Sentimento de desgosto e de repulsa - Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Nota posterior (22/10/2024): Lula não foi a Kazan, por um acidente médico. Sua ida teria sido desastrosa para a diplomacia brasileira, para a postura do Brasil no mundo, identificado que estaria sendo com os poderes revisionistas da ordem global. Em 1939-41, tínhamos Oswaldo Aranha, um grande diplomata, para evitar a caminhada para o desastre (como a Argentina). Agora o que temos? (PRA) Como diplomata, estou perfeitamente horrorizado - e suponho que meus colegas também estejam - de ver Lula apertando alegremente a mão de um violador da Carta da ONU, saudando um assassino de civis, conversando simpaticamente com um sequestrador de crianças, um criminoso de guerra confirmado. Acredito que cada um dos meus colegas diplomatas profissionais deva se sentir terrivelmente enojado ao contemplar os efluvios de amizade do presidente brasileiro com um terrorista em escala global. Triste para a diplomacia! Como sempre, assino embaixo do que escrevo. Paulo Roberto de Almeida Brasília, 19/10/2024

Milei quer que todos os diplomatas defendam suas posições malucas - Brenda Struminger (InfoBae)

Extraordinário Milei. 

Bolsonaro não chegou a tanto, mas o atual assessor internacional de Lula, assim que assumiu como chanceler de Lula, em 2003, pediu que os diplomatas “vestissem a camisa” do governo. 

Muitos o fizeram. 

Essa gente confunde o serviço do Estado, ou da nação, com o seu próprio e medíocre governo. PRA

 

 Milei le exigió a todo el cuerpo diplomático que se alinee con la política exterior del Gobierno o renuncie 

En un documento oficial inédito, el Presidente se dirige a todos los funcionarios del Ministerio y a los representantes en el exterior, a través de la canciller Mondino, para conminarlos a que “den un paso al costado” si no están de acuerdo con la doctrina libertaria. Recientemente había echado al vicecanciller y al representante ante la ONU 

Brenda Struminger 

InfoBae, 19/10/2024 

 Luego de remover a Ricardo Lagorio de la representación argentina ante la ONU y a Leopoldo Sahores del cargo de vicecanciller de Diana Mondino, Javier Milei le envió un duro e inédito mensaje a todo el cuerpo diplomático, donde les exige a aquellos que no estén de acuerdo la política exterior del Gobierno que renuncien a sus cargos. Lo hizo a través de una nota dirigida, uno por uno, a todos los representantes y funcionarios de la Cancillería. La nota salió directamente de la Casa Rosada, con los nombres de más de 400 miembros de la Cancillería, con copia a la ministra de Relaciones Exteriores. El Presidente le pide expresamente que les haga llegar la exigencia “a la totalidad de los funcionarios y personal de su jurisdicción, así como el personal diplomático y civil del Servicio Exterior de la Nación”. La funcionaria había estado ayer en la Casa Rosada, reunida con el asesor del jefe de Estado, Santiago Caputo. En el texto es dedicadamente elogiada por el Presidente, que le agradece su labor a pesar de que durante la mayor parte de este año Mondino fue duramente cuestionada por la cúpula del Gobierno. Al punto de que la secretaria Karina Milei envió a una funcionaria propia, Úrsula Basset, para que interviniera la cartera. Milei hizo lo propio al nombrar como secretario de Culto a un hombre propio, Nahuel Sotelo, que se puso al frente de la cruzada con los funcionarios y diplomáticos de línea. En la nota, donde están citados cientos de funcionarios y diplomáticos con sus nombres y apellidos y los lugares que ocupan, Milei cita un fragmento de su discurso ante la Asamblea General ONU, hace dos semanas, donde cuestionó la Agenda 2030, llamada ahora “Pacto por el Futuro”. “No es otra cosa que un programa de gobierno supranacional de corte socialista que pretende resolver los problemas de la modernidad con soluciones que atentan contra la soberanía de los estados-nación, y violentan el derecho a la vida, a la libertad y a la propiedad de las personas”, dice. En ese momento, Lagorio, que había actuado en contra de los lineamientos libertarios, aún estaba en el cargo. Días después fue reemplazado, una señal en la línea del comunicado enviado hoy al resto de los diplomáticos. En su explicación, Milei agrega que esta nueva doctrina implica, por definición, “que ningún funcionario de esta administración ni quienes representan a la Argentina en el exterior deben acompañar ninguna iniciativa (que vaya en contra) de valores que son pilares de esta nueva administración”. Y al final, conmina al cuerpo diplomático, con claridad, a renunciar en caso de que no estén alineados con los lineamientos de la política exterior libertaria: “Quienes no se encuentren en condiciones de asumir los desafíos que depara el rumbo adoptado en defensa de las ideas de la libertad, deberán dar un paso al costado”. Hace tiempo que en la Casa Rosada mastican bronca contra los funcionarios y diplomáticos de línea, al punto de que un importante funcionario había dicho, off the record, hace dos semanas, que consideraba que “son todos comunistas”. Ya entonces cerca de Milei manifestaban intenciones de deshacerse de aquellos que no estuvieran alineados con sus ideas, pero sopesaban maneras de avanzar. Además de los despidos, la carta enviada por el sistema GEDE a todas las casillas de correo de los mencionados diplomáticos es otro paso en ese sentido. La carta fue discutida ayer a media tarde en la mencionada reunión en el despacho de Santiago Caputo en Balcarce 50, con Mondino, Sotelo, el asesor en comunicación Juan Carreira -mano derecha del poderoso asesor, mejor conocido en redes como “Juan Doe”- y Caspar Sprungli, que acaba de reemplazar a Federico Bartfeld como jefe de Gabinete del ministerio. Aunque en realidad, había sido gestada para discutir los pasos a seguir tras el reemplazo de Sahores. La Cancillería es un hervidero desde hace meses. Tras el desembarco de Basset y de Sotelo, el vicecanciller Sahores fue sido echado para ubicar en el cargo a un miembro de PRO, Eduardo Bustamante, que trabajó en las filas de Patricia Bullrich durante el macrismo. Y poco antes había ocurrido lo propio con Lagorio, que fue obligado a renunciar a su rol en Nueva York frente a Naciones Unidas. Pero más allá de las internas, también está latente la fuerte disputa por el impuesto a las Ganancias, que se prolonga largamente entre las autoridades de la cartera y los funcionarios y diplomáticos, y llegó a la Justicia. Ahora el Gobierno está a la expectativa de una resolución dirima la la disputa. Mientras tanto, hay un incipiente conflicto por una medida de recorte de gastos en concepto de traslados, que es fuertemente resistida en las distintas líneas del ministerio y, sobre todo, en las embajadas. Mientras crece el malestar, en en la Casa Rosada y en los cargos jerárquicos redoblan la apuesta. Y esta noche, el secretario de Culto se encargó de contar en sus redes sociales que acababa de colgar la resolución de Milei en la puerta de su oficina.

