National interest to global reform: patterns of reasoning in British foreign policy discourse

Discussion of the national interest often focuses on how Britain's influence can be maximized, rather than on the goals that influence serves. Yet what gives content to claims about the national interest is the means-ends reasoning which links interests to deeper goals. In ideal-typical terms, this can take two forms. The first, and more common, approach is conservative: it infers national interests and the goals they advance from existing policies and commitments. The second is reformist: it starts by specifying national goals and then asks how they are best advanced under particular conditions. New Labour's foreign policy discourse is notable for its explicit use of a reformist approach. Indeed, Gordon Brown's vision of a 'new global society' not only identifies global reform as a key means of fulfilling national goals, but also thereby extends the concept of the national interest well beyond a narrow concern with national security.

About DAPP: Meet the Department of Public Policy Analysis

The Department of Public Policy Analysis of Getulio Vargas Foundation (DAPP-FGV) is a research boutique concerned with the innovation of state structures and the relations between these and Civil Society, based on an interdisciplinary approach of applied social science, together with Information and Communication Technologies.

Brazilian foreign policy in the Cardoso era: The search for autonomy through integration

The Fernando Henrique Cardoso administration attempted to replace a reactive foreign policy agenda dominated by a logic of autonomy through distance with a proactive international agenda guided by a logic of autonomy through integration. In adopting this agenda, the administration maintained that Brazil would be able to confront its problems and secure more control over its future if it actively contributed to elaborating the norms and guidelines of the administration of the global order. Because of structural weaknesses, however, this policy of integration, adherence, and participation was not adequately accompanied by positions entailing practical responsibilities - responsibilities that would have prepared both government and civil society for a higher profile in the post - cold-war era. In the end, the gains achieved during Cardoso's tenure failed to alter Brazil's international standing in any significant way. © 2007 Latin American Perspectives.

Foreign policy and international financial negotiations: the external debt and the Cartagena Consensus

Includes bibliography

The Changing Nature of Multilateralism and Brazilian Foreign Policy

An important characteristic of the current international setting is the crisis of the structure in existence, rather than the emergence of a new order. The rise of new interests and demands, as well as the speed of the transformation make the current understanding of global governance more complex. Brazil, like other medium powers, has an interest in institutionalised multilateralism as a means of increasing its bargaining capacity and hindering the unilateralism of major powers, without being antagonistic to them. It is attempting to increase its weight in traditional international bodies, which provide the grounding for international legitimacy, as well as in new informal arrangements. While this strategy could lead to the establishment of a new hierarchy that brings in countries of growing relative importance, it has put the weight of regional integration into another perspective in Brazilian foreign policy.

Emerging powers, humanitarian assistance and foreign policy: the case of Brazil during the earthquake crisis in Haiti

During the management of the crisis after the earthquake occurred in Haiti in 12 January 2010, Brazil played an important role on the efforts of humanitarian assistance. Based on bibliography and documents the paper presents the role played by Brazil with the focus on the humanitarian assistance as part of country’ foreign policy as an emerging power to increase the presence into the international system. To achieve this goal the article presents some considerations about emerging powers, foreign policy and theoretical concepts about humanitarian assistance and international relations, the extension of the earthquake in Haiti and the actions performed by Brazil during the response phase of the crisis management.

Business Clusters in Eastern Europe: Policy Analysis and Cluster Performance

Clusters have increasingly become an essential part of policy discourses at all levels, EU, national, regional, dealing with regional development, competitiveness, innovation, entrepreneurship, SMEs. These impressive efforts in promoting the concept of clusters on the policy-making arena have been accompanied by much less academic and scientific research work investigating the actual economic performance of firms in clusters, the design and execution of cluster policies and going beyond singular case studies to a more methodologically integrated and comparative approach to the study of clusters and their real-world impact. The theoretical background is far from being consolidated and there is a variety of methodologies and approaches for studying and interpreting this phenomenon while at the same time little comparability among studies on actual cluster performances. The conceptual framework of clustering suggests that they affect performance but theory makes little prediction as to the ultimate distribution of the value being created by clusters. This thesis takes the case of Eastern European countries for two reasons. One is that clusters, as coopetitive environments, are a new phenomenon as the previous centrally-based system did not allow for such types of firm organizations. The other is that, as new EU member states, they have been subject to the increased popularization of the cluster policy approach by the European Commission, especially in the framework of the National Reform Programmes related to the Lisbon objectives. The originality of the work lays in the fact that starting from an overview of theoretical contributions on clustering, it offers a comparative empirical study of clusters in transition countries. There have been very few examples in the literature that attempt to examine cluster performance in a comparative cross-country perspective. It adds to this an analysis of cluster policies and their implementation or lack of such as a way to analyse the way the cluster concept has been introduced to transition economies. Our findings show that the implementation of cluster policies does vary across countries with some countries which have embraced it more than others. The specific modes of implementation, however, are very similar, based mostly on soft measures such as funding for cluster initiatives, usually directed towards the creation of cluster management structures or cluster facilitators. They are essentially founded on a common assumption that the added values of clusters is in the creation of linkages among firms, human capital, skills and knowledge at the local level, most often perceived as the regional level. Often times geographical proximity is not a necessary element in the application process and cluster application are very similar to network membership. Cluster mapping is rarely a factor in the selection of cluster initiatives for funding and the relative question about critical mass and expected outcomes is not considered. In fact, monitoring and evaluation are not elements of the cluster policy cycle which have received a lot of attention. Bulgaria and the Czech Republic are the countries which have implemented cluster policies most decisively, Hungary and Poland have made significant efforts, while Slovakia and Romania have only sporadically and not systematically used cluster initiatives. When examining whether, in fact, firms located within regional clusters perform better and are more efficient than similar firms outside clusters, we do find positive results across countries and across sectors. The only country with negative impact from being located in a cluster is the Czech Republic.