1st Edition
Brazil's International Activism Roles of an Emerging Middle Power
In Brazil’s International Activism Monika Sawicka questions how Brazil’s deep-rooted craving for greatness has led to the quest for status in the twenty-first century and contends that the categorization of Brazil as an “emerging middle power” enriches the understanding of modern Brazilian foreign policy.
Drawing on the rich vocabulary of role theory, Sawicka sets out to establish an original theoretical framework that comprises the structural (status), the behavioral (role), and the cognitive-ideational (identity) to assess whether Brazil has performed roles distinguishing a middle power and how the state has reconceptualized them. The model is applied to scrutinize how ideational and material drivers impacted Brazil’s engagement as an integrator in Latin America, donor in Africa, mediator in the Middle East, and coalition-builder of developing states in global fora. Despite recent criticism of the concept of “emerging middle powers”, Sawicka argues that Brazil’s international activism stands as a precise embodiment of such a power.
With an aim of theory development and contributing to the debate on Brazil’s international standing, Brazil’s International Activism provides a much-required reinterpretation of Brazilian foreign policy which will be of interest to scholars and students of Foreign Policy Analysis, International Relations and Latin-American Studies.
Introduction: Brazil on the World Stage: building coalitions of the Global South
1. Role theory capturing the quest for status
2. Status as a variable in foreign policy analysis
3. Brazil, the middle power longing for grandeza
4. Brazil: the reticent regional power
5. Solidarity diplomacy in Africa: Brazil’s fraternal gift or unfulfilled promise?
6. The improbable mediator
7. Brazil on the World Stage: building coalitions of the Global South
8. Conclusions
Appendix
Biography
Monika Sawicka is an assistant professor at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. Her research interests include Brazilian foreign policy, contemporary Brazil, development cooperation, international stratifications of states and constructivist research in international relations.
