RESEARCH NOTE ON
BETWEEN AUTONOMY AND HETERONOMY – THE PLACE OF
AGENCY IN BRAZILIAN FOREIGN POLICY1
Leticia Pinheiro (IESP/UERJ)
Maria Regina Soares de Lima (IESP/UERJ)
Resumen:
El presente artículo indaga sobre la construcción del concepto de autonomía en América
Latina y discute la posibilidad de atribuir una conducta autonomista a la actual política
exterior brasileña. En primer lugar, se examinan definiciones clásicas del concepto de
autonomía. Luego, se analiza cómo este concepto ha sido utilizado para caracterizar la
política exterior brasileña durante más de medio siglo. En última instancia, se reafirma la
centralidad de la agencia junto con la tesis de la variabilidad del poder. Al hacer esto, el
presente artículo aboga por la aplicabilidad del concepto para explicar ciertos
comportamientos, pero enfatiza en la insuficiencia de éste como un generador de “gran
estrategia”.
Palabras clave: Autonomía; Política Exterior Brasileña; Pensamiento Latinoamericano;
Administración Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva; Administración Dilma Rousseff
Abstract:
The article examines the construction of the concept of autonomy in Latin America and
discusses the possibilities of ascribing an autonomist behaviour to contemporary Brazilian
foreign policy. Firstly, classical definitions of the concept are examined. Secondly, the way
this concept has been used to designate Brazilian foreign policy for over half a century is
analysed. Thirdly, the centrality of agency is reaffirmed together with the thesis of the
variability of power. In doing so, the article advocates the applicability of the concept to
explain certain behaviours, but stresses its inadequacy as a ‘grand strategy’ generator.
Key words: Autonomy; Brazilian Foreign Policy; Latin American thought. Luiz Ignacio Lula
da Silva government; Dilma Rousseff government
1
The authors wish to thank Eduardo Viola and Haroldo Ramanzini Jr. for their comments on an earlier version
of this paper, as well as Livia Avelhan, Nicolle Berti and Maria Priscilla Kreitlon who have helped us with the
footnotes, bibliography and revisions. Any errors or omissions are the full responsibility of the authors.
1 Introduction
In the Latin American intellectual scene there are many uses of the concept of
autonomy, which has become a pivotal tool in academic and political thinking in the region,
particularly since the 1970s. As a result, many requisites have been deemed crucial to the
adoption of a behaviour worthy of being called autonomist, and several strategies have been
set out for the attainment of this condition in foreign policy. In line with this multitude and
variety of arguments, there is no shortage of reflections about different experiences
implemented in the region and listed as examples of autonomist foreign policy.2 On the other
hand, it is also possible to find those who question the pertinence of using this concept to
think about the foreign policy of countries of the region in a post-Cold War world (Saraivo
2014), so very different from the one that witnessed the concept’s construction.
This article does not intend to conduct an inventory of all these definitions and
characteristics. Rather, our objectives are: to critically assess the construction of the concept
in the Latin American context, and in Brazil in particular; and to ponder the possibilities of
ascribing an autonomist behaviour to contemporary Brazilian foreign policy, according to the
concept’s meaning in its original formulation. Whilst we recognise the merit of many
attempts at resignification of the concept, we do not agree with those who try to assign
meaning according to the predominant action framework of a given historic moment (Ovando
& Aranda 2013). The assumption that ‘autonomy is a political concept, an instrument of
safeguard against the most harmful effects of the international system’ (Vigevani & Cepaluni
2011, 28), with its strong normative bias, can result in a conceptual stretch that qualifies as
autonomy-seeking any official or unofficial manifestation in this sense. It is one thing to
admit that ‘the expressions of what autonomy is (...) vary according to interests and power
positions’ (Fonseca Jr 1998, 361), another is to claim that each of these expressions is
equivalent, in the final analysis, to the very concept. In our view, this à la carte interpretation
of the concept sacrifices all the rigour sought in its original construction.
2
To mention just a few works: Raúl Bernal-Meza, ‘América Latina en el mundo: el pensamiento
latinoamericano y la teoría de relaciones internacionales’ (Buenos Aires, Nuevohacer, 2005); Miryam Colacrai,
‘Los aportes de la teoría de la autonomía, genuina contribución sudamericana’, in Gladys Lechini, Victor
Klagsbrunn and Williams Gonçalves, (eds.), Argentina e Brasil: vencendo os preconceitos - as várias arestas de
uma concepção estratégica (Rio de Janeiro, Revan, 2009), pp. 33-49; Cristian Ovando Santana and Gilberto
Aranda Bustamante, ‘La autonomía en la política exterior latinoamericana: evolución y debates actuales’ (Papel
Político 18, núm. 2, julio de 2013), pp. 719-742; Andrew J. Hurrell, ‘The Quest for Autonomy’ (FUNAG.
Brasília, 2013); Leticia Pinheiro, ‘Política externa brasileira (1889-2002)’ (Jorge Zahar Editora. Rio de Janeiro,
2004); Matias Spektor, ‘O projeto autonomista na política externa brasileira’ in Aristides Monteiro Neto (ed.),
Política Externa, Espaço e Desenvolvimento (Brasília: IPEA, 2014), pp. 17–58; Miriam Gomes Saraiva, ‘A
diplomacia brasileira e as visões sobre a inserção externa do Brasil: institucionalistas pragmáticos x
autonomistas / Brazilian diplomacy and viewpoints on Brazilian foreign policy: pragmatic institutionalists Vs.
Autonomists’, Mural Internacional, 1,(2010), p. 45-52; Luiz Fernando Ligiero, A autonomia na política externa
brasileira : a política externa independente e o pragmatismo responsável: momentos diferentes, políticas
semelhantes? (Brasília: Fundação Alexandre de Gusmão, 2011); Diego Pautasso & Gabriel Pessin Adam, ‘A
Política da política externa brasileira: novamente entre autonomia e alinhamento na eleição de 2014’, Revista
Conjuntura Austral 5: 25 (Ago. Set. 2014), pp. 20-43.
2 As Lorenzini & Doval (2013) have already noted, it is necessary to
contextualise interpretations of autonomy so as not to denaturalise the meanings and
connotations that, originally, the authors assigned to them. If we ideologise concepts,
they lose much of their validity and explanatory value. In other words, the theory of
autonomy should not be turned into an ideology through which one tries to justify
courses of action that have nothing to do with the original meaning that the authors
gave to the term.
Therefore, however appropriate the academic engagement in politically relevant
debates may be, it is essential that such engagement does not compromise the analytical
rigour of its interpretations of reality (Vigevani & Cepaluni 2011, 34).
