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\n <\/picture>\n“Our writings on the United States cover a wide range of topics: internal politics, institutions, government processes and policies, integration and crisis in Latin America, and the United States’ policy for the region\u2015with an emphasis on the challenges and opportunities of its complex relationship with Brazil,” explains Cruz.<\/p>\n
The history of the institute precedes its establishment. In 2001, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MRE) published a call for proposals with the aim of promoting international relations postgraduate studies in the country. “At that time, the ministry found the supply of knowledge about the functioning structures of the United States\u2015necessary for Brazil in the context of a globalized economy\u2015to be insufficient,” reports Cruz. Researchers from S\u00e3o Paulo State University (UNESP), Pontifical Catholic University of S\u00e3o Paulo (PUC-SP), and UNICAMP decided to join forces and put together a proposal. Once the proposal was approved, the San Tiago Dantas program (1911\u20131964)\u2015named after the chancellor during the presidency of Jo\u00e3o Goulart (1918\u20131976)\u2015began operating in 2003.<\/p>\n Two years later, there was a new call for proposals\u2015this time from both MRE and the Ministry of Science and Technology\u2015to stimulate research on major international relations issues. The members of the San Tiago Dantas program chose to focus their research on the United States\u2015its politics, economy, society, and culture. “When the INCTs [Brazilian National Institutes for Science and Technology] call for proposals was released in 2008 by the CNPq [Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development], we were in a privileged position, because the research portion of our work had already been done,” recalls Cruz. The institute began operating the following year, bringing together specialists from all three universities and from CEDEC, with funding from CNPq and FAPESP.<\/p>\n Today, it mobilizes 80 researchers and 20 institutions. For some of them, such as the University of Bras\u00edlia (UnB) and the Federal University of Para\u00edba (UFPB), their research centers on the subject were established by INCT-INEU researchers. “This is the most important thing: the network never stops expanding,” says Cruz. In 2010, a website called the Political Observatory of the United States (OPEU) was created as a specialized electronic publication, as well as a permanent database on the internal and external policies of the United States. According to the INCT-INEU coordinator, the OPEU is mainly responsible for disseminating knowledge. Since 2017, the observatory has focused on producing informative material in the form of analytical articles and commentary, producing over 2,500 news clippings in its first seven years. The OPEU team was initially comprised of undergraduate, master’s and PhD students. Many of them became researchers or teachers; others practice journalism and various professional activities in the field of international relations. In this sense, the observatory indirectly fulfills research and staff training roles.<\/p>\n The INCT-INEU also boasts an audiovisual production center, the result of an independent project that was approved by the Pernambuco State Cultural Support Fund and was later embraced by the institute. The resulting 2017 documentary by Fernando Weller, Em nome da Am\u00e9rica<\/em> (In the name of America), depicts the experience of American Peace Corps volunteers in Pernambuco. The US government program, developed in the 1960s and 1970s, brought 6,000 young volunteers to the Northeast of Brazil for humanitarian work. Weller, a researcher and professor of cinema at the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE), received funding from the INCT-INEU to conduct interviews and documentary research using primary sources in the United States.<\/p>\n Political scientist Tullo Vigevani, a retired UNESP professor and a coordinator for the institute during its first seven years, believes the innovativeness of the INCT-INEU lies in its encouragement of “incorporating different types of research about the United States,” thus becoming a “group that systematically tackles this topic and disseminates information on a national level.” The development of the US’s foreign trade policy, for example, is one of the topics examined by the scientists at the institute. Power and Trade \u2013 United States Trade Policy<\/em>, a book written by Vigevani, Filipe Mendon\u00e7a, and Thiago Lima, was deemed best scientific work of 2019 by the National Association for Graduate Studies and Research in Social Sciences (ANPOCS).<\/p>\n Publicity<\/span><\/a> A North American volunteer during a vaccination campaign in rural northeastern Brazil. The scene is included in Fernando Weller’s documentary about the experience of Peace Corps volunteers in PernambucoPublicity<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n Think tanks<\/strong> Researchers who took part in the November conference were unified in their bewilderment over the path of American politics in this century. With the end of the Soviet Union, in 1991, the United States emerged as the world’s sole superpower, unmatched by any other country. However, according to their assessment, that reality has changed: there are threats to American power in many regions and spheres of expression.<\/p>\n “What some analysts had been pointing out for some time has become evident: the immediate post\u2013Cold War era situation was transitory,” says Cruz. “Sooner or later, Russia\u2015a defeated power\u2015will regroup and claim its place once again. And the ongoing reorganization would allow for the establishment of a new pole of expansion in the global economy, around China, with dramatic geopolitical implications, since it is not part of the ‘safety community’ built by the United States after World War II,” evaluates the institute coordinator.<\/p>\n![](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/072-076_ineu_288-1-desktop-es.png\")
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\nThe knowledge acquired during this time guided how the Brazilian Conference of Political Studies on the United States, held at the end of last year at PUC-SP, was organized and how its topics were selected. The four-day conference hosted six thematic groups; each held three debate sessions, three round tables, and lectures with seven foreign guests: Chilean former minister Luis Maira and political scientists Diana Tussie, from Argentina, Inderjeet Parmar, from Britain, Jayesh Rathod, from the United States, Monica Hirst, born in Brazil and based in Argentina, David Sogge, from the Netherlands, and Ra\u00fal Rodriguez, from Cuba. The history and impact of think tanks\u2015the topic of Parmar’s presentation\u2015for example, has been investigated by INCT-INEU researchers since the institution was first established. Although think tanks have almost directly influenced American politics since the nineteenth century, until recently the topic was seldom explored in academia. “At the institute, the topic gave rise to very detailed research on the history of how these institutions think and how they influence public policy, from various ideological orientations,” explains Cruz. Vigevani claims such study centers have been instrumental in defining United States foreign relations under various administrations over the last 60 years.<\/p>\n