From Tegucigalpa to Teheran: Brazil's diplomacy as an emerging Western country (original) (raw)

& Marcelo Valença - Brazil: a regional power with global aspirations. Paper presented at 2012 International BISA-ISA Conference. Edinburg 2012.

This article highlights Brazil’s increasing visibility in international politics and attributes this to the almost constant maintenance of two long-term goals for the country’s foreign policy: the pursuit of autonomy and greater projection on the international stage. The argument is sustained by a historical analysis of the paradigms of Americanism and globalism and their reformulation in the form of two other paradigms, pragmatic institutionalism and autonomy. These constructs serve as a basis for observing that the continuity of Brazilian foreign policy and the development of specific strategies for attaining its objectives have been consistent even across changing governments and regimes.

Regional integration and brazilian foreign policy: strategies in the South American space

ARTIGOS Rev. Sociol. Polít., Curitiba, v. 21, n. 48, p. 51-65, dez. 2013 Recebido em 27 de maio de 2012. Aprovado em 17 de outubro de 2012. Corival Alves do Carmo Desde a criação da Associação Latino-Americana de Livre Comércio em 1960, os projetos de integração regional na América Latina apresentaram diversos estágios políticos e econômicos. Assim, o objetivo do artigo é expor, a partir da base teórica dos estudos de integração, a evolução do processo integracionista na América Latina e, no período mais recente, na América do Sul. A partir desta análise, visa-se avaliar qual o papel desempenhado pelo Brasil no processo, que tem com propósitos da agenda de política externa do país o exercício de uma ação regional e global, que alterna tanto a cooperação quanto a projeção de poder. Para isto, o texto encontra-se dividido nas seguintes seções, além da introdução e

200 Years of International Relations in Brazil: Issues, Theories, and Methods

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Relations, 2022

The Brazilian field of international relations (IRs) has evolved over the course of two centuries. Since Brazilʼs independence in 1822, international topics have deserved attention from local practitioners and scholars. The emergence of Brazilian standpoints about international a airs and of a Brazilian IR scholarship developed a er the consolidation of similar fields in other Western countries. Multiple schools of thought held sway over local understandings, thereby leading to the formation of a di erent field as compared to characteristics of the Anglo-American mainstream. The institutionalization of the area has come about through the creation of scholarly departments and national government agencies. It all led to a unique combination of methods, theories, and issues being currently explored in the Brazilian branch of IR scholarship.

Sean W. Burges, Brazil in the World: The International Relations of a South American Giant. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017. Figures, tables, bibliography, index, 296 pp.; hardcover 115,paperback115, paperback 115,paperback32.95, ebook

Latin American Politics and Society, 2017

The presidency of Dilma Rousseff and her subsequent replacement with Michel Temer are more problematic for Brazil and for the authors' arguments (the book was published as the impeachment crisis began but before Dilma's ouster). In chapter 6, they acknowledge that Dilma's antiliberal economic policies, deficit spending, and disinclination to build congressional alliances were a marked departure from fiscally sound social inclusion. The concluding chapter and an afterword also acknowledge the severity of the economic and political crisis in Dilma's second term, which constitute a new "window of opportunity" that could, once again, upend prevailing expectations. Given recent events, what are we to make of the book's argument that fiscally sound social inclusion constitutes a new Brazilian social contract? The initial signs from the Temer government are less than reassuring. The new president seems committed to restoring fiscal balance, and the judiciary appears undeterred in seeing through the Petrobras investigations. However, Congress's recent efforts to torpedo an anticorruption law, the tainted past of Temer and his current congressional allies, and the decidedly unrepresentative gender and racial composition of Temer's government suggest a stubborn reassertion of the politics of impunity and cronyism. For some readers, these events may suggest a failure by the authors to appreciate the epiphenomenal nature of the apparent consensus of the Cardoso-Lula years, which perhaps was simply the byproduct of the end of hyperinflation, rising commodity prices, and two presidents who were politically astute enough to take advantage of the good times. For others, recent events, and the authors' cautious tone in the last section of the book, will speak to a reasonable acknowledgment of the contingent nature of political and economic outcomes. They will agree, as I do, that the institutional changes of the last 25 years that the authors highlight are profound, while sharing the authors' view that development is a "rough ride" in which inefficiencies, mistakes, and setbacks are the norm. Whichever way one receives the arguments in this book, they merit a serious reading: the strength of this volume is its holistic re-evaluation of recent Brazilian history in light of an analytic framework that constantly pushes the reader to look beyond the headlines to consider the latent, foundational understandings that animate a political system.

De-westernization, democratization, disconnection: the emergence of Brazil's post- diplomatic foreign policy

Global Affairs, 2020

For some time, foreign policy as an expression was perfectly interchangeable with diplomacy, given the degree of leverage enjoyed by diplomatic corps in Brazil's political system. However, there has arguably been some degree of discontinuity in this trajectory, which is noticeable from a couple of trends: Brazil's strategy toward Western powers vis-à-vis the rise of Asia,on the one hand, and democratization of foreign policymaking and the resulting tumultuous relationship between the foreign ministry and the presidency of the country, on the other. I posit that, from Fernando Henrique Cardoso to Jair Bolsonaro, this combination of factors prompted an epochal shift in Brazil's external relations, whose bottom line might be Itamaraty's demise as chief formulator while other governmental bureaucracies, political parties and individuals take over as the gravity centre, turning the contents of Brazil's foreign policy more responsive to social inputs, however less predictable and coherent over time.

1902) Brazil in the world context, at the first decade of the 21th century: regional leadership and strategies for its integration into the world economy (2008)

Brazilian Defense Policy: Current Trends and Regional Implications, 2009

Rio de Janeiro, 26 junho 2008, 22 p. Essay for the volume edited by Joám Evans Pim (president IGESIP, Corunha; www.igesip.org; and editor Strategic Evaluation), on Brazilian Defense Policy: Current Trends and Regional Implications. Publicado como “Brazil in the International Context at the First Decade of the 21st Century: Regional Leadership and Strategies for Integration” In: Joam Evans (org.), Brazilian Defence Policies: Current Trends and Regional Implications (London: Dunkling Books, 2009, 251 p.; ISBN: 978-0-9563478-0-0; p. 11-26). Relação de Publicados n. 935.

BRAZIL AND ITS REGIONAL PROJECTION: PERSPECTIVES ON HEGEMONY AND REGIONALISM IN SOUTH AMERICA IN THE POST-COLD WAR ERA

Conjuntura Austral, 2020

Brazilian projection towards South America has been an important issue since its re-democratization process in the 1980s. Still, Brazil’s regional behavior could not be considered as a hegemony, under the realist point of view, that is, exerted by its hard power. Nor liberal, considering the option for multiplicities initiatives and a low level of institutionalization. Therefore, we propose to apply the Gramscian concept of hegemony to analyze if Brazil could exert hegemony towards South America throughout its participation in regional integration processes. To do so, we have chosen to use a qualitative method of analysis along with a typical case-study to develop a prelaminar theory illustration, based upon a literature review of the Brazilian foreign policy (primary and secondary sources). This inquiry leads us to argue that there is a dubiety regarding Brazil’s regional action. Firstly, due to the lack of institutionalization of South American regional organizations and; secondly, because Brazilian foreign policy was not able to wield coercive power during regional crises. However, even considering that Brazil’s projection towards the region do not represent a typical case of hegemony (realist), bearing in mind the findings low rates of validity beyond this case-study, there are enough evidences that its actions in many arrangements as leader and constructor of consensus it is a way to employ hegemony (Gramscian) in regional terms.