Why Nobelists Fail - Sanjay G Reddy

Why Nobelists Fail Posted on October 16, 2024 by Sanjay G Reddy When I first encountered the ideas central to the winners of this year’s three Nobel Prize in Economics[2] around two and a half decades ago I was startled. The excessive economy of their framework for understanding a complex global reality combined with a set of premises that looked starkly ideological. Despite the time that has passed, the reams that have been written, and the imprimatur these ideas have now received, these charges remain pertinent. The point of view of the authors remains narrowly focused – even fixated – on property rights, seeing them as defining inclusive economic institutions[3] and as underpinning inclusive political institutions[4], the coupled concepts at the center of their understanding of Why Nations Fail, the sizable volume in which two of the authors elaborated and extended their view.[5] It is understandable that this perspective enjoys a resonance among property holders and enthusiasts, both in the economic discipline and more broadly in society, as it is reflection of a common sense that prevails in such quarters, but it provides an inadequate guide to understanding either democracy or development. This is because property rights play a more complex role in both phenomena than they acknowledge. Their view is ahistorical. It misses essential aspects of the colonial experience (such as the impact of ethnic and racial prejudices and solidarities based on the global color line) and its resulting legacies. It also misunderstands the sources of success of rising nations in the contemporary world, such as the role of developmental states. I had been interested in political economy, and in particular the role of institutions, as a way of understanding the economics of development – and the world at large – more deeply, throughout my student years. As did many others, I had drunk deeply at the well of available knowledge, ingesting tracts on social conflict as it affects inflation and other economic outcomes, about how states are captured by particular interests, the economic causes and consequences of colonialism and imperialism, the role of norms, customs and conflict in shaping the use of shared resources, the political and social underpinnings of economic innovation, and many other topics. The enormous range of writings on institutions and economic life was by economic and social historians, political scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, legal scholars and some economists too, especially those writing outside of the mainstream (running a gamut from the leftist French “regulation school” to the libertarian Virginia school of political economy). It was not unwelcome that well-positioned mainstream economists, sitting at the institutional apex of the discipline, would be interested in these topics, but what was one to make of their reductionistic approach? Many of the writings I had digested did have the unhelpful view that ‘It is complicated’ and a simple framework that cut through the fog would have its appeal – but could such a perspective in fact be offered while respecting facts about the world? The Good, the Bad, and the Propertied Building on the work of an earlier Nobel Prize winner in Economics, Douglass North, who had also emphasized that property rights protections are the elixir of growth, these authors did the same. [No matter that soon after winning the prize, and indeed in his very Nobel Prize lecture, North went on to adjust his message[6]]. But they added more. Not only were property rights protections what brought about prosperity, but the explanation for whether these protections existed – blithely summarized as ‘good institutions’ – was whether they had been successfully transplanted from elsewhere. In their places of origin – in Europe – these good institutions had been chanced upon or developed, and maintained, for their combination of wealth generating properties – as North had argued – and their political appeal; particularly because the wealth that was allegedly widely distributed by ‘inclusive economic institutions’ was in turn protected by ‘inclusive political institutions’.[7] These good institutions were not transplanted everywhere, we were told, and this is what explained subsequent variation in economic performance. Then what accounted for where they were successfully transplanted? It came down to another splendid explanatory economy: whether a sufficient number of colonists had arrived on the scene, and further, been able to establish themselves as a dominant force, by beating back natives and disease. They had been able to do this in the temperate regions of the world with few and unpowerful indigenous people but not in the tropical regions teeming with inconvenient natives too numerous to be fully displaced or subordinated. In the latter, the colonial power settled for a more ‘’extractive” mode instead. This made the difference between the countries with ‘good institutions’ – settler colonies such as Australia, Canada or the US – and those with ‘bad institutions’ (all the others among those countries which had been directly or indirectly colonized)[8]. The mortality rates of European colonizers were both a direct explanation and an indirect indicator[9] of success in transplanting good institutions. The great “natural experiment” of colonialism (not so easy to see it as such from the perspective of the colonized!), mediated by settler mortality and native population sizes, was seen as a way to learn about how institutions affect development[10]. The authors have made other arguments but this is their earliest and remains the most widely known. The idea of extractive institutions certainly captured something important, although it was not in itself especially original. Theorists of development known to readers of the political economy of development (and cited to a very limited extent by the authors) had long pointed out that the mining and plantation-centered economies of Southern Africa and of Latin America, for instance, retained central economic patterns which were legacies of colonialism, maintained for their own reasons by postcolonial elites[11]. More recently, the idea of the resource curse had come into currency. Earlier authors had also long emphasized that colonies came in different kinds, in particular including privileged ‘mini-Europes’ and disprivileged others, the former containing citizens and the latter subjects[12]. Then what of this thesis was original, and was what was original also good[13]? Ties of Blood and Water Those many years ago, my first reaction was simple. In all of their statistical exercises involving the burden of disease for white settlers in the tropics, treated as a proxy for the (lack of) ability to establish good institutions, had they omitted a crucial insight which was right in front of them? As any student of statistics as applied to economics, or econometrics, knows, the use of the correct variables in ‘specifying’ the statistical test being done is quite essential, and applying the right interpretation to the variables one employs is equally important. I was tempted to call this omitted variable, ‘Kith and Kin’ (i.e. of the citizens of the European colonizer or ‘home country’). This variable would take on a value of one if a sufficiently large proportion of the population in a given colony belonged to this select category and zero otherwise. It is well known, after all, that for centuries large numbers of migrants left the British Isles and other places in Europe to settle elsewhere in the British Empire, and similarly in the case of some other European colonizers. These included not only the working classes but also at times the second and third sons of the affluent. Emigration provided a vital outlet for European workers in a time of demographic expansion and helped avert conflict at home by providing material opportunities as well as a chance to partake in the symbolic goods of imperialism including its racial order. Would it be at all a surprise if these ties of blood and culture led to ongoing benefits for the descendant populations? Already in the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith had discussed the appropriate attitude of the mother country toward settler colonies as being that of a nurturing parent to a child[14]. This variable would presumably be strongly correlated with the mortality of European settlers (with those places having higher mortality also ultimately having fewer people of European descent) and with the original population of natives (as a larger population of natives would presumably also lead to there being an ultimately smaller proportion of European descent)[15]. As a result, an analysis including this variable would have similar results as found by the authors, but a very different interpretation: the outsized successes of the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ peoples could be perceived as being due to blood being thicker than water, and not ‘good institutions’. Indeed, even without re-running the statistical analysis with this new variable one might simply reinterpret the existing analysis along these lines. It is not for nothing that Winston Churchill wrote a History of the English-Speaking Peoples which focused on those tied by race as well as language, or for which reason such figures as Andrew Carnegie (in his day) and Conrad Black or Boris Johnson (in ours) speak of their political kinship. It is also well-known that in the British Empire – and similarly in the other colonial empires too, such as the French and the Portuguese – a system of Imperial Preference provided explicit benefits in the form of lower tariffs and other supports to the self-governing dominion overseas populated overwhelmingly by the descendants of British settlers – benefits which were denied to other subordinated colonies, which were handled in a mode of extraction instead of ‘co-prosperity’. The privileged British Dominions settled by kith and kin were, with the United States, the largest recipients of British overseas investment (in considerable measure financed by the proceeds of colonial enterprises elsewhere, because of their foreign exchange earnings from exports of tropical products to the rest of the world, which for Britain itself had begun to wane) during the nineteenth century. The various racial preferences that structured economic life, not only between different colonies but also