Between global aspirations and domestic imperatives: the case of Brazil

As an emerging economy, and part of the BRICS, one of the world’s prime clubs of emerging nations, Brazil is widely perceived as a pivotal country in the 21st century’s global political economy of energy. A front-runner of biofuels, championing renewables in transport and electricity generation, and an emerging player in the international oil economy, it epitomises the rapidly changing global energy landscape. Moreover, being a country of the ‘Global South’, Brazil finds itself at the forefront of a broader IPE power shift more generally. However, as this chapter argues, Brazil as an energy player remains undetermined when it comes to its domestic energy regime, which it is argued is by and large a function of non-linear domestic-level governance dynamics between the state and the market. This lack of consistency in the domestic energy policy regime prevents Brazil from fully reaping the benefits of a sizeable energy economy, considerable resource endowments and a relative absence of geopolitical disturbances.