International relations from below the state : Brazilian environmentalism and the green economy

The idea of “international relations from below” challenges the notion which has predominated the field of international relations, understood as a field concerned with politics from “above”, defined in terms of liberal order, modernity, and Western-dominated notions of progress. Calls for the field to shift towards analysis “from below serve as a reminder that the field must confront a central, yet unproductive divide between wholes and parts. Anarchic relations and modernity are central to this divide, and indicative of the field's blinders are also the bifurcations between dependency theory's analysis of capitalism and economics, and post-colonial analysis' relegation within cultural studies, neglecting political economy (Blaney and Inayatullah, 2008). An excavation of the relationship between states and systems of capitalism, modernity, and the liberal order is necessary in order tore-imagine the field within a more integrative ontology of power relations (Blaney and Inayatullah, 2008, Darby,2004). This paper delves into one empirical corner of such excavation work, through asking: how does Brazil interact with the evolving global liberal order on environmental issues?