within them, were extensive and have been well-documented. Viewing the findings of the authors in terms of kith and kin, then, might seem to offer an alternative interpretation of the outperformance of those settler colonies that were not ‘burdened’ by diseases and natives. In short, the countries with ‘good institutions’ are those that the dominant powers of the age treated well and set off to a good start because of their special relationships with their kith and kin, while those with ‘bad institutions’ are those that they subjected to depredations or to varying degrees of underinvestment and benign neglect, because their primary use was to be pillaged; with the few kith and kin who remained there gaining benefits from being at the helm of an exclusionary and oligarchic structure. These countries also inherited political and institutional orders that remained oriented toward the management of subject populations rather than toward true self-governance by citizens[16]. The idea that it is ‘good institutions’ and ‘bad institutions’ (defined by property rights protections) that matter is – in this reading – a false inference, with Kith and Kin being the more relevant explanatory factor. Whereas the former interpretation places the emphasis entirely on internal causes the latter recognizes that international economic relations played an important role in determining the possibilities for growth and development, and that these were structured in racially preferential ways[17]. The failure to consider a kith and kin interpretation is only one example of the authors’ fast and loose, uneven, and baldly ideological[18], approach to concepts and to history. What Really Works: Property Rights Pragmatism The definition and protection of private property rights within an Anglo-Saxon framework of law[19] seems to have been neither necessary nor sufficient for sustained economic growth. The most outstanding examples of countries that have escaped the economic periphery and moved toward the core of the world economy in recent years are the East Asian late developing economies. There, property rights, while often respected, were also maintained as ill-defined in order to be strategically manipulable by a developmental state (this is as much true of China today as it was of South Korea and Japan earlier). Even in the Anglo-Saxon derived countries, it is widely understood that private property may become an obstacle to economic growth and other public aims, for which reason it is accepted that a state may use eminent domain to construct vital infrastructure such as roads or dams. The locking up of ideas in the form of ‘intellectual property rights’ enforced by patents, copyrights and other means have also rightly come in for much criticism in recent years, and it is well understood even by mainstream economics that these generate sizable costs to society, by making useful goods and services unavailable to those who could benefit from them, and by damaging further innovation that builds upon the existing stock of ideas[20]. Successful former British colonies that have seemingly embraced property rights protections have also selectively deviated from property rights orthodoxy in order to address particular challenges (for instance, in the case of Hong Kong and Singapore, restricting private land ownership rights to ensure availability of housing). It would seem, even within a perspective that accords importance to property rights, that property rights pragmatism – and neither property rights maximalism nor absolutism – enable development, by providing a balance between protections and exceptions, and by structuring rights in pragmatic and sensible ways. Exclusionary Inclusion Perhaps the worst example of the authors’ inverted approach to concepts is that they describe the property rights-entrenching economies that they favor as ‘inclusive’, by way of contrast to resource-centered ‘extractive’ economies. But the existence or enforceability of property rights by themselves do not in themselves ensure inclusivity. Far from it. A property-owning democracy (as the philosopher John Rawls put it, drawing on the ideas of the British economist James Meade) with widely distributed ownership, along the lines envisioned in the early American republic, and drawing on English utopian ideals, is as different as night from day when compared with a plutocratic oligarchy. Many of the settler colonies that established robust private land ownership did so in a manner that permanently denied rights to land to the native inhabitants who had previously lived upon and benefited from it, in order to create land holdings of often enormous scale. These inequalities in turn have structured inequalities in an ongoing manner. This is as much true in Britain – where today’s still highly unequal landholdings have ancient provenance, and continue to have an impact on modern inequalities – as it is elsewhere, in its former colonies, both privileged and disprivileged. To assert, without qualification, that property rights protections are the basis of an ‘inclusive’ economy is to speak in a manner that borders on the positively Orwellian. And what of ‘inclusive’ political systems? It should be noted that it was only in the Dominions privileged by their racial kinship with the mother country that self-governance and wide franchise existed within the colonial world, and there too after in some cases lengthy negotiations. In all of the other colonies, on the other side of the global color line, political power was jealously guarded and doled out slowly, fitfully, and limitedly[21]. Where (almost everywhere) political systems established under colonialism were not ‘inclusive’ that is primarily because there were too many and too restless a group of natives who had to be excluded, in order to maintain the political and therefore the economic supremacy of the settlers. In the privileged settler colonies, in which the natives were – or came to be, at times due to murderous or even genocidal actions – small in number, and which natives’ traditional rights were extinguished by fiat, an ‘inclusive’ political system could be established without sacrificing settler privileges. The count of the natives was too small for them to count. Inclusivity was made possible by prior exclusion. If this was inclusivity, then, it was frequently the inclusivity of the desert[22]. That inclusive political institutions (including in particular democracy) have many advantages, such as providing a framework for the management of internal conflicts, is not in doubt, and has long been recognized, and is one of the main reasons for its origination and widespread adoption. But such inclusion has a complex history, in which the claims of property owners have at times driven a demand for what we have later come to see as democratic claims (as in the case of the Magna Carta) and which have sometimes led in a contrary direction (which is one reason why many defenders of property have sought to constitutionally protect it from the reach of democracy[23]). The idea that all good things go together is central to the authors’ perspective. But their conception of the good things is unusually narrow and does not permit a recognition of the tensions that exist between the different aspects of ‘good institutions’, as they themselves describe them. It is wholly plausible, although not original, to argue that inclusive economic systems and inclusive political systems enjoy a complementarity (or to use an earlier language, an elective affinity). What is less plausible – although it is decidedly original – is to give priority to property rights in defining and interpreting these terms. Conclusion: The Good and the Original Even if one sees widely distributed property rights as a guarantor of liberty and of sustainable political inclusion (as did early republicans in America and elsewhere) there is the question of how best to attain and to sustain them. Entrenching property rights in law can be as harmful as it can be advantageous, as it may threaten to freeze a highly unequal, unjust and plausibly also inefficient, order in place. Much depends upon the specific conditions that obtain. The case of concentrated land holdings deriving directly from the exclusionary acts of settler colonialists provides a particular case of the more general problem. The ongoing impact of historical injustices calls out for some correction, with it being plausibly argued that efficiency as well as equity can thereby be advanced, at least if the corrective is designed and implemented carefully. It is no accident that land reforms and calls for wider land rights, especially but not exclusively for indigenous people, have been a central political demand in many countries[24]. But in such a case, the property rights of some are likely to have to be weakened or qualified in order for property for others, or rights more generally, to be secured. The maxim of property protections uber alles hardly serves societies well. It may be objected that this was not what is intended. In that case, there is a need for a more adequately calibrated theory of how and when property rights of different kinds matter, and why. Being for or against property rights is as silly as being for or against culture[25]. As welcome as it is to try to cut through the fog, the question must be more nuanced than that. What arrangements of rights work best for specific purposes is an important question. But reducing it to one of whether institutions ‘matter,’ where institutions are largely reduced to property rights protections, and in turn run together with ‘inclusivity’, seems primarily an ideological act, and an evasion of the responsibility adequately to understand the world, let alone to change it. Why does a hypothesis phrased in a simplistic way enjoy such influence? There are many explanations. Under-complicated framings (e.g. geography matters vs. institutions matter) derive from the scientistic[26] atmosphere of mainstream economics. The fact that the prevailing, and indeed the most appealing, hypotheses, may be the products of intellectual or cultural prejudices and blinders do not come in for much self-inspection. The ideas gain influence because they are produced by insiders, who are legitimated by their place in apex institutions, giving them a bullhorn, helping to disseminate the ideas widely[27], and garnering for them a presumption of authority and legitimacy. And they are enabled by a prevailing supposition – not wholly without justification – that property rights protections are of great importance in encouraging good husbanding, investment, and entrepreneurship. Is there a lesson? “It’s complicated” is not enough, but neither is, “It’s simple”. Occam’s Razor has much to recommend it, but so does the maxim attribute to Einstein: a framework for understanding “should be as simple as possible, but not simpler”[28]. It is good form to credit the winners of an award with an achievement. But the problem is that the Nobel Prize in Economics generates an implied hierarchy of knowledge, and rewards particular ways of thinking.