In addition, while we concede the existence of national particularities in the
formulation of the concept,3 we also believe that the classical definitions that we shall be
using do not essentialise them (Saraivo 2014). Similarly, we do not share the theses that look
at national singularities as part of the explanation for the fact that in the case of Brazil, for
example, foreign policy exhibits an almost perennial autonomist aspiration (Spektor 2014),
whatever the strategy used to achieve it, without ever distorting the original meaning of the
concept.
That said, this article is organised in three parts, in addition to this introduction.
Firstly, we examine the classical definitions of the concept of autonomy in the Latin
American universe. Secondly, we analyse how this concept has been used to designate
Brazilian foreign policy guidelines for over half a century, not always with the same rigour
from which the construction of the concept benefited. Thirdly, we reaffirm the centrality of
agency in the classical formulation of the concept of autonomy, and without abandoning the
force of the structures we underline the variability of their power of conditioning. Rather than
another attempt at resignification of the concept, what we propose is the adoption of the
thesis of contextualisation of power, adding to it the heuristic potential of agency to explain
social and political relations - all of this in favour of the applicability of the classical concept
of autonomy to explain certain behaviours, but stressing its inadequacy as generator of a
‘grand strategy’, at least in the case of contemporary Brazil (Russell y Tokatlian, Grand
Strategy 2015). Finally, we summarise the core points of this reflection and underscore its
main elements.
1. The origins and challenges of the concept of ‘Autonomy’
The first and most robust definitions of the concept of autonomy in Latin America
were elaborated by two renowned intellectuals of the region, Helio Jaguaribe and Juan Carlos
Puig4. We start from the same bases from which these founding fathers began, in order to
3
It is worth mentioning that Hélio Jaguaribe, one of the precursors of these analyses, took the Brazilian reality
as his point of departure to think about autonomist requisites and strategies, hence the concept formulated by
him did take national characteristics into account. On the other hand, when Carlos Escudé offers an alternative
to the notion of autonomy, he does not reach a level of abstraction and generalisation ample enough to analyse
beyond the Argentine reality, not to mention other epistemological problems (Escudé 1992).
4
As Lorenzini and Doval (2013, 13) recall, ‘In the chapter “Dependency and autonomy in Latin America”
[Jaguaribe] develops the foundations of his theory of autonomy and elaborates the Autonomous Model of Latin
American Development and Integration (MADIAL); in 1979 he publishes “Peripheral autonomy and central
hegemony” in Revista Estudios Internacionales, n° 49, Santiago de Chile, April-June. Among his most
distinguished works, Puig publishes: in 1972, “The autonomist vocation in Latin America: heterodoxy and
secessionism” in Revista de Derecho Internacional y Ciencias Diplomáticas, n° 39-40, Rosario National
University, pp. 60-66; in 1975, “The deep tendencies of Argentine foreign policy”, in Revista Argentina de
3 discuss the concept’s adequacy to analyse the recent trajectory of Brazilian foreign policy. In
other words, these bases will give us the tools to engage with the attributions of autonomist
behaviour to Brazilian foreign policy in certain periods of the country’s history.
Both authors start from the assertion that the international order is hierarchical, and
not anarchic as posited by realist theses (Jaguaribe 1979; Puig 1980). In this sense they take
on the distinctiveness of those who speak from the periphery, and therefore experience the
condition of dependency and the effects that characterise it.
For Jaguaribe, “Autonomy (...) means, at the national and regional level, both the
availability of conditions that allow free decision-making by individuals and agencies
representative of the system, and the deliberate resolution to exercise those conditions”
(Jaguaribe et al. 1969, 66). While for Puig, similarly, autonomy would be “the maximum
capacity of choice that one can have, taking into account objective real-world constraints”
(Puig, Doctrinas internacionales y autonomía latinoamericana 1980, 149).
There are structural and agency components in both definitions, making the concept
more robust and operational, as we shall discuss below.
With regard to structural components, these are divided into internal and external. In
the first case, it is about what Jaguaribe calls “national viability”, i.e. domestic conditions that
allow – but do not guarantee – autonomist behaviour. (Jaguaribe 1979) They are: the
possession of adequate human and natural resources, the country’s international integration
capacities and its degree of sociocultural cohesion. Whereas Puig, in a similar vein, considers
that the fundamental requisite is the existence of sufficient material benefits to develop a
national project and to put it into practice, and the explicit commitment of the elites to the
same project (Vigevani & Cepaluni 2011, 31). Another key element when thinking about the
possibility of an autonomist project was, in Puig’s view, the existence of a model of internal
development and a strategic solidarity with countries that aspire to the same goal (Puig,
Doctrinas internacionales y autonomía latinoamericana 1980, 155). Do note that even in the
structural universe there is reference to choice, i.e. to agency, which we will also see in
Jaguaribe.
With regard to “international permissibility” – an external, structural component
according to Jaguaribe –, it is characterised by the existence of “conditions to neutralise the
risk from third countries endowed with sufficient capacity to exert effective forms of
coercion” (Jaguaribe 1982, 22). Interestingly, this definition, which for Jaguaribe is
structural, involves not only economic and military capabilities, but also the adoption of a
strategy for action, i.e. the “establishment of alliances” (Jaguaribe 1982, 22) – and so it is
closer, in our view, to the definition of an agential requisite, which we will discuss next.
Regarding these agential requisites, it should be mentioned that for Jaguaribe they are
of two kinds and entail a choice: either to enjoy an internal technical-entrepreneurial
autonomy, or “a universal intra-imperial relationship” (Jaguaribe, Hegemonía Céntrica y
Autonomía Periférica 1982, 23). While the first requirement, the technical-entrepreneurial
autonomy in a world of growing internationalisation of capitalism and economic
interdependence would involve very high costs for the peripheral countries, the second, says
Relaciones Internacionales, n° 1, Buenos Aires, pp. 7-27; in 1980, “International doctrines and Latin American
autonomy”, Caracas, Simón Bolívar University - Institute of Latin American Studies; in 1981, “Nationality,
integration and autonomisation”, in Nuevo Mundo - Revista de Estudios Latinoamericanos, n° 11, Simón
Bolívar University - Institute of Latin American Studies, January-June, Caracas; and in 1984, “Latin America:
foreign policies compared”, Grupo Editor Latinoamericano, Buenos Aires’,
4 Jaguaribe, carries within it the failure of any autonomist-leaning project insofar as, BernalMeza explains, the
“American intra-imperial system was perpetuating and worsening tensions between
the centre and the non-autonomisable components of the periphery and, from the
perpetuation of unequal ways of establishing relationships between the centre and the
periphery, the system received the feedback of negative effects generated by itself and
on which it was based” (Bernal Meza 2013, 211).
