional Economics, Social Theory, Socio-Technical Regimes and Actor-Network Theory. This multi-disciplinary approach portrays the dynamics at the agent, the interaction and the system layers and the relevance of information feedback structures for giving shape to the ethanol economy in Brazil. It is concluded that, despite the historical and geographical differences, European countries can benefit from the experience of the Brazilian transition when struggling for a low CO2 emission energy portfolio, namely relevance of an objective-oriented transition, role of the government as initiator of a transition process, and how to deal with the risks of a direct institutional transplantation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will focus on the political dynamics inside MERCOSUL, a sub-region of South America, and specifically on the triangular relationship between Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela. Special interest will be taken in the new geopolitics of energy â€" oil ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is essentially a dialogue with Alfred Montero's insightful idea of approaching the generic and controversial concept of "development" through a more empirical notion of "productivity-enhancing synergy" between public and private agents at the heart of developmental outcomes, in his comparative analysis of Brazil's and Spain's subnational governments (Montero, 2002). As a way of discussing his contributions, we decided to subject it to a tentative quantitative test, based on another pair of countries, Brazil and Mexico, in a context of stabilization of the market reforms and of reasonably sustained growth that is different from his original setting. Based on preliminary data gathered, we will indicate that there is a high correlation between market-conforming institutions and developmental performance of the states of Brazil and Mexico, without taking into account how strategic actors and institutions interacted through a "productivity-enhancing synergy". Put it simply, this restricted test will allow us to bring into some questions to Montero's concept of "productivity-enhancing synergy" to possibly advance his contributions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper intends to problematize the sexual division of roles in the military environment where both men and women become soldiers. For this purpose, we intend to look into the place of women in Brazilian armed forces in order to show that more flexible ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on studying patterns of women’s political trajectories in Brazil - a country that underwent a recent transition and that adopts a gender quota policy. The main goal is to assess whether there are clearly distinguishable patterns of cons ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares survey results from the World Social Forum meeting in Porto Alegre in 2005 with surveys from the WSF07 in Nairobi and the United States Social Forum in 2007 to study continuities and changes in the alliances among transnational social ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analysis the perception of the South American elite’s in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile and Venezuela about social inequality and its relations with the democratic stability. The objective is to analyze the elite’s support of democratic proc ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The trade policies of Brazil, India and South Africa have significant historical similarities: these countries are original WTO members; they adopted import-substitution industrialization; promoted neoliberal reforms; have been playing important roles in their regional contexts; and, more recently, they have also formed alliances and coalitions (IBSA, G20) in order to increase their capacity to influence the trade regime. At the same time, they are intensifying bilateral and regional ties which are different in scope and degrees of institutionalization. The result is that, despite of having similar roles which are derived from their status as middle powers, these three countries have developed different strategies concerning their trade policy. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to analyze comparatively the trade policies of Brazil, India and South Africa in the multilateral and regional environments. Our contention is that there are significant differences in their conduct on those two levels, in such a way that it is not possible to establish a fixed pattern of trade policy amongst middle powers, at least not amongst these three. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sugar cane has remained central to the Brazilian economy, and increasingly so as rising petroleum prices spark an increase in the demand for ethanol. As a world le1eader in sugar cane based ethanol production, Brazil has a need for low-skilled, low-wage workers in this industry. As petroleum prices rise, and with them the demand for biofuels, the incentives to produce more sugar cane in Brazil have fueled the demand for labor on plantations and in sugar mills. In Brazil's sugar-producing regions of the central and southeastern states, the labor demands in the fields are primarily filled by migrants. However, these migrants are not foreigners, but Brazilians who migrate seasonally from northern and northeastern states such as Maranhao, Bahia, Alagoas, Para, and Minas Gerais. Although these workers are Brazilians traveling and working in their home country, they face many of the difficulties that international migrants in other countries face, including discrimination, poor wages, and inhumane working conditions. This paper discusses theoretical approaches to domestic sugar cane labor migration in Brazil. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deploying a political economy approach of development (critical PE), this paper critically re-reads the historical stages, domestic and international processes, events and ideas that have been used to fulfil a specific interpretation of the South American ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper claims that the forging of a common identity among India, Brasil and South Africa based on their role as leaders in their respective regions is a relevant yet neglected aspect of their partnership that will ultimately determine the success of IBSA. The argument is that the foundational south identity of the IBSA initiative retains ideological elements drawn from the heyday of the confrontational politics of Non-Alignment which do not adequately (or at least do not fully) represent the contemporary political and economic context of its members. Linked to this is the fact that, while acknowledged as powers by dint of their preponderance of economic and material means, this has not translated into wide-spread recognition within their respective regions. For all these reasons, IBSA relies primarily on an elite defined form of south activism as a key source of legitimacy for its endeavors. The construction of a strong regional identity for IBSA based on its members' strategic positions in South Asia, South America and Southern Africa is, in our viewpoint, a more convincing common ground to legitimize a sustainable diplomatic partnership between the IBSA states. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to analyze the factors that determined the position of Brazil and India in the G-20 formation. In order to do so, it will be analyzed a set of factors that determined the size of the win set of both countries. The focus lays on domestic political institutions as well as on the negotiation strategies of both countries in G-20. To be able to understand the G-20, we have to consider the diversity of the economic, social and political conditions that characterizes its members and, consequently, their interests. The Brazilian and Indian positions deserve special attention either because of their political performance as interlocutors of the group or because of their difference of interests in agricultural agenda in WTO.The initial supposition is that these two countries have divergent interests on the negotiation process of agricultural trade. It would be reasonable to think that India would automatically align with USA and EU in defending mechanisms to protect this sector, which would place India in an opposite side from Brazil. However, what we see is an alignment between them and the formation of a coalition against those other proposals. The question which guides this research concerns the factors that made possible the formation and maintenance of G-20 despite the apparent conflict of interest between Brazil and India. This research is structured within an analytical framework that seeks to combine the domestic and international factors in the understanding process of formal and informal international agreements structuring. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social movements have played a key role in the process of democratization in Brazil since the mid 1970s. The changing political opportunity structure engendered by this process allowed for new identities and demands to emerge in the public sphere. Social movements struggling for inclusion of a wide range of marginalized groups have based their demands on issues related to redistribution, as well as recognition of marginalized and stigmatized identities. Focusing on the activity and gains of the gay, lesbian and travesti movement in Brazil, but also including other important movements active in contemporary Brazil (women, Afro-Brazilian, and landless peasants) in the analysis, this paper will examine the extent to which a gap between recognition and redistributive struggles has emerged in the impact of these diverse social movements. It also seeks to explain why impressive gains have been secured in regard to the recognition of identities, while progress in relation to redistributive issues has been more limited, both within movements (e.g., lower class sexual minorities, poor women and Afro-Brazilians) and across movements (e.g., LGBT rights vs. land reform). ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a theory of emerging powers and apply it to the case of IBSA, a forum of cooperation established in 2004 by India, Brazil and South Africa. We contend that emerging power is a strategic identity that derives from the inability of a hegemon or of a group of core powers to effectively impose their preferred order to the world. That inability creates a strategic position that a small number of countries can fulfill. Fulfillment of that position depends on their ability to contribute significantly to the establishment of a “minimum governance coalition.” The significance of that contribution, in turn, depends on the legitimacy they bring to global governance, the veto power they hold in the functioning of formal or informal governance mechanisms, and the regional balancing power that they bring to the resource mix on which global governance relies.We show that IBSA is a coalition of emerging powers trying to monopolize developing countries access to global governance; and 2) that their internal differences matter less to their alliance than the contribution that they make to each others’ claim to membership in the global governance club. The article is divided in two sections. The first one presents the model. The second proposes an explanation of IBSA’s emergence and of its relative success in terms of that model. This application is not a test but an illustration of the mechanics of emerging power emergence and participation in global governance. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few quantitative studies on the Brazilian agrarian violence have been conducted by the academic community. The rural population is much larger than it is usually disclosed. Therefore, public policies should focus more attentively on this forgotten layer of the society spread throughout the country which is being killed by land disputes.This paper organizes the data systematically on agrarian violence committed in Brazil throughout the post-redemocratization period (as of 1985). The hypothesis suggests that the risk for agrarian violence is higher in localities where the land is more unequally distributed. The statistical test conducted for different types of peasant victims and Brazilian regions confirm the hypothesis, with some restrictions. Variables like number of rural establishments, size, credit, profit, population and income are checked for family farms and patronized agriculture units. The conclusion is that the governments should give priority to land redistribution policies, but in a different way they have been doing for the last 2 decades. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After 2000, was the change of ruling parties or coalitions in Latin America accompanied by strong transformations in their foreign policy making? Was there convergence or divergence with other Latin-American foreign policies? The rise of left-wing governments in Latin America after 2000 opened up many hopes in the progressive international opinion and among scholars, because of their concern with poverty alleviation and social participation, which are extremely important in this most unequal region of the world. There were correlated incremental but significant changes in policy making, in both domestic and foreign aspects, especially with the incorporation of new actors. The purpose of the paper is to analyze the foreign policy of two important countries: Brazil and Argentina. In both cases, the electoral success went to moderate left-wing presidents, the first one reelected in October 2006 and the second one finishing his mandate.The emphasis will be placed on multilateral initiatives in different organizations and forums in which these two countries participate. The topics reviewed will be Peace-Keeping Operations, UN reform, South-South cooperation. Special analysis will be undertaken on the topic of Regional Integration as an alternative to Continental Integration proposed by the US government. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When Cardoso became President of Brazil in 1995, he implemented a model of development under the Washington Consensus that reproduced and accelerated Brazil's situation of dependency, shifting control of the most dynamic sectors of Brazil's industrial structure to transnational corporations. In this paper, I examine the contradictions between Cardoso's theories as an academic and his actions as a politician. Adopting Cardoso's own historical materialist framework, which recognizes the imperatives of the world market and the socio-political limits imposed on capitalist expansion by class struggle, I analyse the political economy of Brazil from its transition to democracy in 1985 to the end of Cardoso's presidency in 2002. I argue that with their power to influence the industrial strategy of Brazil badly eroded, those domestic capitalists disenfranchised by Cardoso's development model abandoned it in the presidential election of 2002 to ally themselves with Lula and Brazil's subaltern classes, fracturing the unity of the capitalist classes, creating a crisis of hegemony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proposed Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) is the first empirical case of a preferential trade agreement (PTA) that would merge four extant regional integration schemes (NAFTA, Mercosur, the Andean Community, and CARICOM), which also exhibit different degrees of commitment among the respective member states (a free trade agreement and three customs unions). The comparative literature on regional integration contends that for a PTA to be "successful," understood as the actual implementation of an agreement, the existence of a regional economic hegemon is necessary. On this score, both the NAFTA and Mercosur are considered successful. While the logic of this argument suggests that the success of the FTAA also hinges upon the establishment of a clear hemispheric economic hegemon, Brazil, as the largest economy in the south, is resisting the American vision of the FTAA as a NAFTA writ large. The U.S.' foreign policy response has been to try circumventing Brazilian intransigence by concluding bilateral trade agreements with individual South American countries. Against this backdrop, the paper gauges the theoretical inability in accounting for the stalling of the hemispheric project and the resulting practical aspect of how Brazil attempts to substantiate its determination to prevent an FTAA on U.S. terms via institutional consolidation within Latin America, as well as with a view to the European Union. As a work in progress, the latter aspect is of a very preliminary nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the conference paper "Institutions and Preferences: U.S., EU and Brazil in the Agriculture Negotiation of the Doha Round" prepared for delivery at the "Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association in Honolulu, Hawaii. The author argues that the role of political institutions and interest group politics must be assessed to explain the behavior of the actors in the negotiations. It discusses the association between credibility and political institutions in the context of international trade negotiations.

The article presents a paper that examines the rise and declaration of the cooperative strategy known as trilateralism by regional leaders within the South. It gives an overview of the theoretical approaches to middle powerdom and the South, reconsiders the domestic, regional, and international factors that have conditioned the foreign policies of Brazil, South Africa and India, investigates the formation and execution of trilateralism, and concludes with an analysis of the initiative's outlooks for success in the present environment.