[29] This in turn has great consequence for what ideas are spread and adopted, within the discipline and in the world at large – a world needing answers. For this reason, it is too important to ignore. REFERENCES Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson (2001), “The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation.” American Economic Review, 91 (5): 1369–1401. Albooy, David Y. (2008), “The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Investigation of the Settler Mortality Data”, NBER Working Paper 14130. Acemoglu, Daron and James Robinson (2012), Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, New York: Crown Business. Mamdani, Mahmood (1996). Citizen and Subject, Princeton: Princeton University Press. [1] Sanjay G. Reddy, Professor of Economics, The New School for Social Research, New York. This version: October 16th, 2024, 215 pm. [2] Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson. I am most grateful to Imraan Coovadia for commenting helpfully on an earlier draft and to Kannan Srinivasan for a helpful reference. [3] The proclaimed effects and the descriptive features are often run together: “Inclusive economic institutions, such as those in South Korea or in the United States, are those that allow and encourage participation by the great mass of people in economic activities that make best use of their talents and skills and that enable individuals to make the choices they wish. To be inclusive, economic institutions must feature secure private property, an unbiased system of law, and a provision of public services that provides a level playing field in which people can exchange and contract; it also must permit the entry of new businesses and allow people to choose their careers” (Acemoglu and Robinson (2012), pp. 74-75). The first sentence refers to desired effects rather than the features of institutions that might be hypothesized to lead to those effects. The second sentence, focused entirely on market freedoms and largely on property rights, does describe such features. [4] “We will refer to political institutions that are sufficiently centralized and pluralistic as inclusive political institutions. When either of these conditions fails, we will refer to the institutions as extractive political institutions” (Acemoglu and Robinson (2012), p. 81). This description suggests that “inclusive political institutions” are those that have a degree of democratic character. [5] It is interesting to note that neither concept appears in Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson (2001). The word “inclusive” appears nowhere in the main text. In contrast, the phrase “property rights” appears 205 times. Ahmet Tonak has pointed out to me that ‘It is also interesting to note that the ratio of usage of the terms “inclusive” to “property rights” is reversed in the 2012 book: from 0/205 to 158/64 (excluding the references in the Index).’ [6] Having argued that the promotion of aggregate national wealth through robust protection of private property rights was the central reason for particular institutions to emerge or to prevail over time, he proceeded – perhaps recognizing that the excessive economy of this view was factually unsustainable and a conceptual embarrassment – to acknowledge the role of diverse other factors. See: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1993/north/lecture/ . Even within a mainstream economics repertoire of concepts, factors causing a multiplicity of ‘equilibria’ to be possible in the game of institutional choice, or for a non-wealth-maximizing institutional outcome to prevail, might include the presence of objectives other than wealth maximization, collective action problems, commitment problems, transactions costs, path dependence, norms and culture, uncertainty, behavioral and perceptual imperfections, etc. [7] Quite apart from the marvelous certainty that all good things start in Europe, the heroic classificatory economy of this scheme is part of what predictably generates a (to say the least) sceptical reaction among people exposed to a richer institutional literature or having direct experience and knowledge of the post-colonial and the non-Western worlds. [8] A correlative finding was that some European colonizers were better to have been colonized by than others, because their own institutions differed in quality, leading in turn to different quality institutions bequeathed to their spawn. The British had the best institutions, with the Belgians, French, Spanish and so on having inferior ones. [One could be forgiven for thinking that this is a rather Monty Pythonesque view of the world]. See e.g. Table 4 and related discussion in https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w7771/w7771.pdf [9] Enabling it to be used statistically as an instrumental variable. [10] “Speaking from Athens, Greece, after the prize was announced, Acemoglu said the trio’s work could best be summarised as the study of the “natural experiment” created by colonialism”: https://www.ft.com/content/128ef2f6-1343-4e56-be51-8306a44c22c8 [11] This insight was central to the work of dependency and world systems theorists in particular, e.g. Andre Gunder Frank, Paul Baran, and Immanuel Wallerstein, as well as those in marxian influenced third wordlist scholarship generally, e.g. Amiya Kumar Bagchi. These scholars also saw the insertion of the developing countries into an unequal world order which maintained their subordinate position as resource exporters in the international division of labor as being central to a description. In this framework, the relevant causal factors were not only internal but also external. [12] But we knew it already, in our bones. [13] “It is both good and original, but is what is good original and is what is original good?”. See e.g.: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/06/17/good-original/ [14] Smith had in mind particularly what became the United States. In this discussion, Smith drew on his understanding of the experience of the ancient Greek colonies in the Mediterranean. [15] The mortality data have come in for serious criticism, e.g. by Albooy (2008), who has suggested that much of the data relates to groups such as soldiers and does not provide a direct source of information on the mortality rates faced by settlers as such, and seriously undermining the statistical results. It should be noted that a response was presented by Acemoglu, Robinson and Johnson. [16] This is evident, for instance, in the relative underdevelopment of municipal government and public goods provision generally, and the relative overdevelopment of police forces and armies in many such countries, visible at independence and continuing to this day. Hamza Alavi was one of the first to identify this point. See also, more recently, e.g. Mahmood Mamdani (1996). The theme is a widespread and longstanding one in the literature on colonialism. [17] Being one manifestation of what Nancy Fraser, following W.E.B. Du Bois, has referred to recently as the ‘global color line’. [18] Andre Gunder Frank might have used the formulation, ‘metropolitan’, to refer to the Eurocentric and Northern biases that are involved. [19] The authors appear to have in mind (although they do not elaborate on this) a Blackstonian concept of law and not a Hohfeldian one, which would allow for a broader interpretation of how property rights can be defined and distributed. For instance, many traditional societies (including England’s) had recognized distributed rights to land, e.g. distinct but overlapping rights for grazers and cultivators. The supplantation of these richer understandings embedded in norms, with a view of land as owned by one person in whom would be vested all rights and signified by a deed, was not the ‘establishment’ of property rights but their conversion into a new form (and often, in fact, an outright expropriation, as in the case of the Enclosures in England). Similar processes took place in all European settler colonies. Such expropriation and conversion was central to the creation of inequalities in land everywhere, and in particular in former colonies. [20] Another winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, Joseph Stiglitz, has been a consistent and eloquent advocate of this view. See also, e.g. the work of Gene Grossman and Elhanan Helpman on innovation and growth in the global economy. [21] The lengthy and painful process by which political rights for ‘natives’ were expanded, and only ever to a limited extent, in British India provides one important example. [22] “They make a desert and call it peace” [Tacitus]. See also: https://www.econlib.org/archives/2011/06/tacitus_peace_a.html . [23] As elaborated in the writings of James Buchanan, Gordon Tullock and other members of the Virginia School, drawing also on the writings of Austrians such as Friedrich Hayek. [24] The importance of land reforms in generating political stability and creating conditions for subsequent agricultural and educational development has been surprisingly widely recognized in the past, and not only on the part of left-wing advocates (e.g. by late Tsarist Russia, and by the US occupying authorities in Japan and Korea). [25] Amartya Sen has recalled being asked by a member of an audience in Switzerland, ‘Do you like culture?’. He reports responding ‘yes’ before fully realizing how absurd the question was. [26] Scientism refers to the image without the actuality of scientific endeavor. See the relevant writings of Friedrich Hayek, Mary Midgley and others. [27] From N to A as it were…from the National Bureau of Economic Research to the American Economic Review. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/05/13/einstein-simple/ [29] For an earlier comment on the Nobel Prize in economics, see https://reddytoread.com/2018/10/08/beyond-the-aura-the-nobel-prize-in-economics/

