Paper short abstract:

Departing from a theoretical reflection regarding foreign policy as a trigger of policy diffusion, the paper analysis the reasons that made FAO a centerpiece in Brazilian international strategies and asks how FAO's agenda was shaped by Brazilian actors, ideas and policies

Paper long abstract:

Brazilian foreign policy during the nearly fourteen years that the Worker's Party ruled the country (2003-2016) made the country a well-known and admired provider of development cooperation, which was regarded domestically as an important instrument in the building of so-called South-South coalitions. Brazilian policy innovations in several areas, including both tropical agriculture and poverty and hunger overcoming, became not only means to promote inclusive growth at home, but were also used to reshape the country's international image, to fuel development cooperation and to further other Brazilian interests in the international system. Departing from a theoretical reflection regarding foreign policy and development cooperation as triggers of policy diffusion, the paper has two main objectives: (a) to analyze the reasons that made FAO a centerpiece in Brazilian international strategies during both Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff's administrations, and (b) to discuss how FAO's agenda was shaped by Brazilian actors, ideas and policies. We are interested in both the role played by policy diffusion in Brazilian foreign policy, i.e., in the building of the country as a successful policy exporter, which made FAO an instrument and a partner, and in discussing the extent to which it is possible to say that the country's foreign policy activism led to the "Brazilianization" of FAO, both before and after the election of José Graziano da Silva as its Director-General.