Biography
Dr. Guilherme Casarões is Associate Professor of Brazil Studies in the Department of Politics and International Relations. His primary research interests are Brazilian foreign policy, Brazil-Middle East relations, Latin American politics, and the transnational networks of the populist far-right. In his PhD dissertation, defended summa cum laude in 2014, he developed the concept of autonomy through modernization to show how a young Brazilian democracy updated its foreign policy strategy, taking the lead in emerging global issues (such as trade liberalization, human rights, climate change, non-proliferation) to minimize structural constraints upon the country’s economy and international relations.
Dr. Casarões is the co-author of a book on the United Nations titled “A Organização das Nações Unidas” (Ed. Del Rey, 2006), and the author of several peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, including a broad survey of Brazilian foreign policy studies for the Routledge Handbook of Brazilian Politics (2018). His articles have appeared in journals such as International Affairs, the Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Review of International Studies, Third World Quarterly, Foreign Policy Analysis, Global Studies Quarterly, Millennium, the Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, the Bulletin of Latin American Research, Politica y Sociedad, as well as in several Brazilian Political Science and International Relations journals.
Because of the policy relevance of Dr. Casarões’s scholarship, he has participated in several national and international policy dialogues. He was a member of the Working Group on Combating Extremism and Hate Speech, established by the Brazilian Ministry of Human Rights in 2023, a lecturer at the Rio Branco Institute, Brazil’s diplomatic academy, and one of the speakers in the Dialogues on Foreign Policy initiative, a high-profile event promoted by the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2014 to engage scholars, journalists, and civil society representatives in debates on Brazil’s global challenges. Dr. Casarões has also become a frequent commentator and analyst in the Brazilian and international media.
Before joining the faculty at Florida International University, Dr. Casarões was a professor at the São Paulo School of Business at Fundação Getulio Vargas in Brazil. He has also been a Craig M. Cogut Visiting Professor of Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Brown University and a visiting fellow at the University of Michigan and Brandeis University. He coordinates the Far-Right Observatory (OED) and the Russia-Latin America Observatory (RUSLAT) and is a research fellow at the Washington Brazil Office (WBO) and the Brazilian Center for International Relations (CEBRI).
Areas of Expertise
Comparative Politics, International Relations, Latin American Politics, Brazilian Politics and Foreign Policy
Degrees
BA, International Relations, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais, 2005
MA, Political Science, Universidade de São Paulo, 2008
MA, International Relations, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, 2011
PhD, Political Science, Universidade de São Paulo, 2014