On Dec. 26, Brazil’s government stripped Venezuela’s top diplomat in Brasilia, Gerardo Antonio Delgado Maldonado, of his credentials and kicked him out of the country. The expulsion, which came in retaliation for a similar move from Caracas, is the latest setback in badly deteriorated ties between the former South American partners. In an email interview, Peter Hakim, president emeritus and senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue, explains what is behind the breakdown in relations, and what regional governments are doing in response to the ongoing crisis in Venezuela under President Nicolas Maduro. WPR: Why did Brazil expel Venezuela’s top diplomat [...]
In late November, the United Nations undersecretary-general for peacekeeping operations, Jean-Pierre La Croix, asked Brazil to contribute troops to the U.N. mission in the Central African Republic. This week, Brazil reportedly agreed to that request. Though it has traditionally eschewed military interventionism, Brazil has assumed an increasingly prominent role in peacekeeping missions in recent years. In an email interview, Kai Michael Kenkel, an associate professor at the Institute of International Relations at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, discusses Brazil’s engagement in peacekeeping operations and how this plays politically at home. WPR: What is the recent history of [...]
Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing series about education policy in various countries around the world. In late September, Brazil’s Supreme Court narrowly ruled in favor of allowing religious education in public schools to be taught by people promoting their own faith, testing the country’s secular public education system. In an email interview, Simon Schwartzman, a Brazilian social scientist who has written extensively on the country’s education system and who serves on the board of the Institute for the Study of Labor and Society (IETS) in Rio de Janeiro, discusses the Supreme Court’s decision, the state of [...]
