Paradiplomacy as an Instrument of Policy Change: A Case of Brazilian States during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The present article presents the study of the phenomenon of paradiplomacy as a vector for change in public policies, taking the paradiplomatic performance of Brazilian subnational units and their policies to combat the COVID-19 pandemic as an example. The theoretical approach is the political sociology of public action and its three basic principles for understanding public policy: the sectoral-global relationship, the reference, and the interaction dynamics between the actors involved. COVID-19 presented several problems for constructing public policies that could combat the spread of the virus and its effects. Different federal entities took divergent actions for this task. Divergent actions led to a conflict between the federal government’s indecision and the protagonism of some subnational units.