Daniel Buarque
Rev. Carta Inter., Belo Horizonte, v. 18, n. 1, e1291, 2023
1-23
Burning bridges: The paths to
increase Brazil’s international status
and Bolsonaro’s ‘new foreign policy’
Destruindo pontes: Os caminhos para
aumentar o status internacional do Brasil
e a ‘nova política externa’ de Bolsonaro
Destruyendo puentes: Las formas de
aumentar el estatus internacional de Brasil
y la ‘nueva política exterior’ de Bolsonaro
DOI: 10.21530/ci.v18n1.2023.1291
Daniel Buarque
1
Abstract
Brazilian foreign policy has historically held the ambition to
achieve higher prestige for the country. Status, however, depends
not on one’s aspiration, but on how a state is perceived by others.
This paper analyses the foreign perceptions about Brazil’s search
for status and contrasts it with the country’s diplomacy under
Bolsonaro’s administration. It is based on a reflexive thematic
analysis of primary data from 94 interviews with the foreign
policy community great powers. The article argues that Bolsonaro
eroded the main paths powerful nations see as serving for the
construction and expansion of Brazil’s international prestige.
Keywords: Brazil; Brazilian Foreign Policy; International status;
Prestige; Jair Bolsonaro.
1 Pesquisador do programa de pós-doutorado do Instituto de Relações Inter-
nacionais da USP (IRI). Doutor em Relações Internacionais pelo joint PhD
programme King’s College London/USP. (dbuarque@usp.com).
ORCID: http://orcid.org/ 0000-0002-1266-9022.
Artigo submetido em 25/07/2022 e aprovado em 19/03/2023.
ASSOCIAÇÃO BRASILEIRA DE
RELAÇÕES INTERNACIONAIS
ISSN 2526-9038
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Burning bridges: The paths to increase Brazil’s international status and Bolsonaro’s ‘new foreign policy’
Rev. Carta Inter., Belo Horizonte, v. 18, n. 1, e1291, 2023
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Resumo
A política externa brasileira tem a histórica ambição de aumentar o prestígio do país. Status,
no entanto, não depende apenas da aspiração, mas de como um estado é percebido pelos
outros. Este artigo analisa as percepções estrangeiras sobre a busca por status do Brasil
e contrasta com a diplomacia do governo Bolsonaro. Baseia-se em uma análise temática
reflexiva de dados primários de 94 entrevistas com a comunidade de política externa de
grandes potências. O artigo argumenta que Bolsonaro corroeu os principais caminhos
que as nações poderosas veem como servindo para a construção e expansão do prestígio
internacional do Brasil.
Palavras-chave: Brasil; Política Externa Brasileira; Status Internacional; Prestígio; Jair Bolsonaro.
Resumen
La política exterior brasileña tiene la ambición histórica de aumentar el prestigio del país.
El estatus, sin embargo, no solo depende de la aspiración, sino de cómo los demás perciben
un país. Este artículo analiza las percepciones extranjeras sobre la búsqueda de estatus de
Brasil y las contrasta con la diplomacia del gobierno de Bolsonaro. Se basa en un análisis
temático reflexivo de datos primarios de 94 entrevistas con la comunidad de política exterior
de las grandes potencias. Argumenta que Bolsonaro ha erosionado las principales vías que
las naciones poderosas ven como útiles para expandir el prestigio internacional de Brasil.
Palabras clave: Brasil; Política Exterior Brasileña; Estatus Internacional; Prestigio; Jair Bolsonaro.
Introduction – Brazil’s search for international status
For more than a century, one of the main motivations of Brazilian Foreign
Policy (BFP) has been to increase the level of prestige and the standing of the
state in the stratified international society. Traditional scholarship proposes that
the country had many other motivations in its foreign policy, such as the pursuit
of development, of an interdependent relation with other countries, autonomy,
insertion and an attempt to build consensual hegemony. However, since before
independence and the proclamation of the republic in the nineteenth century, the
ambition for status has also permeated many of the actions the nation in world
(Mares and Trinkunas 2016; Larson and Shevchenko 2014; Stolte 2015; Ricupero
2017; Burges 2017; Rohter 2012; Esteves, Jumbert, and Carvalho 2020; Lafer 2000;
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Milani, Pinheiro, and De Lima 2017; Buarque 2022a; Souza 2008; Burges 2017;
Buarque 2022b). The theoretical framework of status in IR, however, makes it
clear that mere aspiration for status is not enough, as the level of prestige of a
nation depends on how it is perceived by other members of the international
society (Larson and Shevchenko 2019; Clunan 2014; Renshon 2017; MacDonald
and Parent 2021; Paul, Larson, and Wohlforth 2014).
