This article analyzes the Mercosur–European Union Association Agreement in the context of the contemporary crisis of multilateralism, focusing on Brazil’s role throughout the negotiation process initiated in 1999, which reached an agreement in principle in 2019 and was subsequently revised in the context of negotiations conducted between 2023 and 2024. The objective is to examine how Brazilian foreign policy has been shaped by the interaction between domestic pressures and international constraints. To this end, the study adopts the two-level games approach formulated by Robert Putnam as its main analytical framework, combined with insights from Foreign Policy Analysis, particularly regarding the relationship between domestic and international factors. Methodologically, this is a qualitative case study based on historical analysis, literature review, and consultation of publicly available institutional sources. The article examines the evolution of negotiations in light of transformations in international trade and the expansion of the regulatory agenda, with particular emphasis on the incorporation of environmental issues and the impact of the European Green Deal. It then analyzes Brazil’s role, highlighting tensions between domestic interests — including economic sectors and political pressures — and external demands that shaped its negotiating position. The findings indicate that the trajectory of the agreement reveals the limits of Brazil’s role in a context of increasing institutional complexity, in which the interaction between domestic and international levels constrains coordination and the conclusion of comprehensive trade agreements, even though recent progress in the provisional implementation of its trade pillar points to partial solutions to these impasses.
The objective of this article is to conduct a quantitative analysis of the structure and impacts of tariffs in the US-China Trade War, restricted to its initial phase (2018-2021). The main research problem is to establish the extent of tariff coverage and its impacts on the volume of bilateral imports. The methodology adopts a quantitative approach, collecting and processing data from the United States International Trade Commission (USITC) and the World Bank, which are then statistically analyzed. The research focuses on evaluating the effect on bilateral trade of the products tariffed in each round and the alteration of the total imported volume. The results reveal the extent of the imposed trade restriction and the effect of protectionist policies. Finally, the study analyzes whether the strategic objectives of manufacturing recovery, GDP growth, job creation, and the reduction of the trade deficit with China were achieved. This research enriches the literature by providing a detailed technical description of the tariff mechanics used, filling an existing gap regarding the relationship between the extent of tariff codes and the real variation of trade during the analyzed period.
This article aims to expand knowledge and analyze how the COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped the relationship between health and security. It begins by addressing global health and the history of pandemics through a brief retrospective of 21st-century events, highlighting lessons learned as well as the cooperation — and the challenges in establishing it — among States. Next, it discusses global health governance, the role of the World Health Organization (WHO), and the International Health Regulations (IHR), pointing out the fragmentation of actions characterized by a lack of interstate organization or cooperation. In this context, the example of smallpox and the process that enabled its eradication are emphasized. Finally, the study analyzes the association between the obstacles of the theoretical construct of securitization and health practice. It is observed that, despite placing global health at the forefront of international agendas, securitization also limits the expansion of knowledge by restricting interdisciplinary discussions, the participation of other institutions, and debates between public health and foreign policy. The article concludes that the COVID-19 pandemic framework is essential for an in-depth investigation of themes such as global health, as the event caused destabilizing changes worldwide and revealed that solid definitions for responding to catastrophes of this magnitude are still lacking.
How does the reference to climate change within the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) enable the legitimation of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in the environmental security sector? This question arises from the increasing incorporation of climate impacts into the international security agenda and from the growing association between the climate crisis, political instability, and armed conflict. Accordingly, this study argues that the production of security speech acts concerning climate change in the UNSC operates as a necessary, though not sufficient, condition for the normative activation of R2P in the environmental domain. The general objective is to analyze the constitution of security speech acts within UNSC resolutions as a potential basis for the mobilization of R2P in climate-related contexts. Specifically, the study aims to: (i) conceptualize climate security; (ii) examine the consolidation of R2P as an international norm; and (iii) identify, within the corpus of UNSC resolutions (1991–2025), the possible articulation between climate discourse and the normative grammar of R2P. Methodologically, the research adopts a qualitative case study design that combines process tracing to reconstruct the causal mechanism and Automated Content Analysis to detect discursive patterns of securitization. The findings indicate that although climate change has been consolidated discursively as a threat to international security, there is no consistent incorporation of R2P, thereby revealing normative constraints on its expansion into the environmental security sector.
This article analyses the relationship between the state, cultural violence, organised crime and criminal governance in Brazil from a critical international relations perspective. It seeks to answer the following question: how has organised crime in Brazil, through the concept of criminal governance, expanded its domestic activities and internationalised itself in South American countries due to the absence of the state and its collaboration in promoting cultural violence? The hypothesis is that criminal selectivity, cultural violence, and the Brazilian state's strategic omission regarding territory and lack of promotion of social rights in the outskirts of large cities sustain and legitimise criminal factions, such as the First Capital Command. It is argued that organised crime is not an isolated phenomenon, but a by-product of the structural contradictions of Brazilian capitalism, consolidating itself in vulnerable territories where the state is ineffective. From there, the factions develop a criminal governance that allows them to internationalise, aiming to expand their profits and power, as well as creating threats to domestic and international security. The methodology used is qualitative and descriptive. It uses bibliographic research based on the analysis of academic and technical-scientific publications, mainly statistics, on the topic addressed. It can be concluded that effectively addressing the issue requires measures that go beyond punitive approaches and guarantee access to basic rights, as well as dismantling the mechanisms of cultural violence that legitimise marginalisation. From an international perspective, it is necessary to expand partnerships with other countries to mitigate the effects of transnational organised crime.
