Brazil in regional and global governance: Foreign policy, leadership and UNASUR

Abstract

This article examines the role of Brazil as a source of international governance innovation in the period of the Lula da Silva and early Rousseff presidencies (2003-2014). The analysis details some of Brazil's main contributions to regional and global governance, and how these contributions are rooted in ideational and normative innovation, and Brazil's imaginative, non-conformist, status quo-altering foreign policy of the period. The main argument is that Brazil was not, and is not, a "new actor" per se in global governance, although it took unprecedented and dramatic strides from 2003 to 2014 to redefine the multilateral agenda and reshape institutional arrangements for international cooperation and conflict management in South America. At the global level, Brazil has launched new platforms for international cooperation, including with the other BRICS countries of Russia, India, China and South Africa. The regional trends are examined in the case of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), and the innovations that Brazil spearheaded and supported in international security and health cooperation. However, Brazil's contributions gain greater salience in the context of the broader processes of global change, where international power is becoming increasingly diffused and decentralized.