Although Brazil’s international agenda has been marked by the ambition
for status, the country was not able to achieve recognition as one of the major
powers of the world, even when it was seen as been on the rise between the
late 1990s and early 2000s (Esteves, Jumbert, and Carvalho 2020; Mares and
Trinkunas 2016; Rohter 2012; Ricupero 2017; Cervo and Lessa 2014). Political
and economic crises after 2014 led to a deterioration of Brazil’s prestige, and
this perceived downfall was further accelerated in 2018, with the election of
Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022), who has been perceived as causing more damage
to Brazil’s international image, status, and prestige than any other period in the
country’s history (W. F. H. Chagas-Bastos and Franzoni 2019; Castro 2019; Lafer
2019; Bonin 2021; Passarinho 2021; Carrança 2021; Mendonça 2020).
This paper advances the study about the status of Brazil by combining
two separate analyses. It discusses perceived ways Brazil could work in order
to advance its international status from the perspective of great powers and it
assesses the policies of the Bolsonaro administration regarding these suggested
paths to improve the prestige of the country. It contributes to the scholarship
about the international status of Brazil and to the academic research about the
impacts of the controversial Bolsonaro administration to the BFP and to the level
of prestige of the country in the world.
The first part of the study is based on a sample analysis of primary data from
94 interviews with members of the Foreign Policy Community (FPC) from the
five countries that are permanent members (P5) of the United Nations Security
Council (UNSC): United States, United Kingdom, France, China and Russia. It
assesses what these beholders in established high status states consider as the
strategies Brazil could use in the attempt to increase its global prestige. The
second part compares the proposed “bridges” to high status with the actions
taken by the country’s diplomacy in the first years of Bolsonaro’s presidency.
Based on these two analyses, the paper argues that Bolsonaro’s administration
blocked the work of BFP in developing strategies that the FPC of the P5 perceive
as serving for the construction and expansion of Brazil’s international status.
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The article is divided into four parts. It begins by introducing the theoretical
framework of status in international relations used in the analysis. It then presents
the research design used to systematically analyse the collected interviews and
discusses the data on the perceptions of the FPC of the P5 about paths the country
could follow to increase its status, and continues with an assessment of how
the election of Bolsonaro radically changed BFP and the strategies regarding
the paths the country could follow to gain prestige. A conclusion completes the
comparison between the two analyses.
Assessing the international status of a state
The analyses presented here are based on a theoretical framework of status in
international relations. IR scholarship regarding status accepts that the behaviour
of states is motivated by their interest in their level of prestige, which motivates
leaders to pursue agendas that are not entirely explained by other IR theories.
The search for status can thus explain actions, reactions and even conflicts
between nations (Carvalho 2020; Clunan 2014; Dafoe, Renshon, and Huth 2014;
Esteves, Jumbert, and Carvalho 2020; Götz 2020; Larson and Shevchenko 2019;
MacDonald and Parent 2021; Paul, Larson, and Wohlforth 2014; Renshon 2017).
This scholarship draws from the idea that within IR the status of a state does
not reflect simple quantifiable measures of power and wealth but is a result of
external perceptions and beliefs about the reality of a state. Traditionally defined
as the rank or standing in the hierarchy of a group, status in IR refers to a state’s
position within a hierarchy of nations and it consists of collective beliefs about a
state’s standing. Although it does related to valued attributes, it is only recognized
intersubjectively, by voluntary deference, referring to the differentiation and
rank of states according to their perceived capabilities (Clunan 2014; Götz 2020;
Larson and Shevchenko 2019; MacDonald and Parent 2021; Paul, Larson, and
Wohlforth 2014). This means that status is a result of what people think about the
importance of a state, its qualities, power, influence, independently of the factual
reality. Status is thus a relational concept reflecting intersubjective evaluations
of potential objective qualities (Clunan 2014; Gilady 2017; Murray 2019; O’Neill
1999). Where a state stands in the global stratified society depends not just on
what it wants, its power, its wealth and behaviour, but relies fundamentally on
how the collective believes of others about the power, identity, intentions and
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behaviours of that state (Clunan 2014; MacDonald and Parent 2021; Mitzen 2006;
Murray 2019; Paul, Larson, and Wohlforth 2014). Hence, this paper does not focus
on traditional measures of power or theories of transition of power but focuses
on status as an intersubjective attribute dependent on external perceptions.