Zelenskiy’s 'victory plan' to EU, NATO - Andrew Gray

Ukraine's Zelenskiy to pitch 'victory plan' to EU, NATO By Andrew Gray Reuters, October 16, 202411:42 PM Summary Ukrainian leader takes blueprint to Brussels Plan includes call for NATO invitation Kyiv's key allies have not endorsed plan so far Moscow says Ukraine needs to 'sober up' BRUSSELS, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy takes his "victory plan" to the European Union and NATO on Thursday, pitching for a NATO membership invitation and a major increase in military support for Kyiv's campaign against Russia's invasion. Zelenskiy's plan contains requests that Ukraine's allies have so far declined to grant, such as a call for an invitation to join the U.S.-led NATO military alliance and permission to use Western weapons to strike deep inside Russia. Zelenskiy presented the plan to Ukraine's parliament on Wednesday at a critical time, as Moscow's forces advance in the east, a bleak winter of power cuts looms and a U.S. presidential election casts uncertainty over the future of Western support. On Thursday, he brings the plan, which he said could end the war "no later than next year", to a summit of European Union leaders and a meeting of NATO defence ministers, both in Brussels. He has already presented the five-point blueprint, which Zelenskiy said has three secret annexes, to key Western leaders such as U.S. President Joe Biden. While voicing strong support for Kyiv, none has given the plan a full-throated endorsement. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said on Wednesday the plan represented "a strong signal" from Zelenskiy but added: "That doesn't mean that I here can say I support the whole plan. That would be a bit difficult, because there are many issues." Rutte said NATO's 32 members would have to discuss the plan in detail to understand it better. "You will have maybe some different views on particular aspects of the plan, but that doesn't say that we are not standing squarely behind Ukraine," he said. NATO MEMBERSHIP CALL NATO has declared that Ukraine will become a member, without saying when. But it cannot join while at war, as this would draw the alliance directly into a conflict with Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin has cited Ukraine's potential membership of NATO as a reason for the invasion. Zelenskiy argued NATO could issue an invitation now, even if membership itself comes further down the line. "We understand that NATO membership is a matter for the future, not the present," he told the Ukrainian parliament. "But Putin must see that his geopolitical calculations are failing. The Russian people must feel this, that their 'tsar' has lost geopolitically to the world." The Kremlin said it was too early to comment in detail on the plan, but that Kyiv needed to "sober up" and realise the futility of the policies it was pursuing. Zelenskiy said his plan also proposes establishing a "comprehensive non-nuclear strategic deterrence package" inside Ukraine to protect against threats from Russia and to destroy its military power. He did not elaborate. The plan also offers the West a role in developing Ukraine's natural mineral resources and proposes Ukrainian troops could replace some U.S. forces in Europe. The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here. Reporting by Andrew Gray, Sabine Siebold and Lili Bayer; Writing by Andrew Gray; Editing by Bill Berkrot. Andrew Gray is Reuters' European Affairs Editor. Based in Brussels, he covers NATO and the European Union and leads a pan-European team of reporters focused on diplomacy, defence and security. A journalist for almost 30 years, he has previously been based in the UK, Germany, Geneva, the Balkans, West Africa and Washington, where he reported on the Pentagon. He covered the Iraq war in 2003 and contributed a chapter to a Reuters book on the conflict. He has also worked at Politico Europe as a senior editor and podcast host, served as the main editor for a fellowship programme for journalists from the Balkans, and contributed to the BBC's From Our Own Correspondent radio show.

