Barreiras não-tarifárias, dependência e (sub)desenvolvimento: o Brasil no comitê de subsídios e medidas compensatórias da OMC (1995-2015)

Abstract

The historically based criticism of the institutional functioning of the WTO is that the principle of transparency gave central countries the permissibility to monitor, constrain, and question real or potential government incentives in the global periphery that can achieve a greater margin of autonomy in highly monopolized productive segments. Based on this reading, this dissertation aims to evaluate, from a dependent-Marxist perspective, Brazil's performance in the WTO Committee on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (CSMC-WTO) in the period 1995-2015. For this research with a quantitative-qualitative approach, the descriptive methodology was used, through the hypothetical-inductive method, with the investigation strategy being a single case study of a heuristic nature based on Content Analysis (CA) and Literature Review (RL). The application of Content Analysis to the 129 official documents of the Brazilian delegation at the CSMC-WTO was attributed using the thematic categorization technique via manual coding using the NVivo12 software. The time frame of the research included the beginning of Brazil's participation in the CSMC-WTO until the final result of the X WTO Ministerial Conference, in December 2015, with the Nairobi Protocol (2015), which marked the beginning of the elimination of subsidies to exports of agricultural products. In the meantime, the question that guided this research was: how did Brazil behave in the WTO Committee on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures? The research is structured into five chapters. In the first chapter, the concepts and premises of the Marxist Theory of Dependence (TMD) in International Political Economy (EPI) were defined, shedding light on the connection between these elements and the role of non-tariff barriers in capitalism for the assessment of political-diplomatic behavior. of Brazil in the multilateral trade system regarding this commercial policy instrument. In the second chapter, the treatment of subsidies and compensatory measures in the WTO was presented, ranging from a historical reading on the evolution of the multilateral trade regime to the current international legal regime of subsidies and compensatory measures and their legal, political, and economic implications for peripheral countries. In the third chapter, a literature review of the political economy of Brazilian foreign trade policy was developed, analyzing Brazil's interests, behaviors, and negotiation strategies in the multilateral trade system regarding subsidies and countermeasures. In the fourth chapter, Brazil's notifications to the CSMC-WTO regarding internal public policies were explored, locating them as reflections of the structural and conjunctural transformations of dependent capitalism. In the fifth chapter, Brazil's interactions in the CSMC-WTO were systematized through communication documents between the Brazilian delegation and the WTO Member States. The hypothesis identified was that the behavior of the Brazilian delegation at the CSMC-WTO was characterized by a defensive profile in interactions with countries in the capitalist center in terms of industrial subsidies, especially in areas of high technological and capital intensity. The research results show that although the notifications provided by Brazil reflected phenomena inherent to changes in the neoliberal phase of dependent capitalism for the benefit of transnational capital and the interests of Brazilian business, Brazil's diplomatic behavior in the body was characterized by a predominantly defensive profile in the face of proposals and questions from central countries concerning subsidy policies, whether notified or not, that presented potential competitive threats to different industrial sectors, especially those involving goods with high technological and capital intensity