Brazil on the rise... pelo menos na RBPI

Todo mundo adora um sucesso, e não é o governo que iria desmentir essa premissa. Tudo o que ele fez foi bem sucedido, inclusive na área externa, ou seja, na diplomacia. Não são os acadêmicos que vão discordar,...

Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

O Instituto Brasileiro de Relações Internacionais – IBRI tem a satisfação de anunciar o lançamento da edição especial da Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional – RBPI intitulada “Emerging Brazil under Lula: an assessment on International Relations (2003-2010)”.

O objetivo central deste número é apresentar um grande painel da ação internacional do Brasil ao longo dos últimos oito anos. Compõem a edição especial os seguintes artigos:

Editorial: An Assessment of the Lula Era, por Amado Luiz Cervo & Antônio Carlos Lessa
Brazil’s Rise on the International Scene: Brazil and the World, por Amado Luiz Cervo
Brazilian External Sector so far in the 21st century, por Renato Baumann
Brazil and the Economic, Political, and Environmental Multilateralism: the Lula years, por Paulo G. Fagundes Visentini & André Luiz Reis da Silva
When emergent countries reform global governance of climate change: Brazil under Lula, por Ana Flávia Barros-Platiau
Security issues during Lula’s administration: from the reactive to the assertive approach, por Rafael Antonio Duarte Villa & Manuela Trindade Viana
Brazil’s strategic partnerships: an assessment of the Lula era (2003-2010), por Antônio Carlos Lessa
A New Strategic Dialogue:  Brazil-US Relations in Lula’s Presidency (2003-2010), por Cristina Soreanu Pecequilo
Brazilian foreign policy towards South America during the Lula Administration: caught between South America and Mercosur, por Miriam Gomes Saraiva
The new Africa and Brazil in the Lula era: The rebirth of Brazilian Atlantic Policy, por José Flávio Sombra Saraiva
Emerging Global Partnership: Brazil and China, por Niu Haibin
International Thought in the Lula Era, por Raúl Bernal-Meza
Brazilian Foreign Policy under President Lula (2003-2010): an overview, por Celso Amorim

O número especial pode ser adquirido na Loja do IBRI.

Editorial da Edição Especial da RBPI – Emerging Brazil under Lula: an assessment on International Relations (2003-2010), por Amado Luiz Cervo & Antônio Carlos Lessa

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2010) has kept Brazil open to the international economy and promoted internal economic development and social inclusion. He has worked toward the overcoming of the inequalities among nations and the elimination of hunger in the world; and has intensified the harmony between the State and social leaders to whom he has delegated power and responsibilities regarding development. He endured the criticism of the opposition, used for decades to lambasting foreign policy and, in Lula’s case, some concessions made to the Workers Party as mere allegories. As a matter of fact, Lula has achieved significant external results in important sectors for national life and failed in others. South America, his priority project, occupies a middle ground.

To make South America into a power pole supported by a solid economic base, political unity, and security autonomy is a Brazilian project that dates back to previous governments but which has been assigned priority by Lula. A series of circumstances turned this project from a high priority into a low priority in the 21th century. The South American countries have promoted institutionalization, with the establishment of UNASUR in 2008. In general, they have preserved the political intent but have created different national arrangements and became dispersed among different models of participation in the international scene. Major energy and infrastructure projects have not materialized. With the passing of time, Lula has let know that Brazil’s locus is the world, without however allowing this global dimension of external action to result in a distancing from South America.

Lula’s diplomacy has met with two failures. At the WTO it failed to achieve the desired global agreement on free trade that would favor our national interests, given Brazil’s higher competitiveness at a systemic level. In addition, the effort to make part of the global power club, especially of the Security Council, was an attempt that earned some rhetoric support but yielded no actual result. It will be up to the next government to rethink these two lines of external action – foreign trade policy and admission to the power club.

On three other fronts – the most relevant for the promotion of national interests –  Lula has achieved remarkable success, which makes it advisable for the next government not only to maintain but also to reinforce these lines of external action.

First, the internationalization of the Brazilian economy. Of the BRIC countries, Lula’s Brazil has stood out as the most internationalized economy, either as a recipient of foreign enterprises or direct foreign investments or owing to the outward expansion of Brazilian companies and investments. This represents a jump in historic quality toward a mature process of development and of the country’s participation in the international scene.

Secondly, with conviction and even with bold initiatives, Lula has promoted the negotiation of international conflicts. This conflict solution strategy is a novelty, given the intensity with which it is conducted by Brazilian and Chinese diplomacy, not to mention UNASUR. It is the opposite of NATO’s strategy of dealing with conflicts through the violence of sanctions or intervention, which has governed international relations since World War II and should be replaced for the sake of peace.

Thirdly, Lula has promoted coalitions among emerging countries that have demanded and achieved the shifting of the axis of the international system characterized by the old North-South asymmetry toward a new North-Emerging Countries symmetry. The time is past when the decision-making power in international relations was restricted to the understanding among a few developed powers, which was then proposed to the others as a possible consensus.

This special issue we offer our readers examines and looks deeper into these and other aspects of Brazil’s international relations in the 21th century.