By approaching status as an intersubjective attribute, it is important to consider
the assessment of international images of states and their reputations since status
is dependent on external perceptions, beliefs about other’s beliefs and foreign
recognition of status to exist (Casarões 2020; Clunan 2014; Larson and Shevchenko
2019; MacDonald and Parent 2021; Paul, Larson, and Wohlforth 2014).
In order to understand a state’s status, thus, one needs to assess the collective
recognition of such state by relevant other states (Wohlforth 2014). However, it
is impossible to understand the total beliefs of everyone outside such a state,
and studies drawing from surveys tend to be more superficial and not to reflect
the views of those actively participating in the decisions of the state (Anholt
2007; Aronczyk 2013; 2018; Kaneva 2011; Clunan 2014; Larson and Shevchenko
2019). One means to analyse the intersubjective views about a state is to focus
on the qualitative assessments of elite respondents from selected nations in order
to understand the perception of a sample of the people responsible for foreign
policy decisions in such states, such as the FPC. This allows to understand how
the people making decisions think about a given state.
The idea of a FPC is used here as a group of elites such as politicians,
diplomats, members of interest groups, leaders of think tanks and NGOs, academics,
journalists and businesspeople involved in the international sphere. They can be
seen as repositories of collective memories, practices and representations that
structure their interaction and discourse. It is true that this community is not
homogenous, but they so share a foreign policy field and its imaginary (Esteves
and Herz 2020; Esteves, Jumbert, and Carvalho 2020; Souza 2002; 2008).
Based on this framework, this paper builds on a broader study about the
status of Brazil from the intersubjective perspective of great powers. It was
originally developed by conducting 94 semi-structured interviews with single
respondents representing the FPC of the P5. For this paper, however, the focus is
not on the general data about the perceived status of Brazil. Instead, it focuses
on just one of the themes developed during the analysis of the data. It discusses
the strategies the interviewees perceive as the most suitable for Brazil to expand
its international status. The following section will detail the process of collecting
and analysing the data presented here.
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Research design
This paper is based on a small excerpt of a broader qualitative research about
the international status of Brazil developed by conducting 94 semi-structured
interviews with the FPC of the P5. It is based on the systematic Reflexive Thematic
Analysis (RTA) of 60 interviews selected based on their relevance to the general
analysis. In total, 12 interviews were selected with sources from each of the
countries of the P5. The data was treated as being a general representation of the
FPC of the P5.
RTA is a method that allows the researcher find meaning in the interviews and
make sense of them using both deductive and inductive approaches (Braun and
Clarke 2006; 2012; Clarke and Braun 2017; Braun and Clarke 2019a; 2019b). Based
on this method, themes do not passively emerge from data, but are developed
and constructed as a result of the reflexive observation of the researcher (Braun
and Clarke 2019a; 2019b). The analysis followed a recognized step-by-step guide
to conducting this method of qualitative study (Braun and Clarke, 2006):
1. familiarizing with the data;
2. generating initial codes;
3. searching for themes;
4. reviewing themes;
5. defining and naming themes; and
6. producing the report.
The analysis of the interviews was conducted using the NVivo software as
an analytical tool when carrying out the analysis of the interviews.
Although most interviewees authorized to be named in the research, codenames
were assigned to all informants to offer them anonymity. The files with the
transcripts of the interviews were randomly codenamed with initials connected to
the country of origin of the interviewees as UK1 to UK12 (with British interviewees),
US1 to US12 (American interviewees), CH1 to CH12 (Chinese interviewees), FR1
to FR12 (French interviewees), and RU1 to RU12 (Russian interviewees).
The interviews were conducted between March 2018 and July 2019. The
timeframe coincides with the rise of Bolsonaro as a presidential candidate, his
election and first months in office. For the original research, however, these
developments were not considered, and the interviewees were asked to give
their own opinions considering the period between the democratization of the
country, in 1989 and the end of 2014. The focus thus was not on the timeframe
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discussed in this paper. The analysis of the interviews was used not to discuss
the perceptions about Bolsonaro’s administration per se, but to understand what
the FPC of the P5 perceived as being the best strategies for Brazil to search higher
international status.
The most important part of the analysis of these interviews presented in this
paper concerns the interviewees views about the paths Brazil could take to try
to increase its prestige. This was one of the nine themes developed from the full
analysis of the dataset in the broader research project. The theme “Alternative
paths to increased status” refers to “alternative” because the main path described
by the interviewees was economic development, but they argued there were
other policies the country could pursue in its aspirational foreign policy.
The analysis of these perceptions will be complemented in this paper with a
discussion about the foreign policy pursued by the country after 2019. It draws
from a literature review of studies about the foreign policy implemented by
Bolsonaro as well as the analysis of news and opinion pieces related to Brazil’s
external affairs after the inauguration of the far-right president.
