The liberal advance

Political thought and foreign policy in the Brazilian regency (1831-1837)

Abstract

This article analyzes the changes in Brazilian political thought and foreign policy that
occurred between 1831, the date of Emperor Pedro I’s abdication, and 1837, a moment
marked by the beginning of the conservative regress. We will argue that the centralization
of foreign policy formulation and the prevalence of the monarchical principle observed
in the First Reign were reversed in the decentralizing direction of the state apparatus,
whose results, in the diplomatic field, allowed Parliament’s control of foreign policy
matters. It was a period marked by exacerbated criticism of Pedro I’s foreign policy and
by the widespread enchantment of Pan-Americanism, the latter unrealized in the face of
circumstantial concreteness.