Crises regionais, a UNASUL e a política externa brasileira

Abstract

Due to the history of the Latin American region, strengthening democracy is one of the most significant challenges in the 21st century. The region has been investing in integration as a way to help in this matter hoping to create a positive cycle between democracy, integration and development. UNASUR has been able to stand out in recent years as a regional cooperation agency capable of responding to democratic crises in the region. So, the main objective of this research was to analyze UNASUR's actions in the face of three institutional political crises: the Bolivian crisis in 2008, the National Police Insurrection in Ecuador in 2010 and the impeachment of Fernando Lugo in Paraguay in 2008. The aim is to verify how UNASUR's action has taken place and to monitor how the organization has acquired legitimacy and credibility to respond to regional crises. At the same time, our work is interested in analyzing the Brazilian position also in the face of the regional crises cited and observing how Brazil responds to them, since, being the largest country in the South American region, it is expected that positioning. We found that there was an alignment between the positions adopted by Brazil and UNASUR regarding the crises analyzed, although the Brazilian engagement in the Paraguayan crisis was much smaller due to the strong interdependence between Brazil and Paraguay. Therefore, our work sought to identify the causes for this minor engagement and to question the role of the reg ion for contemporary Brazilian foreign policy.