Jaguaribe and Puig also refer explicitly to the strategies for achieving an autonomous
behaviour, and it is here that the agential attribute comes into play more clearly. This is about
making alliances with other countries (Jaguaribe 1982) and, more specifically, regional
alliances against the centre, in addition to political and economic integration (Puig, Doctrinas
internacionales y autonomía latinoamericana 1980). As Bernal-Meza has summarised well,
“autonomy was a quality that was built from internal decisions, even when it was the
systemic conditions that made it possible” (Bernal Meza 2013, 212).
Developing this point, Puig goes on to identify degrees of autonomy, from a
heterodox position up to potential radicalisation, when then it would take on a secessionist
bent. The first corresponds to
“the stage in which domestic groups who hold the state power, forming part of a
block, still accept the dominant power’s strategic guidance, but openly disagree with
it on three major issues: to) the domestic development project, which may or may not
coincide with that envisaged by the superpower; (b) the international links that are not
globally strategic; (c) the dissociation between the national interests of the dominant
power and the strategic interest of the block” (Puig 1984, 78).
Here the national group of power does not accept dogmatic impositions on behalf of
this same block, since they would be political and strategic appreciations, corresponding only
to the hegemonic power’s own interests (Bernal Meza 2013, 215). The radicalisation of this
kind of behaviour would lead to the secessionist stance, i.e. that in which the state challenges
globally the hegemonic power and chooses to withdraw from the block led by it.
We must stress that the continuum that Puig worked with consisted of quarters:
Paracolonial Dependency, National Dependency, Heterodox Autonomy and Secessionist
Autonomy. It is clear, therefore, that the author has always worked with the opposites
Dependency and Autonomy. In other words, although he gives degrees to autonomy, even at
its lowest grade it is already defined by opposition – and not by proximity – to dependency. It
means that Autonomy (regardless of its degree) is always a counterpoint to Heteronomy. This
seminal contribution from Puig should not be minimised.
Jaguaribe’s and Puig’s contributions were developed in the context of bipolar
competition during the Cold War, and within the framework of a centre-periphery dichotomy
marked by strong strategic dependency. The Argentine academics Russell and Tokatlian, in
search of a renewal of the concept - in view of the significant change in the conditions of
possibility for action brought about by the intensification of globalisation and the end of the
Cold War, in global terms; and, regionally, by the redemocratisation of many countries and
by successful integration initiatives - proposed a new approach to the question of autonomy,
naming it “relational autonomy”. Defined as the “capacity and disposition [of the state] to
make decisions based on its own needs and goals without external interference or constraints,
and to control processes or events that occur beyond its borders” (Russell & Tokatlian 2002,
162), this proposition actually endorses the same assumptions found in Jaguaribe’s and
Puig’s concepts. The main difference lies in the strategies to achieve it, in an attempt to adapt
agency to the structural changes of the new times. According to the authors,
5 “As a practice, relational autonomy requires increased integration, negotiation and
active participation in the development of standards and international rules intended
to facilitate global governance. So – they continue - autonomy is no longer defined by
the power of a country to be isolated and control process and external events, but by
its power to participate and effectively influence in world affairs, especially in
international organisations and regimes of all kinds” (Russell & Tokatlian 2002, 179).
Another important point to highlight in Russell and Tokatlian’s proposition refers to
the question of degrees. While Puig did point to degrees of autonomy, Russell and Tokatlian
developed this idea later, incorporating the dependency pole to the scale. In their words,
autonomy is
“a condition of the nation-state that enables it to articulate and achieve political goals
independently. In accordance with this meaning, autonomy is a property that the
nation-state may or not have along a continuum whose ends are two ideal situations:
total dependence or complete autonomy (...) In both cases, autonomy is always a
matter of degree that depends fundamentally on the capabilities, hard and soft, of
states and of the external circumstances that they face” (Russell & Tokatlian 2002,
162).
Intentionally or not, the authors offer to the analyst a tool likely to generate various
interpretations, a mechanism comparable to the metaphor of the glass half-filled with water,
which can be seen either as half-full or as half-empty. Applying the metaphor to our theme,
one could equally qualify the behaviour of a state found near the dependency pole as “low
autonomy or as high dependency”. Despite the significance of the adverb – low or high – it is
the noun - autonomy or dependency – that is responsible for giving prominence to the content
of the behaviour. As we will see later, this has been a strong tendency in the literature, as a
result of the politicisation of the concept – which, following what has been said above, varies
“according to interests and positions of power” (Fonseca Jr 1998, 361).
Having made these notes, we now turn to considering how the main contributions to
the concept of autonomy have served to analyse the guidelines of Brazilian foreign policy
from the 1940s until now. Or, to put it differently, if and how the assertions that Brazil has
adopted an autonomist foreign policy throughout history are, in fact, true to the original
definitions, or whether it is necessary to abandon this interpretation in favour of more
appropriate ones.
2. Autonomy, Autonomies in Brazilian foreign policy
The portrayal of Brazilian foreign policy throughout history as having an autonomist
leaning has been quite substantial.5 The examples that we list below illustrate well the trend
of the literature on the subject; in them, the concept has been used in a combined mode. In the
combinations we note two types of characterisation: the first is contextualising, or
“situational”; and the second is “behavioural”. We will take them as our point of departure to
assess how much they adhere, in their attribution of the autonomist label, to Jaguaribe’s and
Puig’s original meaning of the concept.
The first case - which we call “situational” characterisation - can be exemplified by
the “Autonomy in Dependency” thesis, a term coined by Gerson Moura in the early 1980s.
5
Moura 1980; Fonseca 1998; Pinheiro 2004; Vigevani & Cepaluni 2009; Saraiva 2014; Spektor 2014; among
many others.
6 In the early days of the discipline of international relations in the country, Moura
wrote an early work challenging the structural interpretations prevalent in the field, in which
Brazilian foreign policy was regarded as innocuous or described only as an epiphenomenon
of systemic determinations. Going in the opposite direction, Moura emphasised the role of
Vargas’ successful foreign policy in the 1940s. At this moment it was possible to take
advantage of the Brazilian Northeast’s strategic geographical situation, and the need for
strategic materials for the war industry during the formation of the US power system, in order
to get, among other things, US funding for the construction of the Volta Redonda steel plant,
a landmark in Brazilian industrialisation in the following years.
Therefore, according to this thesis, even in conditions of strong structural dependence,
such as those prevailing at the time, there would be possibilities of agency for peripheral
countries, with the option to open a “way to negotiate the realignment and take advantage of
it (...) allow [ing] us to characterise the action of the state as autonomy in dependence.”
