A atuação internacional de cidades pequenas: um estudo de caso para cidade de Marau - RS

Abstract

The international system went through great changes on the post-Cold War, allowing the participation of many actors besides the nation state. This movement included subnational groups, that started to organize and insert themselves into the international dynamics and the globalization flow, specially when the state was incapable to look for their interests. To this phenomenon we give the name paradiplomacy. Still very recent in Brazil and in the world, the international action of subnational governments - states and cities - is yet very restricted to big towns, since they have more resources, technical capacity and global projection. However, Brazil is a country made of small towns: from the 5570 Brazilian municipalities, a few more than 600 have more than 50 thousand habitants. If the effects of the international relations are more present on the every day life of the citizens, why are the international actions restricted to the big cities? That being said, this paper tries to analyze the possibility of an international initiative made by a city of small proportions, from a study case of the municipality of Marau, located in the northwest of Rio Grande do Sul. For that to happen, three main goals are set here: 1) investigate the existence of a previous project or one in movement of international matter, understanding the dynamics of the local public management; 2) analyze a model case, that is, a city of similar proportions, with successful paradiplomatical actions, being chosen here the Icelandic city of Kópavogur and its localization of the SGDs, the Sustainable Development Goals; and 3) the creation of a project for the international insertion of Marau, using the SDGs as a booster for that.