The increase of local governments’ soft powers in Latin America through the European Union’s development programmes

This dissertation aims to understand the origins and motivations for development policy between the EU and Latin America and the extent to which they have influenced the increase of decentralised cooperation among the local governments of the region, as well as the design of local inclusion policies, especially in the area of labour inclusion, to tackle informality, inequality, and climate neutrality. Thus, this dissertation will seek to answer the following research question: Does the European Union’s development policy in Latin America support the creation of soft power in local governments and the local governments’ key role in driving the strategies toward labour inclusion policies aimed at tackling and reducing informality and inequality and achieving climate neutrality? And if so, in what ways? Derived from the literature review and theoretical framework studied, the main hypothesis that has guided this dissertation is that the internationalisation of LGs could be a soft power tool to foster and develop collaboration between LGs from different countries and continents to improve local public policies and the horizontal and reciprocal cooperation between them.