(Moura 1980, 189). In other words, it would be possible to adopt an autonomist-leaning
policy in order to circumvent this very situation of dependency, thus reaping some benefits.
Moura’s add-on to the concept of autonomy – i.e. dependency – was not suggesting how it
should be conquered, but pointing to a particular situation in which, despite the adverse
conditions, it could be reached. In this sense, Moura took Jaguaribe’s proposition further, but
without denying it. While the latter saw “national viability and international permissibility as
sine qua non” conditions for autonomous behaviour, Moura placed more emphasis on the
importance of agency as the propelling element of an autonomist policy in the absence, or
insufficiency, of ideal conditions, i.e. even in a situation of dependency.
At other times, as during the Cold War, foreign policy was an agent of change for the
country's international integration, as it took advantage of a context favourable to countries of
the Global South, such as decolonisation in the 1960s, the discussion of a new international
order in the wake of the formation of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries
(OPEC) and the oil crisis of the 1970s. The ‘Independent Foreign Policy’ (1961-64) and the
‘Responsible Pragmatism’ (1974-79) were characterised by a strong autonomist connotation,
and both were fruits of a combination between systemic opportunities and the action of
agents intent on changing the subordinated integration of the country within the international
order. Although foreign policy by itself has not been able so far to change the situation of
structural economic vulnerability, it can alleviate the conditions of the country’s international
integration, and even diversify its dependence.
It was to this end that the 1970s saw the move to a strategy that the Brazilian diplomat
Gelson Fonseca Jr. has called “autonomy through distance”, meaning “a ‘qualified’ distance
in the debate and in the negotiation of the main themes of the Cold War period” (Fonseca Jr
1998, 360). Or, in Vigevani & Cepaluni’s definition
“a policy of non-automatic acceptance of the prevailing international regimes and,
above all, the belief in a partially autonomous development geared towards the
internal market; therefore, a diplomacy [that went] against certain aspects of the
agenda of the major powers in order to preserve the sovereignty of the nation state”
(Vigevani y Cepaluni 2011, 283).
It is worth noting that, at the time, the country had made significant strides in the
national viability topic, a requisite that Jaguaribe and Puig had indicated as necessary for the
exercise of a foreign policy with an autonomist disposition. During that period, there were
positive indicators of economic growth, as a result of the model of industrialisation by import
substitution and the investments made in national capacity-building, which expressed the
7 commitment of the elites to a national project, although without income distribution or
democracy.
We will not go into the strategies used by the rulers in each one of these two periods –
the Independent Foreign Policy and the Responsible Pragmatism – but is quite clear how their
guidelines correspond to the crucial points of Jaguaribe’s and Puig’s contribution: systemic
opportunities, national viability and, most importantly, action by the agents. In this sense, the
“behavioural” component that Fonseca Jr. has added to the concept of autonomy – “through
distance” – does not seem to go against its original assumptions. In fact, we would
underscore how this qualification shows great similarity to the idea of “heterodox autonomy”
elaborated by Puig6.
However, if we take a look at later periods, when analysts also described Brazilian
foreign policy as autonomist-leaning, we cannot help but question their adherence to the
original concept developed by Jaguaribe and Puig. Let's see.
The “autonomy through participation” - a term coined by Fonseca Jr. in the same
book in which he elaborated on “autonomy through distance” - refers to the exercise of
autonomy through a strategy that promotes adherence to international regimes in order to
influence them (Fonseca Jr 1998), along the same lines as the “relational autonomy” thesis
put forward by Russell and Tokatlian. In Fonseca Jr.’s own words “autonomy translates into
“participation”, i.e. a desire to influence the open agenda with values that express the
diplomatic tradition and the ability to see the direction of the international order through
one’s own eyes, and from unique perspectives” (Fonseca Jr 1998, 368-9).
As a result, this interpretation would be repeated by several other scholars. To cite just
a few examples, Vigevani & Cepaluni have also used it to describe the foreign policy
implemented throughout Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s administration (1995-1998 and 19992002), explaining it as an orientation marked by
“adherence to international regimes, including liberal ones (such as the WTO),
without losing the capacity to manage foreign policy. In this case, the goal would be
to influence the very formulation of the principles and rules governing the
international system. National goals are thought to be attained more effectively in this
way” (Vigevani & Cepaluni 2011, 35-6).
Spektor changes the label slightly, and uses the category of “belonging” instead of
participation to explain the years from 1989 to 1999, arguing that during this period “the
political and diplomatic leadership did not abandon autonomism. It reinterpreted it in light of
new external and internal constraints” (Spektor 2014, 41).
The question we ask ourselves is whether the last two qualifiers added to the concept participation and belonging - would not in fact decharacterise it. Unlike Gerson Moura’s
6
For the sake of illustration, it is worth comparing Puig’s definition with that of Fonseca Jr. According to the
former, this degree of autonomy – the one he calls heterodox – corresponds, as we have already mentioned, ‘to
the stage in which domestic groups who hold the state power, forming part of a block, still accept the dominant
power’s strategic guidance, but openly disagree with it on three major issues: a) the domestic development
project, which may or may not coincide with that envisaged by the superpower; b) the international links that
are not globally strategic; c) the dissociation between the national interests of the dominant power and the
strategic interest of the block’. Bernal Meza, America Latina en el mundo, p.215. For Fonseca Jr, ‘The first
expression of ‘autonomy’ [through distance] would be to keep a distance in relation to the Western Block’s
actions, especially when they meant military engagement. We admitted an alignment as regards fundamental
values, but we did not turn them into automatic strategic engagement [...]’, Fonseca Jr., ‘A legitimidade e outras
questões internacionais’, p. 362.
8 contribution – “autonomy in dependency” – which gave greater density and complexity to
Jaguaribe’s and Puig’s original formulations by demonstrating the possibility of an
autonomist behaviour even in a situation of dependency; and equally unlike the add-on
suggested by Fonseca Jr. – “through distance” – which has succeeded to stay true to the main
elements of the autonomist thesis, how can one claim now to seek autonomy “through
participation” or “through belonging”, i.e. through acquiescence? Would this be a position of
diminished autonomy or of growing dependency?
This is not an easy question to answer and, depending on the perspective we take, it is
possible to arrive at different answers. Let us take a closer look.
