Democratization of international relations: the exercise of Paradiplomacy from the analysis of the insertion of subnational actors in world politics

• Grant number: 10/20022-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: March 01, 2011
• End date: December 31, 2011
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - International Politics
• Principal Investigator: Regina Claudia Laisner
• Grantee: Cairo Gabriel Borges Junqueira
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e Sociais (FCHS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Franca. Franca , SP, Brazil

Abstract

In the late twentieth century, there are three main characteristics in international politics: Cold War, reformulation of the States' central policies and intensification of Globalization. It is with this background that gain recognition the phenomenon known as Paradiplomacy in the new literature, understood as the insertion of sub national entities in international relations. In this study aims to investigate this phenomenon in order to think of it as a process of democratization of international relations, which holds the permeability and state decentralization and the entry of new entities and actors in international politics. To this end, the research rests on the theoretical analysis of regional integration processes in order to highlight how these new mechanisms of international actors are projected in the International System, based on previous literature. Corroborating this analysis, we use the framework of neoliberal theories of international relations, particularly from institutional and intergovernmental relations, both schools of thought that emphasize the same aspects of the research's objectives: the emergence of new international actors, mechanisms of regional integration and international cooperation. As a mean to define the research, it takes the same universe as the global processes for multiple locations and continents, focusing on America, Europe and Asia. The first stand out, in the north, paradiplomatic relations in the United States and Canada and, in the south, the Network of Mercocities; the second emphasize the Committee of the Regions within the European Union and the third highlights the cases involving microstates and provinces. (AU)