Paradiplomacy in Brazil

The chapter aims to show how paradiplomacy, an institution imported from the Global North, was implanted in Brazil, and how systemic and domestic variables shaped the Brazilian version. To that purpose, I begin (first section) by describing the current state of affairs of paradiplomacy in the country, arguing that it has attained a stage of normalization, with all the federated states and capital cities having some kind of paradiplomatic structure and developing paradiplomatic activities. In the second section, I identify and explain the specificities of Brazilian paradiplomacy, whose content has similarities and differences with the version of paradiplomacy practiced in the Global North. Lastly (third section), I analyze the evolution of the paradiplomatic practices of Brazilian subnational governments since the 1990s, when a favorable political opportunity structure allowed their development in Brazil (and in Latin America as a whole). I highlight the significant roles of, first, municipal leaders associated with the Partido dos Trabalhadores, PT (Worker's Party), who acted as the leading importers of paradiplomatic practices to Brazil; second, of the Federal government since 2003, when PT arrived to power and stimulated paradiplomacy as a tool for national development; and third, of Brazilian academia, who helped build the umbrella concept of paradiplomacy by reuniting different and (so far) unconnected practices who helped make the umbrella concept of paradiplomacy by reuniting different and (so far) unconnected practices.