Bridges to higher status
From the perspective of great powers, the best way for a state like Brazil
(without a lot of hard power capabilities) to achieve the level of prestige of a great
power would be to focus on economic development. However, the perception of
the elites that make up the foreign policy of these powerful nations is that even
without becoming the economic powerhouse, the state should be able to “pick its
fights” in order to improve its reputation and focus on a series of pathways that
were seen as legitimate forms for the country to build its prestige and increase
its status. The theme “Alternative paths to increased status” was the fourth
most prevalent of all the nine themes developed from the full analysis about the
international status of Brazil. The theme was developed from codes noted in 53 of
the 60 interviews. It is linked to 384 different references to the same general idea.
For the interviewees consulted in this study, the main paths, or “bridges”, for
Brazil to climb to a higher place in the international stratified society would be:
(1) A relevant role in regional leadership; (2) projecting Brazil through
multilateralism, building institutional power in different international fora
and participating in groups like BRICS and IBSA; (3) the professionalism of
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the diplomatic corps of Brazil, recognised as one of the best in the world;
(4) participations in UN PeaceKeeping Operations (PKOs); (5) leadership in
environmental politics and the fight against climate change; (6) promotion of
democracy and promotion of equality through politics; and (7) mediation role
in international conflicts.
The table below shows more details about the development of these sub-
themes, the codes that were identified in the data and the total number of
references related to each one of them. Following that, this section will detail
each of the paths proposed by the interviewees, highlighting samples of the
arguments presented by the respondents in this research. It is worth noting once
more, however, that this is not a quantitative study, but a qualitative reflexive
analysis, and the quotes are used more as an illustration of the result of the
themes developed from the RTA.
TABLE 1. Alternative paths to increased status
Sub-themes
Codes forming the sub-theme Mentions of the sub-theme
in interviews / Number of
references to the sub-theme
Regional
leadership
Brazil is a leader in Latin America
Brazil can play a leadership role in Latin America
Brazil failed to have a leadership role in Venezuela
Brazil needs to define its role in Latin America
Brazil is not like Latin America
35 interviews / 71 references
Multilateralism Multilateralism
Brazil is important in multilateral fora
Brazil has a role in shaping multipolarity
BRICS can help acquire status
Brazil developed institutional power
27 interviews / 94 references
Diplomatic
professionalism
Itamaraty is competent and respected
Brazil has an independent foreign policy
24 interviews / 54 references
Peacekeeping
operations
Brazil has a role in PKOs
PKOs can improve the status of Brazil
PKOs showed Brazil emerging in IR
20 interviews / 27 references
Environmental
politics
Environmental politics as path to higher status
Climate change gives Brazil international voice
Brazil has image of environmental leadership
16 interviews / 44 references
Democracy,
development
and equality
Democratic path improves image of Brazil
Brazil has been an example of social justice
10 interviews / 17 references
Mediation role Brazil has a good mediator role 10 interviews / 13 references
Source: Prepared by the author
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Regional leadership was the alternative path most of the informants in the
study cited for Brazil to build a more relevant role in international politics. For
the FPC of the P5, Brazil is the most important country in South America, should
be a natural leader in Latin America, and has in some parts assumed this role.
However, they perceive differences between the country and its neighbours, and
argue that at some points the role of Brazil within the region seems undefined,
or the country was unable to assume this leadership position. The status of the
leader of Latin America would be an important first step to allow for a stronger
role for Brazil in global relations, according to many informants. “Brazil probably
has to play more of an active role regionally and be taken more seriously. Not
before it can pursue global aspirations, but as a complement to it, or as a building
block to it”, explained a senior fellow at Brookings Institute (US11).
Multilateralism was the second most prevalent of the sub-themes related
to paths the state could follow to increase its status. The FPC of the P5 viewed
multilateral relations as important for Brazilian projection and argued the country
could have an important standing within this multipolarity: “Brazil plays an
important role in shaping a multipolar world”, argued a professor of International
Relations at the People’s Friendship University of Russia (RU1). “Brazil has had
a very important role in trying to democratise the international order”, said a
professor at the American University, in Washington, DC (US1). The presence in
international institutions was also important for many of the interviewees. The
most important idea was that Brazil was able to develop power and important
role within different institutions such as the UNSC (as a temporary member), the
WTO, and others: “It is a very representative country of emerging economies that
intends to play a more important role in global organizations, wanting to increase
their participation and increase their weight in the decision of international rules
and norms”, argued a researcher of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
(CH2). The third sub-theme within this analysis was the idea that groups of
nations such as BRICS can help Brazil acquire status. It was particularly relevant
for informants from China and Russia, nations that appear along with Brazil
in the grouping, but also from a critical perspective of informants from the US.