O Brics só se move segundo os interesses da Rússia de Putin - Victor Farinelli (Opera Mundi)

Os requerimentos do Brics para aceitação de novos membros no bloco se encaixam perfeitamente nos condicionantes russos para total apoio à sua política externa. O único item que combina com os interesses do Brasil é a reforma da ONU, mas todos sabem que ela não tocará no CSNU. O Itamaraty examinou cuidadosamente a lógica intrínseca ao paradigma russo? PRA BRICS define não apoio a sanções do Ocidente como condição para aceitar novos membros no bloco Victor Farinelli Opera Mundi, 14 de outubro de 2024 A 16ª Cúpula dos líderes do BRICS deve definir, na Rússia, quais os critérios para que outros países possam se associar ao bloco como parceiros, modalidade diferente da exercida por membro pleno. Entre os critérios já definidos, estão a defesa da reforma das Nações Unidas (ONU), incluindo o Conselho de Segurança; ter relações amigáveis com os membros atuais, o que inclui Rússia, China e Irã; além de não apoiar sanções econômicas aplicadas sem a autorização da ONU. Nos próximos dias 22 a 24 de outubro, os chefes de estado dos países membros, incluindo o presidente brasileiro Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, se reúnem em Kazan, na Rússia, para definir os critérios. Segundo o Itamaraty, a definição já está em fase avançada de negociação. "O Brasil tem adotado a posição de não indicar países porque nós entendemos que o importante é você discutir os critérios. Depois que você discute os critérios, você vê quais países se encaixam nesses critérios. Mas os critérios não vão fugir muito do que já existe para membros plenos", explicou nesta segunda-feira (14/10) o secretário do Itamaraty de Ásia e Pacífico, o embaixador Eduardo Paes Saboia, em entrevista à imprensa. Existem algumas dezenas de nações que demonstraram interesse em se unir ao bloco como parceiros associados. Atualmente, o grupo tem dez membros plenos. Além de Brasil, Rússia, Índia, China e África do Sul, se uniram ao BRICS neste ano como membros permanentes o Irã, a Arábia Saudita, o Egito, a Etiópia e os Emirados Árabes. O embaixador brasileiro Eduardo Saboia destacou que, entre os critérios para aceitar estados associados, deve estar a questão de representação geográfica. "Você tem regiões que estão sub representadas no BRICS e outras que talvez estejam mais representadas", comentou. Rússia confirma que 24 chefes de Estado estarão presentes na cúpula do BRICS Cúpula do BRICS na Rússia mira negociações para reduzir dependência do dólar Presidência do Brasil no BRICS visa taxação de grandes fortunas e combate à pobreza A Argentina seria um membro permanente do BRICS representando a América Latina. Porém, com a vitória do ultradireitista Javier Milei no final do ano passado, o país desistiu de ingressar no bloco. O representante do Ministério das Relações Exteriores (MRE) para o BRICS acrescentou ainda que é importante que os países associados não imponham ou apoiem sanções sem autorização do Conselho de Segurança e que defendam a reforma da ONU. TV BRICSCúpula do BRICS acontecerá entre os dias 22 e 24 de outubro, na cidade russa de Kazan "O BRICS não pode ser uma força de transformação, que clama pela reforma da governança global, e não ter uma posição proativa em relação à reforma da ONU, particularmente a questão do Conselho de Segurança. Quem quer se associar ao BRICS tem que ter uma posição de vanguarda na questão da reforma do Conselho de Segurança. Esse é um ponto muito importante, não só para o Brasil, mas outros países também, como a Índia e a África do Sul que também têm enfatizado isso", acrescentou Eduardo Paes Saboia. Dólar e finanças Outro tema de destaque da Cúpula do BRICS, na Rússia, serão as negociações em torno das medidas para reduzir a dependência do dólar no comércio entre os países do bloco, além de medidas para fortalecer instituições financeiras alternativas ao Fundo Monetário Internacional (FMI) e ao Banco Mundial, controlados principalmente por potências ocidentais. "[O tema] tem sido tratado nas reuniões de ministros das Finanças e Bancos Centrais, e os nossos representantes nessas reuniões têm trabalhado com muito afinco. Espero que isso continue e certamente continuará na presidência brasileira e estará refletido de alguma forma na declaração de Kazan", comentou o embaixador brasileiro. A declaração de Kazan é o documento final que apresentará a posição dos líderes BRICS após a cúpula na Rússia. No próximo ano, o Brasil assume a presidência do bloco e, segundo o representante do Itamaraty, o país dará continuidade as negociações para aumentar o uso das moedas nacionais dos países membros no comércio internacional. Cúpula BRICS O governo russo informou que 32 países confirmaram presença no evento, sendo 24 representados por líderes de Estado. Dos dez membros do bloco, nove serão representados por chefes de Estado, incluindo o presidente Lula. A exceção é a Arábia Saudita, que vai enviar para a cúpula o ministro de Relações Exteriores. Estima-se que o BRICS concentre cerca de 36% do Produto Interno Bruto (PIB) global, superando o G7, grupo das maiores economias do planeta com Estados Unidos, França, Reino Unido e Alemanha, que concentra cerca de 30% do PIB mundial. O bloco surgiu em 2006, quando os representantes do Brasil, da Índia, da China e da Rússia formaram um fórum de discussões. O grupo começou como BRIC (que reúne as iniciais dos países fundadores). A primeira cúpula de chefes de Estado ocorreu apenas em 2009. Em 2011, a África do Sul ingressou na organização, que ganhou a letra 's' (do inglês South Africa) e virou BRICS.

