Network Governance and the Making of Brazil’s Foreign Policy Towards China in the 21st Century* Daniel Cardoso** Abstract Driven by China’s increasing global influence, China-Brazil relations have deepened significantly in the 21st century; for Brazil, this bilateral relationship has become one of the most important aspects of its foreign relations. This article aims at analysing how Brazil’s foreign policy towards China was made and implemented during the eight years of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s presidency, and the first four years of Dilma Rousseff’s presidency. While scholars agree that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not exclusively dominate this policy, little is known about which state and non-state actors were involved, how and why they interacted, and how their interactions influenced policy choices. The article starts by identifying the actors that played a significant role in formulating Brazil’s China policy. Next, drawing on the concept of network governance, it explores the processes and mechanisms that governed the interactions among them. It concludes with an assessment of the democratic quality of this policy area. Keywords: Brazil, China, Foreign Policy, Network Governance, Domestic Politics. * Received on 30 October 2015 and approved for publication on 11 January 2016. ** Berlin Forum on Global Politics, Berlim, Germany;
[email protected] CONTEXTO INTERNACIONAL Rio de Janeiro, vol. 38, no 1, January/April 2016, p. 277-312. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0102-8529.2016380100008 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ 277 Contexto Internacional (PUC) Vol. 38 no 1 – jan/abr 2016 1ª Revisão: 20/03/2016 Daniel Cardoso Introduction The first decade of the 21st century marked a new phase in China’s economic and political rise.