“BRICS was one of the profile poster children for emerging markets, emerging
countries. It definitely put that into the minds of policy makers”, explained a
director of analysis at Geopolitical Futures (US3).
From the perspective of great powers, Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Relations is
one of the best in the world, and the very competent work of Brazilian diplomats
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would be able to help project the country in the rest of the world and increase its
prestige. “The Brazilian foreign service is one of the best in the world, with some
very bright people and, a little like some of the European services, has traditionally
employed and recruited the elite”, argued a former British Consul General in Sao
Paulo (UK6). “The diplomatic corps of Brazil is very impressive, they are very
able people, very well educated”, said the chief economics commentator at the
Financial Times (UK7). “Itamaraty is the most powerful foreign ministry in the
world”, explained a president emeritus and senior fellow at the Inter-American
Dialogue (US10). “Brazil’s role is built by one of the best diplomatic corps in the
world”, argued a professor at the Faculté de Philosophie et Sciences Sociales of
the Université Libre de Bruxelles (FR6).
Participating in PKOs was another of the main bridges Brazil could use to
improve the level of its international prestige. The main ideas discussed were
that Brazil has an important role in PKOs, and that these showed Brazil emerging
in global affairs and they could improve the status of the country. This was
particularly relevant when discussing the role of the state in Minustah, the UN
operation in Haiti, which Brazil led for more than a decade. “I would like to see
a stronger Brazilian military presence in UN peacekeeping operations. Brazil
at that stage could afford to lift its profile and demonstrate a presence, and
influence and impact”, explained a former British ambassador to Brazil (UK3).
The presence in these missions was considered a form of projection of national
power at a time when Itamaraty was seeking to open new spaces for Brazil in
international organizations.
Building on the importance of the Amazon Forest and on the role the country
had hosting Rio92 and Rio+20 climate summits, great powers perceive environmental
politics as one important means for Brazil to build a stronger international status.
The main ideas proposed by the FPC of the P5 were that Brazil has a strong image
of environmental leadership, that environmental politics are a possible path to
higher status, and that the global debate about climate change gives Brazil an
important international voice. “It has a global role in the sense that it is part of
important countries on the global issues like climate change, in creating policy.
It is a player in the larger global processes”, argued a senior vice president for
studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (US5). “There is a
huge influence there on the ecosystem. And its own right and the influence of
the Amazon on the world. So, there is part of it that says that whether you like
it or not, is actually really important”, said the CEO of Canning House (UK9).
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The sub-theme “Democracy, development and equality as paths for status”
focused on the positive examples of the country in the turn of the century.
The period of the so-called rise of Brazil in the international stage in the late
1990s and early 2000s coincided with one of the longest political and economic
stabilities of the recent history of the country, with peaceful alternation of parties
in power and a continuation of democratic rule. This was mentioned as one of
the possible paths Brazil could use to improve its international status. The main
ideas proposed were that the democratic path improves the international image
of Brazil, and that in the early 2000s the country managed to become an example
of social justice. “People have a somewhat positive view of Brazil, they admire
its, at least until recently, democratic path, that it is a large and diverse country
that has managed to be a diverse democracy”, argued a senior vice-president
for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (US5).
Within a context in which Brazil would be able to achieve higher status
through its role in multilateralism and the high level of competence of its diplomatic
staff, one specific path the country had to improve its international prestige was
its attempt to offer peaceful solution to conflicts around the world. According to
the informants in this research, the mediation role of Brazil could be a path to
higher status. “There are examples where Brazil has stepped in diplomatically to
try to get a consensus amongst members within the region, where it has tried to
broker peace talks”, argued the CEO of Canning House (UK9). “Brazil has built
a role, at least until now, as a peaceful country, mediator of conflicts, and that
seeks to favor the development of peace in the world”, explained a professor at
the Université Libre de Bruxelles (FR6).
The following section of this paper will contrast these perceived paths for the
increase of the prestige of Brazil with the foreign policies pursued by Bolsonaro
after his inauguration in 2019. The argument is that a lot of what has been
proposed as a new BFP goes against the paths perceived by the FPC of the P5.
