Política externa brasileira e as operações de manutenção da paz das Nações Unidas

Abstract

This thesis conducted an in-depth study on the case of Brazil in order to identify the main domestic conditioning factors of its peacekeeping policy. Its main hypothesis is that the formal concentration of decision-making power in the hands of the Presidency and Congress for the deployment of troops, and in the hands of Itamaraty for the formulation of Brazilian diplomatic positions at the UN, does not mean that the external actions of Brazil's peacekeeping policy are the result of the implementation of the choice of a state course of action by a predominant leader or a single group. With regard to the analysis of the domestic conditioning factors of Brazil's normative and doctrinal positions on the peacekeeping agenda within the UN General Assembly and Security Council, this thesis understands that the high costs of breaking with the institutional sense that crystallized at the beginning of the process of institutionalization of Brazilian peacekeeping policy in the 1950s favor the predominance of the organizational culture of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs over Brazil's positions in the UN forums that regulate its peacekeeping system. However, it considers that the greater participation of Brazilian troops in UN peacekeeping operations stresses changes in the institutional arrangement of the process of formulation of Brazilian normative positions in favor of a final decision-making unit characterized by the ideal type of multiple autonomous groups and strengthens the public policy character of Brazilian foreign peacekeeping policy. With regard to the analysis of the domestic constraints on the deployment of Brazilian troops in UN peacekeeping operations, this thesis considers that the process of formulating the position of the predominant leader, that is, the President of the Republic, is the result of a political game of consultation, bargaining, negotiations, coordination, compromises, coalitions and competitions among multiple autonomous groups at the summit of the State that have veto power, as a function of controlling the formal and informal channels of action to ensure its implementation. More precisely, it understands that the political coalition in the federal government, the foreign affairs bureaucracy, the defense bureaucracy, and the armed forces are veto players in the process of formulating the presidential position, and that the consent of these players, therefore, is a necessary condition for the President of the Republic to make a decision favoring a substantive contribution to peace missions. Finally, it understands that although the Legislature is formally a veto point of the presidential decision, that is, it has legal leeway to influence this external action of Brazilian peacekeeping policy through the ratification process, its authority is often delegated to the Executive.