Political-legal effects of the noninstitutionalized paradiplomacy in Brazil

Abstract

The Brazilian State resists in institutionalizing the paradiplomacy. This attitude hampers the construction of certain public policies aimed towards social and economic development in states and municipalities and compromises the country’s credibility and national security. The aim of this article is to make a brief analysis about paradiplomacy, focusing on the consequences of the continuity of this noninstitutionalized activity. Firstly, conceptual aspects and some models of institutionalized paradiplomacies around the world are presented. Secondly, the phenomenon is contextualized in Brazil, where a legal problem is materialized by the growing development of procedures in the international field that do not observe some constitutional competencies that are exclusives of central power. With regard to this phenomenon the State adopts opposite postures: resists to institutionalization, fearing losing sovereignty, but is tolerant by perceiving its inevitability. Keeping the dubious attitude results in four important consequences: (i) damage to regional development, (ii) legal uncertainty, (iii) constraints in the international field, and (iv) risks to national security. In the fundamental part of this analysis, highlighting the last four consequences, it is argued that the paradiplomacy with no institutionalization carries on to a political-legal problem to the State. Finally, it concludes that the institutionalization of paradiplomacy in Brazil is essential and points out to the negative implications if the legislation in force is maintained. The article does not intend to find a solution to the problem; however it opens up some ways of thinking about this matter, with the originality of joining well-known arguments to a new approach related to international constraints and national security risks.