Burning the bridges
Many of the different paths suggested by the FPC of the P5 have long been a
part of Brazil’s foreign policy repertoire in its historical attempt to put the state
at the centre of the most important global decisions. After decades of continuity
of the Brazilian foreign policy in the state’s long search for international status,
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economic stability and successful strategies to strengthen the power of Brazil’s
international voice, by 2010 the country was globally perceived as being on the
rise. It is true that national protests erupted across Brazil in 2013, starting to
change this trend, and that political and economic crises would mean a loss to
the international prestige of the country after 2014 (Cervo and Lessa 2014; Zanini
2017; Buarque 2022a; Mares and Trinkunas 2016). But it was the election of
Bolsonaro, in 2018, that promoted unprecedented changes to the foreign policy,
the external perceptions and the status of the country (Buarque 2022b; Carrança
2021; Passarinho 2021).
Bolsonaro’s controversial administration was influenced by a far-right
nationalistic ideology and has attempted to reinvent the traditions of Brazilian
diplomacy (Guimarães and Oliveira E Silva 2021; W. F. H. Chagas-Bastos and
Franzoni 2019; Scherer 2021; Vidigal and Bernal-Meza 2020; Baptista, Bertolucci, and
Diogo 2021; de Freixo 2019; Gonçalves and Teixeira 2020). Since his inauguration,
Bolsonaro challenged the established traditions of the country’s foreign policy
leading to questioning the widely disseminated assumption of the bureaucratic
isolation of Itamaraty and changing Brazil’s conceptions of global politics of
the international community (Baptista, Bertolucci, and Diogo 2021; Lafer 2019;
Castro 2019). He attempted to systematically dismantle the Brazil’s profile as
mediator and negotiator of conflicts and a potential voice for those in the Global
South, trying to undo longstanding diplomatic traditions of multilateralism,
pragmatic and universal relations, and peaceful settlement of disputes (Casarões
and Flemes 2019).
All this transformation was part of the plan of his first minister of Foreign
Relations, Ernesto Araújo, who believed in conspiracy theories of “globalism”
and wanted Brazil to change the course of its international insertion with focus
on nationalism and leaving behind the search for status and going as far as
proposing that it could be acceptable for the country to become an “international
pariah” (Della Coletta 2020; Araújo 2020; Guimarães and Oliveira E Silva 2021).
The results of Bolsonaro’s so-called new BFP have been visibly erratic, at times
incoherent and contradictory (Casarões and Flemes 2019; W. F. H. Chagas-Bastos
and Franzoni 2019). The result has been a loss of the country’s international
status, with the decline of its standing in all international indexes and surveys
about the country’s image (Gonçalves and Teixeira 2020; de Lima and Albuquerque
2019; Passarinho 2021). Within this broader project to ascertain Brazil’s level of
prestige from the perspective of great powers, the FPC of the P5 viewed Brazilian
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diplomacy as being turned upside-down, affecting the position of the country.
The transformation of BFP after the election of Bolsonaro was perceived as a
radical change by observers from great powers. One of the changes that most
surprised informants in discussing the transformation of Brazilian diplomacy
was the reversal of focus from the search for prestige (Buarque 2022b). This is
particularly important because the new BFP appears to go against what the FPC
of the P5 perceive as being the main paths the country could follow in order to
achieve the higher status it historically aspired for.
This paper advances the discussion about the changes in the BFP under
Bolsonaro by addressing how his administration abandoned the traditional
strategies the country had been using to advance its status. Although both the
president and his cabinet often defended a projection that improves the prestige
of the country (Araújo 2020; Bolsonaro 2021), the actions of this administration
appear to have had the opposite effect. This section assesses how Bolsonaro
abandoned these paths seen as the most likely to help increasing the level of
prestige of the country. The analysis shows how Bolsonaro’s foreign policy led
the country away from these paths, in what could be understood as “burning”
all that has been pointed as possible bridges to achieve higher status.
Regional leadership: The regional dimension built within BFP in the past
decades was quickly disrupted by Bolsonaro. As soon asApril 2019 the country
formalized its exit from Unasur. This fact initiated a series of government actions
to include its ideological agenda in bilateral and multilateral relations (Baptista,
Bertolucci, and Diogo 2021). This weakened the role of Brazil within the region,
as it grew apart from nations with leaderships that followed different ideologies
and was not able to be seen in the rest of the world as representing its neighbours.
Not only that, but the changes to BFP broke away from a tradition of non-
involvement in other nation’s domestic matters, especially in the region. The new
direction given to BFP led the country to interfere in the crises in Venezuela and
Bolivia and to take sides in the Argentinian presidential elections, regretting the
victory of Alberto Fernández (Baptista, Bertolucci, and Diogo 2021). Such actions
weakened the role of Brazil within the region and made it difficult for it to use
a supposed leadership in representing South or Latin America in global politics.
