Social accountability or state instrumentalization? the dialogue between civil society and Brazilian foreign policy in the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty

Abstract

Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) scholarship in Brazil has advanced in understanding foreign policy as a public policy permeable to non-state actors, yet the nature of the interaction between civil society organizations (CSOs) and the State remains theoretically contested. This paper investigates whether the dialogue and flow of technical data produced by human rights and food security CSOs in shaping the agenda of the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty (2024) characterize a genuine exercise of social accountability — through monitoring and constraining the State — or a dynamic of reverse state instrumentalization, in which the State absorbs technical reports to legitimize and project its preferences internationally. The research adopts a qualitative and reflexive approach: a theoretical review of social accountability and the boomerang effect, documentary analysis of Brazil's diplomatic acts of accession to the Alliance, and content analysis of reports and technical notes issued between 2023 and 2024 by Oxfam Brazil and FIAN Brazil, guided by categories concerning monitoring indicators and the correspondence between CSO narratives and official statements from Brazil's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MRE) and Ministry of Development and Social Assistance (MDS). Partial findings point to a two-sided interpretive tension: CSOs' analytical work may express social accountability relevant to the State's positioning, or function as a technical apparatus for state soft power. Without seeking to resolve this tension, the research aims to qualify the implications of the asymmetry between CSOs and the State for effective accountability mechanisms between civil society and foreign policy.