Going Steady Without Going Federal: Multi-Level Foreign Engagement in the U.S. and Brazil

Abstract

In January of 2025, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced California’s commitment to participating in the World Health Organization. Weeks later, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers announced a similar decision to join WHO programs, and Illinois, Colorado, and New York governors announced expanded international economic partnerships as federal trade policy created uncertainty. How can and do state and local governments act on the global stage? How have or should these practices change given the current national administration’s drawback from multilateral engagement? Is subnational foreign engagement a useful tool for advancing international cooperation? This thesis examines how subnational governments in federal systems engage internationally and how constitutional frameworks shape the possibilities and limits of such engagement. To do so, I extend Ashley Deeks and Kristen Eichensehr’s framework of entrepreneurial federalism beyond its original national security context to analyze the full range of multi-level foreign engagement. Through case studies of California and São Paulo, I apply a comparative framework across two federal systems — the United States and Brazil — examining multi-level foreign engagement across climate diplomacy, economic development, public health, and litigation. The comparison reveals that constitutional structure shapes the form multi-level foreign engagement takes, the costs that actors bear, and the failures that each system produces. The thesis concludes with policy recommendations aimed to enable and encourage useful supplementation and productive friction while minimizing harmful fragmentation.