Multilateralism, international institutions and BRICS: These three paths
identified by the FPC of the P5 went through profound transformation after Bolsonaro
came to power. Since he became president, he followed Donald Trump’s rhetoric
against international institutions, adopting the anti-globalist narrative.Bolsonaro
Burning bridges: The paths to increase Brazil’s international status and Bolsonaro’s ‘new foreign policy’
Rev. Carta Inter., Belo Horizonte, v. 18, n. 1, e1291, 2023
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diplomacy included a total rejection to the ideal of multipolarity thatdominated
previous administrations (Spektor 2019). This position is justified by the idea
that it is based on an unequal power relationship, and is framed as an ideological
fight against an enemy, as the institutions are seen as supported by globalists
and their left-wing sympathizers (Guimarães and Oliveira E Silva 2021).
This change in the BFP also affected the relations with BRICS. Apart from
the rejection to multilateralism in general, and the strong alliance with the US
under Trump, Brazil drifted away from the other big emerging nations because
one of the main foes selected by the Bolsonaro’s ideology has been China. The
country has been seen as the one of Brazil’s most important ideological rivals
–even though it is Brazil’s number one trading partner (Guimarães and Oliveira
E Silva 2021; Casarões and Flemes 2019). The strong alignment with the US,
however, stopped being an option for the Bolsonaro’s foreign policy ideology
after the election of Joe Biden. The Brazilian described his counterpart as a leftist
globalist and continued to adopt a rhetoric close to the one of Trump (Saxena
and Costa 2020; Chaib 2020; Iglesias 2020).
Professionalism and competence of Itamaraty: Until the rise of Bolsonaro
to power, there was a relative stability in the country’s foreign policy, and it
was believed that Itamaraty was bureaucratically isolated and protected from
political changes in the country (Baptista, Bertolucci, and Diogo 2021). Since
2019, an aggressive conservative agenda was implemented within Itamaraty,
breaking away from its traditional isolation and independence. Once in office,
Araújo challenged Itamaraty’s rigid hierarchical structure and made it play a
new role in Brazil, acting as a political shield to the president domestically and
abroad (F. H. Chagas-Bastos 2019).While Brazilian diplomacy traditionally
sought to be accepted and admired in certain diplomatic circles, under Bolsonaro
it changed position to stand against supranational systems asBolsonaro and
Araújo’s goal was to change what they saw as a globalist conspiracy happening
within traditional Brazilian diplomacy (Guimarães and Oliveira E Silva 2021).
Itamaraty went through an unprecedented bureaucratic reshuffling, excluding
whoever disagreed with the new directives (Casarões and Flemes 2019; de Freixo
2019; de Lima and Albuquerque 2019).
Participation in UN PKOs: With the break in the traditional BFP directives
under the far-right president, the country stood away from multilateralism and
international cooperation, abandoning the defence of universalism and pacifism,
and this had direct effect in the country’s participation in PKOs (Campos 2019).
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Rev. Carta Inter., Belo Horizonte, v. 18, n. 1, e1291, 2023
15-23
The end of Minustah in 2017 started to change the level of presence of the country
in PKOs, but the Bolsonaro administration practically ended any role of Brazil
in these operations. In 2021, for the first time since 2004 Brazil did not have a
robust participation in UN peace missions (Brant and Machado 2020; Godoy 2020).
Brazilian participation dropped 72% in 2020 in terms of number of soldiers, and
the budget for these missions dropped 70%. (Godoy and Beraldo 2020; Brant
and Machado 2020). After the election of Bolsonaro, PKOs were understood by
some in the government as an unnecessary expense, in a moment when it was
more important to focus in a domestic agenda (Campos 2019).
Environmental leadership: The reputation Brazil built over decades was
abandoned by Bolsonaro, who changed the position of Brazil, ordered that the
country should not host another global summit on the environment, oversaw
the deregulation of protection of the natural resources of Brazil and a huge
increase in deforestation and destruction in the Amazon. The situation affected
the perceptions about Brazil and global businesses have threatened to boycott
Brazilian products due to its environmental policy (Ziady 2021). His climate
agenda is marked by scientific denialism and strong enthusiasm for environmental
destruction (Baptista, Bertolucci, and Diogo 2021).
