Brazil's Emerging Role in Global Governance: Health, Food Security and Bioenergy

Abstract

Emerging Role in Global Governance: Health, Food Security and Bioenergy * (Fraundorfer, Markus. Emerging Role in Global Governance: Health, Food Security and Bioenergy. Londres: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015)Ever-expanding global interdependences associated with an increasingly dynamic international order makes the continuous updating of our understanding of the structures and processes of global a mandatory task. Emerging sources of authority, such as private regulatory mechanisms, and the emerging power of traditional sources of authority, such as developing states, place the debate advanced by Markus Fraundorfer in Emerging Role in Global Governance, Health, Food Security and Bioenergy in the epicenter of any contemporary wellinformed analysis of international relations. Investigating the way in which Brazil has influenced the mechanisms of global since the beginning of the twenty-first century, Fraundorfer provides a comprehensive account of the central role played by the country in three different sectors: health, food security and bioenergy. The central argument of the book is that Brazil now occupies a new position in an international context traditionally dominated by developed powers. Unveiling the intricate processes through which this increasing influence is built is the book's central goal. The idea that Brazil's exercise of power and its subsequent ability to shape the structures and processes in global governance (pp. 04) was developed on the basis of the country's activities in these three sectors is the departing assumption.In terms of methodological and theoretical contributions, one of the most remarkable innovations accomplished by the author refers to the analysis of three different 'interfaces' of power; namely discursive power, decisionmaking/bargaining power and resource-transfer power (Chapter 02). The debate arising from the analysis of these three dimensions as being socially co-constitutive bridges together notions of hard power from neorealist traditions (focused on capabilities and resources), ideas of soft power from the neo-liberal school (stressing legitimacy and reputation) and social power, which departs from a constructivist framework and stresses the importance of discursive activities (pp. 16-19). Little doubts remain that the book adopts a bold and innovative theoretical approach that has much to contribute toward the approximation of traditionally independent theoretical accounts. A more explicit reflection about the challenges involved in the epistemological and methodological reconciliation of these distinct theoretical traditions was, however, slightly missed and would certainly be a valuable addition to the book.Based on this innovative and comprehensive theoretical framework, the core of Fraundorfer's book consists of three empirical chapters, each one entirely dedicated to one of the three sectors. The first empirical chapter (Chapter 03) focuses on the Brazilian global fight against HIV/AIDS, epitomized by the wellknown 2001 Brazilian victory in the World Trade Organization (WTO) trade dispute on drug patent rights against the US. What is particularly enlightening about this chapter is how much discursive, institutional and resource-transfer work in the area of global health has accompanied and reinforced this seminal victory. The emergence of a rights-based HIV/AIDS narrative and the self-positioning of Brazil as an international defender of people living with HIV/AIDS (a 'hero' according to the narrative framework adopted by the author) are crucial elements underpinning Brazilian triumph in the WTO. The chapter also demonstrates that Brazilian success in influencing the content of the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health, WHO medicines strategy, and an United Nations Human Rights Council resolution on the matter of access to medicines, associated to the transfer of knowledge and generic drugs to other developing countries, assured an undeniable leadership role for Brazil in the area. …