Cadernos do Povo Brasileiro (1962-64)

*Cadernos do Povo Brasileiro* *(acervo digital de marxismo21)* https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/mobile/folders/1Cc0xe9rq1mBoMGpm7RO54D1OTdeUAhsv?usp=drive_open Dirigida por Ênio Silveira e Álvaro Vieira Pinto, esta coleção de 28 livros de bolso foi publicada de 1962 a 1964, a partir de uma parceria entre a Civilização Brasileira, o ISEB (Instituto Superior de Estudos Brasileiros) e o Centro Popular de Cultura da UNE (União Nacional dos Estudantes). 1. Francisco Julião (1962). Que são as Ligas Camponesas? 2. Nelson Werneck Sodré (1962). Quem é o povo no Brasil? 3. Osny Duarte Pereira (1962). Quem faz as leis no Brasil? 4. Álvaro Vieira Pinto (1962). Por que os ricos não fazem greve? 5. Wanderley Guilherme (1962). Quem dará o golpe no Brasil? 6. Theotônio Júnior (1962). Quais são os inimigos do povo? 7. Bolívar Costa (1962). Quem pode fazer a revolução no Brasil? 8. Nestor de Holanda (1963). Como seria o Brasil socialista? 9. Franklin de Oliveira (1963). Que é a revolução brasileira? 10. Paulo R. Schilling (1963). O que é reforma agrária? 11. Maria Augusta Tibiriçá Miranda (1963). Vamos nacionalizar a indústria farmacêutica? (não disponível aqui) 12. Sylvio Monteiro (1963). Como atua o imperialismo ianque? 13. Jorge Miglioli (1963). Como são feitas as greves no Brasil? 14. Helga Hoffmann (1963). Como planejar nosso desenvolvimento? 15. Padre Aloísio Guerra (1963). A Igreja está com o povo? 16. Aguinaldo Nepomuceno Marques (1963). De que morre o nosso povo? 17. Edouard Bailby (1963). Que é o imperialismo? 18. Sérgio Guerra Duarte (1963). Por que existem analfabetos no Brasil? 19. João Pinheiro (1963). Salário é causa de inflação? 20. Plínio de Abreu Ramos (1963). Como agem os grupos de pressão? 21. Vamireh Chacon (1963). Qual a política externa conveniente ao Brasil? 22. Virgínio Santa Rosa (1963) Que foi o tenentismo? 23. Osny Duarte Pereira (1964). Que é a Constituição? 24. Barbosa Lima Sobrinho (1963). Desde quando somos nacionalistas? Títulos extras: Franklin de Oliveira (1962). Revolução e contra-revolução no Brasil Vários autores (1962). Violão de rua – poemas para a liberdade. Volume I Vários autores (1962). Violão de rua – poemas para a liberdade. Volume II Vários autores (1963). Violão de rua – poemas para a liberdade. Volume III

Under Lula, Brazil Aims High But Falls Short - Richard M. Sanders (The Jerusalem Strategic Tribune)