Spektor claims that particular emphasis was given during that period to obtaining
“good behaviour credentials” (Spektor 2014, 41). Well, this guideline could be easily
illustrated by the country's accession to the Missile Technology Control regime (1995), by its
signing of the Treaty for the Complete Prohibition of Nuclear Tests (1996), by subscription to
the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (1998), by the reduction of trade
barriers, the opening of the economy to private investment, etc. But President Fernando
Henrique Cardoso’s own words perhaps demonstrate best that Brazil had indeed abdicated
much of its autonomist behaviour in favour of integration to the mainstream, and that this
new behavioural attribute – through “participation” or through “belonging” – strictly
speaking nullifies the autonomist premise:
“The South is under a double threat - apparently unable to integrate, seeking its own
interests, and unable to avoid “being integrated” as a servant of the rich economies.
(...) In the past it was possible to respond politically to the old relations of dependency
by invoking “national autonomy”, demanding greater industrial investment to redress
the deterioration in the terms of trade, and expanding the domestic market in order to
break the chain of the “dependency enclave” and stimulate internal income
distribution. Now the political response dictates that the South too should build a new
kind of society” (Cardoso 1996a, 12).
“Whether we like it or not, economic globalisation is a new international order (...).
The world can be divided between regions or countries that participate in the
globalisation process and enjoy its fruits, and those that do not participate. The former
are generally associated with the idea of progress, wealth, better living conditions; the
latter, with exclusion, marginalisation, poverty” (Cardoso 1996b)
But we said before that the question was difficult to answer and that it might even
elicit different answers. The reason for this is that we must not overlook the investments on
regional policy made by Brazil during the same period. Through its rapprochement with
Argentina – in the resistance to hemispheric integration, and the investments made in the
Common Market of the South (Mercado Común del Sur - MERCOSUR) process of subregional integration - the country also tried to establish regional alliances against the centre,
i.e. it looked for political and economic integration as an autonomy-seeking strategy (Puig
1980; 1984).
In the end, should we conclude then that the new systemic conditions justify the
adaptation of the country’s behaviour, and that therefore the add-ons to the concept of
autonomy do not decharacterise it? No, we do not think this is possible or plausible. If we did
that, we would be ignoring the fact that these adaptations and complements go against the
original dichotomy that marks the construction of the concept of autonomy as elaborated by
Jaguaribe and Puig, i.e. the ability to separate that which is or is not autonomist behaviour
from its opposite concept: heteronomy. The argument by formulators of foreign policy
according to which “adaptations were essential to maintain, not to abandon, the autonomy
9 project” (Spektor 2014, 42) would be, in fact, perfectly congruent with the diplomatic
strategy of granting continuity status to the policy through a narrative that always elects
autonomy as their credential of legitimacy, regardless of any epistemological inconsistency.7
The risk of ending up with interpretations that confuse the analytical argument with
the political argument, as regards the interpretation of what would be an autonomist-leaning
policy, gets worse because of a very specific characteristic of Brazilian reality, i.e. the
intimate connection between the intellectual production of diplomats and of academics active
in the field of foreign policy. In these circumstances, the activities of foreign policy
formulation and analysis are exercises that get mixed up, with deleterious consequences for
the analytical content produced by the field of Brazilian foreign policy studies.8 To quote
Lorenzini and Doval’s alert (Lorenzini y Doyal 2013, 16), the justification of courses of
action through the transformation of the theory of autonomy into an ideology, even if it is
effective in political and diplomatic terms, certainly does not contribute to advance its
heuristic potential, on the contrary.9 Two examples of this situation that, in our view, lead to a
weakening of the explanatory potential of the autonomy concept are the belief that, despite
“the differences in actions, preferences and beliefs, and having sought very different specific
results with regard to foreign policy”, both the Fernando Henrique Cardoso government and
that of Lula da Silva sought “not to distance themselves from the usual quest: to develop the
country economically, preserving at the same time a relative political autonomy” (Vigevani y
Cepaluni 2011, 275); and the claim that
“whether as a result of the approach of one of the new centres of world power, or as a
result of the diversification of partnerships or greater participation in international
institutions, Brazilian foreign policy throughout the 20th century was marked by the
pursuit of power resources to ensure greater independency of the country in the world,
7
Although it does not raise the issue of autonomy, it is worth noting that Araújo Castro, a diplomat and former
Minister of Foreign Affairs (1963-64), considered to be one of the main ideologues of Brazilian foreign policy,
has proposed a distinction between ‘foreign policy’ and ‘international politics’ which helps us understand this
diplomatic narrative. For him, while ‘foreign policy’ meant the diplomatic acquis with its principles, i.e. the so
called permanent element, ‘international politics’ would be ‘a Brazilian norm of conduct within the community
of nations’, set ‘in face of the problems of the contemporary world’, i.e. the mutable element, João Augusto de
Araújo Castro, ‘O congelamento do poder mundial", in Rodrigo Amado (ed.), Araújo Castro (Brasília, Editora
Universidade de Brasília, 1982), p. 198. Thus, the pursuit of autonomy would be our foreign policy, whereas the
strategies to reach it are our international policy. In the words of Araújo Castro, ‘Brazil's international policy
has as its primary objective the neutralisation of all the external factors that may contribute to limit its national
power.’ (Ibid, 212).
8
For a discussion on the formation of this field, see Gelson Fonseca Jr.. Diplomacia e Academia: um estudo
sobre as análises acadêmicas sobre a política externa brasileira na década de 70 e sobre as relações entre o
Itamaraty e a comunidade acadêmica. (Brasília, Fundação Alexandre de Gusmão, 2011); and Leticia Pinheiro
and Paula Vedoveli, ‘Caminhos cruzados: diplomatas e acadêmicos na construção do campo de estudos de
política externa brasileira’, Politica Hoje, 21:1 (2012), pp. 211-54.
9
It should be stressed how equally problematic is the interpretation of some decisions made in the past - in the
context of Brazil’s very strong acquiescence to the hegemonic power – as indications of an integrationist
strategy, and the latter as a first step towards an autonomist-leaning policy. This seems to be the case of
Saraiva’s interpretation of the inauguration of the Friendship Bridge between Brazil and Paraguay in 1965, ‘one
of the most important historical moves in Brazil’s integration with its neighbours. (...) By definitively attaching
Paraguay to Brazil, it set the stage for the Itaipu project and for the corporate and economic integration that
links both countries and their economies today. (...) These examples prove the quick steps that Brazil has taken,
in logistic terms, around the dynamic concept of decision-making autonomy.’9 Saraiva, ‘Autonomia na Inserção
Internacional do Brasil’
10 even when this strategy seemed to be translated – and often in fact did translate – into
alignment to a particular power” (Pinheiro 2004, 8).
Proceeding now in the opposite direction, and because it has greater explanatory
potential, it might be worth revisiting the founding fathers’ take on the concept and rescuing
autonomy’s counter-concept – i.e. acquiescence or heteronomy10 – in order to suggest another
way to examine the issue without losing the proposal’s original meaning. However, before
we unravel this, which will be the last point of this paper, we shall continue to present the
periods in which the general line of Brazilian foreign policy is regarded as autonomist, and to
discuss its degree of adherence to the original concepts, until we get to the present day.
