Introduction

This introductory chapter presents the overall purpose and scope of the book. After establishing the relevance of analyzing the roles that different actors play in global cyber diplomacy, I lay out the research question of how Brazil has exercised agency in the global cyber norms debate. I situate the book within the previous literature on norms, cyber norms, and Brazilian foreign policy and explain the original empirical and conceptual contribution: analyzing Brazil's agency and developing an analytical framework to capture additional types of agency. I then present my analytical framework and outline my main argument that Brazil has exercised four types of agency: First, in the case of the UN resolution on the right to privacy, Brazil engaged in norm entrepreneurship to ban indiscriminate cyber espionage. Second, Brasília practiced rival norm entrepreneurship at the OAS and in the BRICS forum. Third, Brazil practiced norm bridge-building at the NETmundial conference and at two UN forums. Fourth, Brazil remained passive in the negotiation of several cyber norm proposals. I then outline the research design and methodology of the study, explain its limitations, and sketch the plan for the book.