São Paulo – Brazilian Paulo Rebello is a Political Science Ph.D. student at the University of Salamanca in Spain. His research focuses on the relations between Brazil and the Middle East, particularly with Gulf monarchies such as the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Oman.
Rebello was born in Vila Velha, in the state of Espírito Santo, but considers himself from Brasilia, having lived most of his life in the Brazilian capital. He holds a bachelor’s degree in History from the University of Brasília (UnB) and worked at the embassy of the UAE for four years before starting his research in Salamanca in September last year.
Rebello expects to finish his Ph.D. in 2025 and now intends to start the field research phase. He will return to Brazil to conduct interviews and expects to spend some time in the Middle East between Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.
“Here [at the University of Salamanca], they don’t have Ph.D. dissertations with a single topic. The European system encourages writing papers with a central theme,” Rebello told ANBA in a video call.
Rebello must produce five papers to finish his Ph.D. “Three [papers] already have defined topics, all involving Brazil in a comparative perspective. The first one I already wrote was about the UAE and Latin America. Another paper under construction will be about BRICS and how it can act as a bridge for building peace in the Middle East. Seeing Brazil as the leading player in the Global South is fundamental,” he said.
“The third paper will be about Brazil as a mediator, in this case, on the issues of Iran, Israel and Palestine. This research is already in progress here at the University of Salamanca in cooperation with other European universities,” he said.
Rebello explained that one of the research’s aspects is demonstrating the tangible issues of relations with Arab countries. He also studies the legislative power. “The scope increases a little, taking in the issues of Palestine, Israel and Lebanon. Analyzing the position of some [Brazilian] state representatives and senators, it is possible to map the interest of political sectors in Arab countries and how they are shaped over time; after all, the legislature is changed every four years,” he said.
From that, the researcher seeks to map which members of congress are most active in building relations with Arab countries based on speeches, votes and participation in events, which are tangible issues. “Hence, you can understand that there is a group in the congress that reflects the interests of Arab countries, which is the so-called lobby, and bring it to the international scope. You can take this to a more theoretical issue: discourse analysis. You can take this tangible analysis and bring it to the scope of ideas. Who is this good for? Who started this? Why did this start? So there are several questions I try to answer and present,” said the Ph.D. student.
Rebello is also a political analyst and investigates topics such as Brazilian foreign policy, international security and comparative politics. His latest publication was an analysis of Brazilian president Lula’s third term on an academic website on Latin American topics.
Translation by Elúsio Brasileiro