In the 21st century, the ‘proud and active’ foreign policy of Lula’s government – as
Chancellor Celso Amorim (2015) himself dubbed it – became another point in time when the
combination of both dimensions, i.e. systemic opportunities and national viability, created
conditions for an autonomous foreign policy.
It was described by Vigevani & Cepaluni as a time when foreign policy was marked
by the “diversification” strategy in its quest for “autonomy”: the country adhered to
“international principles and norms through south-south alliances, regional ones
included, and through agreements with non-traditional partners, such as China, the
Asia-Pacific, Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East etc., aiming to reduce
asymmetries and to increase the country’s international bargaining power in its
relations with more powerful actors, such as the United States and the European
Union. An important characteristic [was] the ability to negotiate with them without
ruptures, while looking forward to breaking with unilateralism and searching for
multipolarity and a better balance” (Vigevani y Cepaluni 2011, 35-6).
True to the concept’s original definition, the autonomist label given to the foreign
policy of the Lula years had a “behavioural” component added to it: “through
diversification”. This complement is somewhat redundant, since it emphasises a strategy that,
strictly speaking, had already been envisaged by Jaguaribe’s and Puig’s formulation, namely:
the alliances with other Third World countries (Jaguaribe 1982) or, more specifically,
regional alliances against the centre and political and economic integration (Puig 1980;
1984). However, there is an important derivation which stands out in Cepaluni & Vigevani’s
analysis that, in its adaptation to present times, falls in line with the concept’s original
meaning rather than going against it – i.e. the realisation that the inclusion of alliances with
non-regional partners also serves to increase bargaining power with core countries, something
that was epitomised during the Lula period by the India-Brazil-South Africa Dialogue Forum
(IBSA), Group of 20 (G-20), G4 Nations (G-4) and Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa
(BRICS) coalitions.
In the autonomist designation given to the “proud and active” foreign policy we also
find another trait that Jaguaribe and Puig had considered indispensable. It is the domestic
coalition around a model of internal development and a national project which, together, are
part of the “national viability” requisite. In this particular case, the coalition took place
10
Heteronomy means ‘an ethical system in which the norms of behaviour come from the outside’, and can be
understood as the acceptance of norms that are not our own, but that we recognise as valid to guide our
consciousness in judging the moral quality of our actions, available at
http://www.significados.com.br/heteronomia.
11 around the adoption of a model of state coordination different from the liberal models
predominant in the contemporary order11.
In the case of South America specifically - which was the focus of the Initiative for
the Integration of the Regional Infrastructure of South America (IIRSA)12 launched at the end
of the Cardoso government and remained one of the priorities of the PT governments -, the
differences in interpretation were striking. In the 1990s, both offensive and defensive
economic motivations (to meet the challenges of globalisation) put South America in the
spotlight of the government's foreign policy. Steps were taken to strengthen MERCOSUR,
and the IIRSA Initiative was conceived by the end of that decade. The future of South
America was envisaged by the latter as an integrated economic area, “a market expanded by
the reduction of barriers to trade”, as President Cardoso put it at the time of its creation, in
2000 (Cardoso 2000).However, the conception of South America during the Lula government
underwent a conceptual change that became evident right from the start. The new framing of
the region emphasised three dimensions that basically revolutionised conventional Brazilian
doctrine about the area: a conception of integration which included, in addition to the
commercial aspects, political and social ones; the recognition of structural asymmetries and
the willingness to solve them; and the acknowledgement of a strong linkage between Brazil’s
prosperity and that of its neighbours. These formulations suggest a political shift in the
collective understanding that had prevailed until then, and reflect the institutional changes
introduced by the Lula government and carried on during Dilma Rousseff’s government.
These characteristics, which were the hallmark of foreign policy in the Lula
government, coupled with the election of the incumbent’s candidate in the 2011 presidential
election - Dilma Rousseff - perhaps led us to believe, much too quickly, that in a context
where the two structural components needed for the exercise of autonomy were present it
would just continue without interruption (Soares de Lima, Autonomia na dependência: A
Agência da Política Externa 2015). That is, the elements constituting the strong “international
permissibility”, namely: the diffusion of power in the direction of emerging countries; the
great transformations in South American politics; the less overt US presence in the region due
to the redefinition of that country’s international strategies after September 11; the rise of
China; and the upward cycle of progressive governments of various stripes in South America
set up a scenario of very positive expectations. Furthermore, a context of growing “national
viability”, with the continuation of the “neodevelopmentalist” political coalition in the
domestic scene, caused many to believe that the conditions were primed for Brazil’s
relatively less subordinated integration in the international system – a belief driven by the
firm determination exhibited in the foreign policy choices made during that period. Maybe
this belief spurred the voluntarism of the agents and discouraged any measures to
institutionalise the period’s several innovations, such as: the reconfiguration of regional
integration, the cooperation for development, and the establishment of accountability
mechanisms for foreign policy – the latter would have definitely strengthened the elements of
“national viability”, thus shielding the country from the times of diminished “international
permissibility” that followed.
11
The foreign policy programmatic differences between the coalition under the PSDB hegemony and that of the
PT government have been discussed in depth by Tiago Neri, ‘A política externa brasileira e a UNASUL:
geopolítica e expansão do capitalismo brasileiro na América do Sul’, PHD Theses in Political Science, Instituto
de Estudos Sociais e Políticos da Universidade Estadual do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, 2015, pp. 89-103.
12
IIRSA was launched in 2000 to tackle the lack of physical integration in South America. Many of IIRSA's
projects are still at an early stage of development. Carlos R.S. Milani, Enara Echart, Rubens S. Duarte, Magno
Klein. Atlas da Política Externa Brasileira, v.1. (Buenos Aires e Rio de Janeiro: CLACSO e EDUERJ, 2014),
p.92
12 What we have seen, however, is that Dilma Rousseff’s first term triggered the alarm
with respect to the continuity of the previous ‘proud and active’ policy, in view of the
president’s lesser role vis-à-vis her predecessor, in a context where face-to-face presidential
diplomacy is increasingly necessary to avoid deterioration of the status quo, especially for a
country like Brazil that has soft power as one of its main instruments of international
projection and action. In addition, the precarious institutionalisation of the previous initiatives
exacerbated their risk of deterioration in what was now a more restrictive domestic and
international context.