Differently from the tradtional understanding of corporatism through interest politics, this paper deals with the impacts of Brazil’s political and economic reforms on the corporatist institutions, by investigating how its services for training, consulting, technical assistance and social welfare - the so-called S System - are responding to the challenges from those reforms. The corporatist institutions have undoubtedly been facing a number of challenges as a result of the recent processes of economic liberalization (as competitiveness) and of political democratization (as accountability), given that they had essentially been the central institutions for business-state interactions during Brazil’s state-led industrialization since the 1940s. However, differently from the widespread notion that corporatism is highly unfit to new neoliberal millieu (seen as prone to social pluralism), this paper argues that that recent changes in productive practices and in the various services that firms can receive from the quasi-public S System could end up linking and fortifying, rather than weakening the corporatist system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A rich plausible academic literature has delineated reasons to believe Brazil’s democratic political institutions - including electoral rules, the political party system, federalism, and the rules of legislative procedure - are sub-optimal from the viewpoints of democratic representativeness and policymaking effectiveness. We concur that specific peculiarities of Brazilian political institutions likely complicate the process of solving societal dilemmas. Nonetheless, Brazil’s economic and social track record since redemocratization in the mid 1980s has been quite good in comparative regional perspective. Perhaps, like Italy in Europe, Brazil’s informal political negotiating mechanisms, or even other less obvious institutional structures, provide sufficient countervailing influences to allow "governance" to proceed relatively smoothly despite the appearance of chaos and political dysfunction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the diplomatic culture of Brazil. Characteristics of the Brazilian foreign ministry; Foreign policy of the country; Overview of the country's relation with the U.S.

This paper intends to investigate the mains reasons that motivated Brazil to send troops to a peacekeeping operation as foreign policy mean to achieve its national interest. This paper will analyze the brazilian leardership in the United Nations Stabiliza ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is in your Salad? An Ecological Political Economy of the Salad Bowl of CaliforniaCalifornia produces one third of the food eaten in the United States and exports billions of dollars worth of agricultural products. Monterey County, California, has some of the most intensely farmed landscape of the world and one of the most prosperous farming regions of the global North. It produces about 40 percent of the total exports originating from California. The Salinas Valley, known as the ‘Salad Bowl’, produces a large portion of the total exports originating from California. The lettuce, broccoli, celery, cauliflower, spinach, asparagus, tomatoes and carrots produced here, may be part of industrialized ‘precision’ farming but are heavily dependent on human labor, specifically migrant labor. This paper interrogates the ‘nature’ and the ‘dirt’ on agriculture/ecology in light of California’s global agribusiness. It adopts an ecological political economy approach to examine the foundations of this agribusiness based on the desire to maximize productivity and profit in order to compete in a global market. It examines the systematic transformation of food into a commodity that hides devastating ecological and social costs. In particular, it examines the heavy dependence on migrant labor and conditions of labor camps to make connections between economy and ecology. The paper also examines how Salinas Valley communities are reclaiming resources, human dignity and confronting consumption.It compares these efforts to the Landless Movement in Brazil and the Organic Movement in India. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to examine the tensions between trilateralism and multilateralism in the IBSA partnership. While one of the stated goals of the partnership is multilateralism and the reform of the United Nations (IBSA Communique, 2005), the trilateral partnership that IBSA embodies appears antithetical to the representation of broader interests in each member’s region. This issue came to a head in the months preceding the debates on UN reform in September 2005, when India, Brazil and South Africa each voiced their interest in permanent representation on the UN Security Council, but failed to win the support of their regional neighbours. More recently, it is evident in the prominence of India and Brazil in exclusive trade talks with the EU and US to save the Doha Development Round. The paper draws on the middle power literature, which sees middle powers as committed to multilateralism, but problematises this commitment by considering the growing economic and strategic significance of these states. Trilateralism is not pursued to the exclusion of North-South links, as evidenced in Brazil’s and India’s increasing closeness to the US. It is thus not an alternative to robust North-South relations, as older forms of South-South solidarity (NAM and G-77) were portrayed. The paper concludes thus that the IBSA partnership is not a successor of older forms of South-South solidarity premised on multilateralism, but rather a vehicle for the development and increased levels of participation in international affairs of its three members. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of solving locally a global problem has often been associated with the environmental movement. However, as developing countries look towards the first checkpoint in the Millennium Development Goals, there is a growing contingency of sustainable development advocates that are pointing to local solutions as the most successful economic policies. In the aftermath of Yunus and Grameen’s triumphs, governments have been exploring welfare policy alternatives that center on direct and conditional cash transfers and linking them to individual social development goals. The Brazilian government, under the leadership of President Lula da Silva and former president Cardoso, pioneered the Bolsa Familia program whereby families are given small stipends for vaccinating children and sending them to school. World Bank President Wolfowitz has lauded Brazil and Bolsa Familia for helping to improve the conditions for twelve million citizens and for becoming “a highly praised model of effective social policy.” (World Bank Group, 2005) Since the implementation of Bolsa Familia, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Honduras have launched similar programs. First, a comparative content analysis of program structure and goals will be discussed. Second, this paper seeks to evaluate the impact of these recent programs using a version of the Bolsa Familia impact study design provided by the World Bank Group (World Bank Group, 2005). The original study design examined ten different dependent variables based on outcome impacts, including nutrition, household consumption goods, and education. For the examination of Mexico, Nicaragua, and Honduras, only the variables related to education was used, including attendance, enrollment, and child labor. The goal of this paper is to provide a critical analysis of effective local input economic programs and, hopefully, to help identify a general model of local social development by governments. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much has been written about the necessary pre-conditions for and the desirability of greater macroeconomic coordination and possibly monetary integration in regional arrangements as well as the stalling process of such efforts in the context of Mercosur. This paper intends to look at the current ‘de-dollarisation’ initiative by Argentina and Brazil, which from October 2007 onwards will allow for bilateral trade to be conducted in local currencies rather than US dollars. This initiative has repeatedly been presented as a ‘pilot project’ on the path towards regional monetary integration, which in the context of efforts to ‘re-launch Mercosur’ has been reaffirmed as a policy goal since 2003. However, these ambitions contrast markedly with Mercosur’s current reality: Aside from persistent macroeconomic asymmetries, deep divisions about the block’s future and recurrent bilateral disputes have prevented further integration and indeed the completion of the customs union. Against a historical sketch of Mercosur’s ‘stop-and-go’ efforts at macroeconomic coordination, this paper examines the drivers of the ‘de-dollarisation’ initiative on both the diplomatic and domestic political economy level in Argentina and Brazil. Specifically, it inquires into the nature of both governments’ re-emerging interest in embarking on the path towards monetary integration. Speaking to the literatures on regional integration and exchange rate politics and using empirical evidence collected in media analyses and interviews with government and societal representatives in both countries, the paper concludes with an analysis of the sustainability of this pilot project and the likelihood of its extension to other Mercosur members. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Viewed in comparative perspective, Brazil's regulation of agricultural biotechnology in the period 1995-2005 raises two puzzles. Why was Brazil relatively slow to permit the commercialization of genetically modified (GM) soy? And, why did Brazil develop more permissive regulatory policies after the election of President Lula, to the disappointment of some of his most important constituents? This paper argues that the explanation for Brazilian policy outcomes lies in the interplay between a constellation of societal interests (consumers, environmentalists, small and landless farmers, and agribusiness) and political institutions (weakly institutionalized parties, federalism, and malapportioned legislative bodies). The paper's point of departure is the observation that key actors in the debate about GM technology in Brazil view it as an extension of two other policy debates, those addressing land reform and the modernizing "green revolution" in agriculture. To a large degree, the political alliances behind each of these policy debates overlap. The key difference between the GM debates and the other two policy debates is the social, political, and legal backdrop in place at the time each debate began. The emergence of consumer protection legislation and consumer advocacy groups, environmental legislation and environmental groups, and the globalization of the commercial agribusiness sector and its renewed importance to the Brazilian economy set the stage for a debate about GM technology that was relatively, if imperfectly, pluralist. Appeals to consumer interests (both actual and potential) were more effective than environmentalists or small producers at convincing policy makers to enact regulations that were opposed by large agricultural interests. Brazilian federalism contributed to the pluralist nature of the GM policy debate, but malapportionment in the national congress detracted from pluralism in legislation regulating GM technology as well as other policies related to land and agriculture. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]