Democracy, development and equality: The fourth largest democracy of
the world has been under threat since the inauguration of Bolsonaro (Human
Rights Watch 2021). The far-right politician raised a campaign to discredit the
national voting system, threatened a military coup and said “only god” would
be able to remove him from power (‘Bolsonaro ameaça o STF de golpe, exorta
a desobediência à Justiça e diz que só sai morto’ 2021). The domestic threats
have created international criticism. France has rejected signing a deal with
Mercosur because of Bolsonaro’s positions (Momtaz and Vela 2019), Joe Biden’s
administration warned against undermining elections in the country (Boadle
2021) and an open letter of political leaders from different parts of the world have
warned for the risks of the country falling into authoritarianism (Wintour 2021).
The election of Bolsonaro constituted the most consequential cycle since the end
of the military dictatorship in the 1980s (Weizenmann 2019). The president has
deeply illiberal inclinations, his discourse was openly authoritarian, constituting
a direct threat to Brazilian democracy (Hunter and Power 2019; Weizenmann
2019). As an elected official, he combined a sense of aggrievement with contempt
for the norms and limits of democracy (Pagliarini 2021). Bolsonaro is associated
with the emergence of a new form of would be autocrat who is democratically
Burning bridges: The paths to increase Brazil’s international status and Bolsonaro’s ‘new foreign policy’
Rev. Carta Inter., Belo Horizonte, v. 18, n. 1, e1291, 2023
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elected but who hollows out democratic rule over time (Daly 2020; Winter 2020;
Weizenmann 2019).
It is true that Bolsonaro’s election marked not the beginning of a democratic
crisis for Brazil, but the punctuation and intensification of a process of decay
that has affected the country’s democratic system for some time, involves far
more actors, and is far more multi-directional and diffuse than simple unilateral
executive action (Hunter and Power 2019; Daly 2020). Still, his style, rhetoric and
illiberal agenda are enough to completely break from the possibility the country
had to use democracy as a path to project international prestige.
Peaceful mediation role: Although this is a controversial path, since Brazil’s
stance in trying to broker a peace deal between Iran and the West and its
position in regards to peace in the Middle East were not recognised as important
enough by great powers (Lampreia 2014), this is an area that was used to project
Brazil, but that has also been changed. Bolsonaro modified this national agenda
and adopted an interventionist and bellicose discourse, both domestically and
internationally. This position is clear in the support for the Israeli government and
in its action towards the Palestinian peoples. It is also evident in the support for
the US actions, under the pretext of that the latter would be defending the West.
Conclusion
Brazilian foreign policy has undergone radical changes since 2019, when
Bolsonaro rose to power, altered the priorities and alignments of Brazil’s
international position, picked fights with historic allies, threatened important
economic relations and affected the way the country is seen in the rest of the
world. This paper contributes to the scholarship about the international status
of Brazil and to the academic research about the impacts of the controversial
Bolsonaro administration to the BFP and to the level of prestige of the country
in the world. Based on a sample of a broader analysis of interviews with the
FPC of the P5, it focused on what these respondents representing the views of
great powers perceive as being the strategies Brazil could use to try to advance
its international status and compared these to the actual policies adopted within
the so-called new BFP under Bolsonaro.
This study argues that Bolsonaro’s administration eroded the main paths
the great powers see as serving for the construction and expansion of Brazil’s
Daniel Buarque
Rev. Carta Inter., Belo Horizonte, v. 18, n. 1, e1291, 2023
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international prestige. The unprecedented changes the president promoted in
BFP either neglected or abandoned the importance of regional leadership in
Latin America, the defence of multilateralism, a strong presence in international
institutions and BRICS, the professionalism tradition of Itamaraty, a strong role
in PKOs, a leadership environmental policy, the defence of democracy, and a
role in mediation of international conflicts.
This analysis is an excerpt of a more detailed study about the status of Brazil
from the perspective of great powers. It focuses on the paths these powerful
nations see as appropriate for Brazil to build its global prestige. This paper fills
a gap in the literature about international status by focusing on the perception
elites in powerful nations have about how a country can climb the stratification
of international society. It is also an important contribution to the developing
scholarship about the impacts of the Bolsonaro administration to Brazil and its
relations to the rest of the world.
The study has limited scope, however, since it is based on a small-n qualitative
study and may not tell a complete story about the perceptions of Brazil. At the
same time, it is based on interview data collected in the first months of Bolsonaro’s
administration and is not able to fully grasp the perceptions the FPC of the P5
have about him.
Further research can develop a more complete analysis about the perceptions
of the transformation of Brazil by conducting further interviews with elite
policymakers in these powerful nations about Brazil. It will also be important
to continue the study to assess the long-term impacts of the changes discussed
in this paper. With Bolsonaro’s defeat and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s election
in 2022, a new government promised to return BFP to its traditional path, and
it will be important to understand how difficult this may be after four years of
bridges being burned.
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