Atores públicos subnacionais e política externa brasileira : a paradiplomacia no Rio Grande do Sul (2007-2014)

Abstract

The external activities of subnational states are no longer new on the international affairs scene. Since the first studies, that started on the 90’s, many states sought on paradiplomacy as means of defending their own interests. In all these years, many studies mapped paradiplomacy activities in different national or sub-national states, including Brazil. This paper seeks to contribute to these reviews, comparing the performance of two international governments in Rio Grande do Sul. Therefore, we review the primary theories of paradiplomacy, detailing and centering them to the brazilian context. Being Rio Grande do Sul one of the pioneers in the performance of paradiplomacy in Brazil, we try to reconstruct the historical trajectory of the non-central state in this kind of activity, in order to understand their characteristics. Subsequently, we compared the actions of the Government Yeda Crusius and Tarso Genro. Our objective is therefore to analyze and compare two Governments with different political views, based on the theory of historical performance and paradiplomacy of Rio Grande do Sul.