ABSTRACT
This chapter clarifies some conceptual issues concerning paradiplomatic actors and the nature of paradiplomacy. It discusses the characteristics of the activities abroad of Brazil's subnational governments, with emphasis on municipal governments. The chapter considers three relevant contexts or levels of analysis: that of the units themselves, that of their interaction with Brazilian foreign policy, and that of their interaction with the process of supranational integration under Mercosur. It uses the FPA framework to examine the main questions posed in studying the foreign activities of Brazilian subnational governments. The FPA is the sub-field of International Relations concerned with the study of the determinants, decision-making processes and implementation of foreign policy. In the South, fund-raising is frequently the main raison d'être of municipal foreign policy and one of the greatest motivations for a municipal government's decision to establish an international relations structure.