By the end of 2014, the cooling off of presidential diplomacy, a worrying economic
environment beset by budget cuts, the turmoil within the diplomatic corps, the open conflict
between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its young diplomats due to narrower possibilities
of career progression, and the waning Chinese demand for commodities – all of this had
already pointed towards a scenario other than the one that prevailed during the two terms of
Lula’s government. The first few months of Dilma Rousseff’s second term saw the deepening
of the difficulties she faced in a situation of economic downturn, her political weakness vis-àvis the Congress, reunification of the opposition forces and of the more conservative
segments of society, in addition to the unions’ and the general population’s resistance to the
planned budgetary adjustments13. Externally, the constraints also increased as global demand
went down, commodity prices fell and the Chinese began to prioritise domestic growth to the
detriment of exports. Besides this, several of the instruments widely used by Lula and
Amorim’s foreign policy, such as subsidised loans from the Brazilian Development Bank
(BNDES) to Brazilian investments abroad, and substantial budgetary resources earmarked for
international cooperation, suffered a dramatic reduction given the backdrop of recession and
fiscal adjustment that marked the beginning of Dilma Rousseff’s second term.
Were we, therefore, watching the collapse of the autonomist orientation etched on
Brazilian foreign policy by the previous government, given a domestic situation of
deterioration of the support base in Congress and in society, and a less permissive
international order? In other words, the reduction of “international permissibility” and the
breakup of the domestic political coalition (a central component of “national viability”), in
addition to the Roussef administration’s priorities as it regains the helm of government and
the emphasis on domestic issues – does all of this point to a significant change in the design
of foreign policy, interrupting the autonomist trajectory and heading towards one of
acquiescence, perhaps of heteronomy?
To answer this question, once again we will make use of the original premises of the
concept of autonomy. Only this time we will aggregate to the concept a new perspective that
helps us escape from the trap of turning the theory of autonomy into an ideology. In doing
this we hope to preserve the concept’s robustness by rejecting any easy concessions or
political resignifications that distort its meaning; instead, we favour using it to understand
those independent actions that were perhaps carried out which, despite their autonomist
features, did not manage to form a paradigm of international integration that might be called a
‘grand strategy’, according to Russell and Tokatlian’s terms (Russell e Tokatlian 2015).
3. Contextualising autonomy
Although it is fair to say that the structural conditions of “national viability” and
“international permissibility” were present on those occasions when the logic of autonomy
13
In 2016 the political and economic crisis reached its peak, as the impeachment process against the President
moved to the Senate on the 12th of May.
13 guided foreign policy choices, it is also true that they did not guarantee its permanence and
continuity. On other occasions, even when the international conditions were permissive,
foreign policy choices tended towards the acquiescence and heteronomy axis. But we have
also seen that even under conditions of strong structural dependency there is enough leeway
for the adoption of an autonomist-leaning policy, in order to circumvent this same
dependency situation (Moura 1980). From all this we may conclude that the central element
in this equation is agency, the cell nucleus of the concept of autonomy. Without agency there
cannot be politics critical of the normative structure of the international order.
To recognise the power of structural constraints, however, does not mean thinking of
them in a totalising manner. In other words, what we suggest is the abandonment of a
generalising vision that does not contextualise power nor treats its resources as situationdependent, in favour of one that recognises the possibility of different types of international
behaviour as a result of the incentive structure in certain thematic areas, of the specific power
resources in these areas, and of domestic constraints. After all, as we have already said
elsewhere,
“a resource that proves to be effective in a thematic area may be irrelevant in another.
Thus, capacities and vulnerabilities can vary from one thematic area to another,
changing the power relations between these areas. The assumption that power should
be measured with respect to specific issues leads to questioning the notion of ‘one
single general structure of international power not specific to any particular thematic
area” (Soares de Lima 1990, 10).
When we recognise the existence of different structures of international power which
vary according to the thematic area, and in this recognition we stress the centrality of agency,
it is possible to identify, in the same period, positions that criticise and contest the normative
structure in place, and that even though they do not extend to the foreign policy guidelines as
a whole, can indeed be categorised as autonomist, without having to resort to imprecise
gradations or inadequate qualifiers in order to label (or to legitimise) the general orientation.
Similarly, there is no need to throw out the baby with the bathwater, giving up altogether the
original concept of autonomy. Having said that, let's get back to the analysis of Brazilian
foreign policy during Rousseff government.
Within a framework of constraints and opportunities, the path chosen by President
Rousseff was to focus on pragmatic choices; the first assignment of the newly-appointed
Chancellor Mauro Vieira (assisted by international aide Marco Aurelio Garcia) was to restore
the relations inside the corporation, extremely frayed by the end of the first term, and to
implement a results-based foreign policy on the commercial front, in this case aligned with
the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
But during the same period, the Dilma government also positioned itself critically on
crucial issues of the international arena such as the external interventions in Libya and Syria,
linking up with other emerging countries and thus enabling a convergence of votes in the
Security Council. Similarly, it met its BRICS partners to propose a diplomatic solution to the
crisis in Ukraine. It was also in conjunction with these partners that it helped to create the
New Development Bank (NDB) and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA), to
diversify the sources of funding aimed at covering the large infrastructure deficit in emerging
countries. Reacting to spying by the National Security Agency (NSA), the president cancelled
an official visit to the United States and condemned the incident at the opening of the UN
General Assembly in 2013. As regards international terrorism, the Brazilian position was also
opposed to that of the great powers, as it advocated dialogue and attention to the causes of the
phenomenon (Gomez Saraiva 2014).
14 So although it would not be accurate to attach the “autonomist” label to this
government’s general orientation in foreign policy, it would also be wrong to label it
“acquiescent”. It is not autonomy through “participation”, neither “through distance nor
through diversification”. But as an action paradigm or general guideline, we were also far
from joining the mainstream, i.e. adopting a liberal orientation. So while we cannot say that
there has been any deepening or continuity of the past autonomist attitude, we have not
identified a decline in Brazil’s international integration either (Cervo & Lessa 2014).
Therefore, regarding the assessment of the period under scrutiny, we claim that - in line with
the requisites of “international permissibility” and “national viability” of the autonomy
concept, and in keeping with a contemporary context in which the variation of capacities and
vulnerabilities has been increasing from one thematic area to another - we have witnessed a
variety of foreign policy options, even at the risk of creating some inconsistencies. Due to an
escalation of the political and economic crisis during the second term of Dilma’s government,
domestic issues have become more relevant in the government’s agenda. To quote a comment
by Celso Amorim, minister of Foreign Affairs of the Lula administration, foreign policy has
continued to be “proud” (altiva) but much less “active” (ativa) than under the latter’s
command.