Under Lula, Brazil Aims High But Falls Short by Richard M. Sanders The Jerusalem Strategic Tribune, October 24, 2024 When Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva returned to Brazil’s presidency in 2023, it was clear that he wished to restore the high international profile which Brazil had enjoyed during his first two terms, 2003-2010. International expectations were high given that his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, had been largely uninterested in foreign policy. However, Lula has faced significant obstacles and it appears that while Brazil may be ready to enter the world stage, the world is less ready for Brazil than Lula may have hoped. Bring Back the Good Old Days During his first two terms, Brazil’s economy was humming as its agricultural and mineral products found ready markets, especially in China. Brazilian banks and construction firms started to look outward, especially within Latin America. Brazil’s state development bank provided financial muscle for exporters and investors. Politically it appeared that the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR) was consolidating into a bloc that could negotiate with global counterparts such as the European Union. Under Lula, Brazil midwifed the creation of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), a regional political entity which Brazil looked to lead by sheer weight of population, geographic size and economy. On the broader international stage, Brazil opened embassies throughout Africa and the Caribbean, with the evident goal of gaining support for Brazil’s effort to obtain a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. Many observers found his combination attractive: leftist politics and willingness to confront the developed West together with his impeccable democratic credentials. During his thirteen years out of office, Lula battled corruption charges which led to his imprisonment. (His conviction was ultimately reversed on procedural grounds.) And the good times over which he had presided vanished, as commodity prices tumbled and the country struggled with fiscal imbalances built up during the boom years of his administration. The failures of his successors, most recently the erratic right-wing Jair Bolsonaro, however, gave him another chance at power and with it, international prominence. A Failed Effort with Venezuela Within the Western Hemisphere, Lula’s most notable, although thus far unsuccessful, initiative has been his effort, together with Colombia’s Gustavo Petro and (initially at least) Mexico’s Andres Manuel López Obrador, to address the crisis in Venezuela. In Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro remains in power despite convincing evidence that he in fact lost the presidential election held on July 28. Lula had maintained a warm relationship with his predecessor Hugo Chávez. Brazil shares a common border with Venezuela and has a strong interest in limiting further refugee flows. And the Biden administration was prepared to support his diplomacy, since it wanted to avoid or postpone tough decisions regarding the re-imposition of sanctions on Venezuela it had earlier lifted in an effort to encourage free elections. Also, Brazil had played a role earlier in urging Maduro to back off from his threats against neighboring Guyana over the two countries’ border dispute. Lula sent Celso Amorim, former Brazilian foreign and defense minister, now a presidential adviser, to Caracas to broker a deal. He raised suspicions among Venezuela’s opposition and its supporters when he floated the idea of holding a second election at a later date as somehow being the solution. In any event Maduro’s unyielding insistence on the validity of his election and his arrests of opposition figures condemned this initiative to irrelevance. In a particular slight, the regime harassed opposition figures for whom Brazil had agreed to assume responsibility. It appears that Lula thought his personal prestige and history with Venezuela would be enough to persuade Maduro to accept a democratic outcome and leave power. As a result, Lula’s pretensions of hemispheric leadership have taken a hit. The subject was embarrassingly missing from his speech at the UN General Assembly which painfully contrasted with that of Chile’s Gabriel Boric, another left-leaning Latin leader, who called out Maduro’s actions in no uncertain terms. If Lula was incautiously bold in Venezuela, he took the opposite tack regarding Haiti, where he declined to support the creation of a multinational force to restore order. Brazil had been active in earlier UN-authorized peacekeeping missions, even providing a Brazilian general as leader. But Brazil is hardly alone in not wanting to return, especially as the earlier mission was marked by ugly accusations of sexual abuse of Haitian women by peacekeepers. His reluctance to undertake an admittedly hard, unrewarding effort does make claims of regional leadership ring somewhat hollow. Trying to Reanimate a Regional Bloc Lula’s broader efforts to recover Brazil’s position in Latin America have also fallen a bit flat. Shortly after returning to office he sought to revive the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), a grouping created at a time when left-of-center governments seemed on the rise. But there is little enthusiasm today, with the ideological complexion of the region more varied. Chile’s Boric provided the coup de grâce, suggesting that ideologically based groupings such as UNASUR were unnecessary. We have yet to see new dynamism in the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR) under Lula’s leadership. The bloc’s 25 year-long effort to conclude a free trade agreement with the European Union is always on the verge of a breakthrough which never actually happens. The parties are reportedly close to agreement on a text which addresses the issue of environmental commitments, always a sensitive subject for Brazil, but France reportedly is trying to create a blocking minority within the EU. While success cannot be ruled out, the outlook remains uncertain. Centrifugal forces within MERCOSUR are hard for Brazil to manage. Uruguay has started discussing a bilateral free trade agreement with China, though Brazil has always insisted that such negotiations be organized as a bloc. Brazil’s relations with Argentina, the cornerstone of MERCOSUR, have become complicated with the election of Argentina’s libertarian president, Javier Milei. Both Lula and Milei have traded barbs at each other, and relations reached a low point when Milei chose not to attend a recent semi-annual MERCOSUR summit, though he did make an unofficial visit to Brazil for a conference of regional conservative activists. Global Ambitions—Ukraine, BRICS and UN Security Council Lula’s ambitions go beyond Latin America. Perhaps drawing on his experience as a labor leader, he often views international issues as ripe for negotiation, with Brazil placed to act as a mediator. This is not new. In 2010 he had sought to engage in nuclear diplomacy between the United States and Iran, pushing a disarmament plan which the US found to be inadequate. Lula has sought a role in the Russo-Ukraine War, while following his predecessor’s position of condemning Russia’s invasion itself but not imposing any sanctions against Russia. He has repeatedly called for a negotiated solution, urging Ukraine to give up its claim to Crimea in the name of global “tranquility.” Brazil and China have made a joint proposal which includes an immediate ceasefire in place, though neither Ukraine nor Russia have accepted it, Regarding the Gaza war, Lula has been quick to denounce Israel’s response to the October 7 attack by Hamas, going so far as to term it “genocide” comparable to “when Hitler decided to kill the Jews.” He also recalled his ambassador in Tel Aviv. However, Brazil’s response following Iran’s missile attack on Israel was limited to a terse statement issued by the Foreign Ministry expressing “concern.” An important part of Brazil’s quest for an international role is its participation in BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China with South Africa joining later) a grouping which Russia initiated in a meeting in Yekaterinburg in 2009. While some effort has been made to institutionalize the BRICS as a forum for policy coordination and economic integration, beyond summit communiques which have a limited shelf life, the principal achievement has been the creation of the New Development Bank based in Shanghai, also known as the BRICS bank. Lula can claim one victory in the naming of Dilma Rousseff, his hapless successor as Brazil’s president, to be the Bank’s president. But in many ways Brazil is an outsider among the BRICS. Of the four founding members, it has the smallest gross domestic product. Geographically it is distant from Eurasia where Russia, China and India are located. Its military power is dwarfed by that of the other founding states. Other than its occasional and so far unsuccessful diplomatic forays, it is not consistently engaged outside of the Americas. BRICS appears to be widening rather than deepening, with Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Iran and Ethiopia having already joined. Saudi Arabia is considering an invitation, while Turkey has applied to join. Brazil had sponsored Argentina’s entry, but after the election of Javier Milei, who sees Argentina’s future lying with the West, it has declined. BRICS may evolve into a new version of the moribund Non-Aligned Movement with its 120 members. Brazil may be able to point to progress in gaining more power for the Global South vis-a-vis the US and Western Europe, but it runs the risk of becoming just one member state among many. All in all, the BRICS have been a net plus for Brazil, but its role should not be exaggerated The other pillar of Lula’s effort to carve out a major international role is his promotion of Brazil’s effort to obtain a permanent seat on the United Nation Security Council. He can take some satisfaction from the results of the recent meeting of the General Assembly which approved the “Pact for the Future” which called for increased representation for African, Latin American and Caribbean, and Asia-Pacific states. Welcome as this may have been in Brasilia, this does not mean that it is likely to happen soon. Any Brazilian claim based on its alleged leading role in Latin America would be challenged by other states in the region. Also, Brazil’s limited engagement in UN peacekeeping operations (although it has participated in some) and the lack of success from its occasional efforts as a mediator may also weigh against its candidacy. For Now, Brazil’s Reach Exceeds Its Grasp It is not news that Lula thinks big. In 2008 he said: “Brazil has finally found its destiny and intends to transform itself into a great nation.” Internationally at least, its time has not yet come. Its military is relatively small given its size and lacks capacity to project itself beyond its borders. It is yet to find a major international crisis where it can successfully act as a mediator. (Venezuela would have been a natural opportunity but Brazil’s hopes have collapsed in the face of Maduro’s stonewalling.) Its efforts to put itself at the center of regional groupings or the over-hyped BRICS have had unimpressive results. At the same time Brazil is more than just another country—its size, resources, and population are impressive. It is a true giant in agriculture, and is approaching that status in oil production. It manufactures aircraft and has a launch center allowing it to partner with other countries with space programs. It has a dynamic culture with many achievements in music and film/television. There are areas, such as the intersection of energy, environment and economics, where Brazil already has a large enough presence that it can now speak internationally with authority. But Brazil’s efforts to use diplomacy to bootstrap itself into the top rank of global leadership seem likely to meet with frustration for the foreseeable future. Richard M. Sanders Richard M. Sanders is Senior Fellow, Western Hemisphere at the Center for the National Interest and a Global Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. A former member of the Senior Foreign Service of the State Department, he served as Director of the Office of Brazilian and Southern Cone Affairs, 2010-13.