Conclusion
Our objective when we began this article was to reflect on the possibilities of
ascribing an autonomist behaviour to contemporary Brazilian foreign policy, according to the
term’s meaning in its original formulation. In search of an answer, we have identified some
gaps, advances and setbacks within this universe, in addition to other points that we would
like to stress once again.
The first point to be highlighted is that the belief in a so-called perpetual search for
autonomy by Brazilian foreign policy - the “desire for autonomy”, in Fonseca Jr.’s expression
(1998) - has led analysts to qualify as autonomist some behaviours antithetical to the original
concept of autonomy.
The second point, strongly associated with the previous one, is that the political
content of the concept, along with the fact that in Brazil the activities of foreign policy
formulation and analysis are two exercises that overlap, has been heavily responsible for the
result above. And it is perhaps largely due to this situation that some conceptual stretches
have been made, thus creating some inadequacies, so that, in practice, the concept of
autonomy lost its analytical capacity to explain Brazilian foreign policy. In other words, to
the extent that its resignification was largely the result of a diplomatic strategy to give
continuity status to that policy by resorting to the use of narrative, the organising principle of
the external action of states - i.e. autonomy - was turned into diplomatic acquis. Reversing the
meaning assigned to it by Araújo Castro - as international policy -, the autonomist orientation
has been converted into Brazil's foreign policy, i.e. rather than a standard of conduct that
varies according to the internal and external scene, it has been presented as the permanent
element, becoming a political rallying cry (real or imagined) rather than an analytic category
to examine specific behaviours.
The third point has to do with the fact that by emphasising autonomy as foreign
policy’s permanent characteristic and key parameter prevents us from identifying the
moments of rupture or even reversals in a line of external conduct. We would argue that the
‘proud and active’ foreign policy practiced during the PT governments was one of these
moments. The institutional component of foreign policy, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’
15 traditional role in its formulation, exerted a strong inertial effect over it, at least until the
1980s-90s. Combined with the pragmatic-realist orientation that used foreign policy as a tool
of the international integration model based on import substitution in force during nearly all
the post-World War period, the conditions were given for foreign policy’s path dependence
throughout said period.
Its relative continuity was embodied by a foreign policy of prestige that basically
served the Brazilian diplomacy’s ambition to play a role at the multilateral level, mostly
restricted to trade and development issues, with varying degrees of adherence to the
international status quo or, at least, without any strong challenges to it. This international
protagonism was read and interpreted as a quest for autonomy, when in fact it was a typical
policy of prestige of a country situated on the periphery of the world system, eager to be
recognised by the great powers and to distinguish itself from the neighbouring countries and
from others similarly placed in the international stratification.
As we have stressed earlier, the presidential election of the first PT government in
2002 represented a critical juncture, a moment of rupture in that past trajectory. A situation of
greater global and regional permissiveness, and the coming to power of a centre-left coalition
created the conditions for the implementation of an autonomist foreign policy project, based
not only on international protagonism but also on the ambition to turn the country into a rulemaker, while strengthening political and economic ties with countries of the South and
establishing a strong solidarity with the surrounding region.
The fourth and last point is our main contribution to this discussion, namely the
introduction of the contextualisation of power thesis. However, the assumption that power
resources are situation-dependent does not imply the adoption of a utilitarian view of
autonomy, much to peripheral realism’s taste (Escudé 1992). The latter would argue that
within an international context where there is a huge power asymmetry among states,
“heteronomy would characterise the conduct of the system’s lesser actors” (Escudé 1992).
That is, the weakest actors should, according to Ovando Santana & Bustamante’s synthesis,
“pragmatically rationalise their lack of autonomy and capitalise the most their scarce and
very occasional possibilities of less subordinate and dependent integration in world politics”
(Ovando & Aranda 2013, 726). The interpretation that we embrace here goes in a different
direction. Instead of abandoning tout court the concept of autonomy, we seek to rescue its
original construction and meaning, following Jaguaribe and Puig; we then add the
contextualisation of power thesis, which allows us to describe some foreign policy options as
autonomist, without ignoring that there were choices made in the other direction. In this way
not only do we remain true to the original concept of autonomy, and recognise the variability
of behaviours in view of an equally variable power structure, but we also avoid the trappings
of using both the ambition for autonomy and the autonomy narrative as explanatory
categories of the country’s diplomatic behaviour at a particular historical time.
16 Bibliography
1. Amorin, Celso. 2015. Teerã, Ramalá e Doha: Memórias da Política Externa Ativa e Altiva. São
Paulo: Benvirá.
2. Bernal Meza, Raúl. 2013. América Latina en el mundo: el pensamiento latino-americano y la
teoría de las relaciones internacionales. Buenos Aires: Grupo Editor Latinoamericano.
3. Cardoso, Fernando Henrique. 1996a. "Relações Norte-Sul no contexto atual: uma nova
dependência," In O Brasil e a economia global, edited by Renato Bauman. Rio de Janeiro:
Campus.
4. _____. 1996b. “Conferência Consequências Sociais da Globalização, Indian International Centre,
Nova Delhi, Índia, 27 de Janeiro de 1996.” Accesed December, 2016.
http://www.biblioteca.presidencia.gov.br/presidencia/ex-presidentes/fernando-henriquecardoso/discursos/1o-mandato/1996-1/11%
5. _____. 2000. "O Brasil e uma Nova América do Sul." Valor Econômico.
6. Cervo, Amado Luiz & Antonio Carlos Lessa. 2014. O declínio: inserção internacional do Brasil
(2011-2014). Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional: 133-51.
7. Escudé, Carlos. 1992. Realismo periférico: fundamentos para la nueva políutica exterior
Argentina. Buenos aires: Planeta.
8. Fonseca Jr, Gelson. 1998. A legitimidade e outras questões internacionais. São Paulo: Paz e Terra.
9. Gomez Saraiva, Miriam. 2014. “Balanço da política externa de Dilma Rousseff: perspectivas
futuras.” Relações Internacionais: 25-35.
10. Jaguaribe, Helio. 1979. “Autonomía periférica y hegemonía céntrica.” Estudios Internacionales
12: 91-93.
17 11. _____. 1982. “Hegemonía Céntrica y Autonomía Periférica.” In América Latina y el Nuevo Orden
Económico Internacional, edited by Eduardo Hill & Lusiano Tomassini, 17-48. Buenos
Aires: Editorial de Belgrano.
12. Jaguaribe, Helio, Aldo Ferrer, Miguel S Wionczek & Theotonio Dos Santos. 1969. La
dependencia político-económica de América Latina. México, D.F.: Siglo Veintiuno.
13. Lorenzini, Maria Elena & Maria Gisela Doyal. 2013. “Revisitando los aportes de las teorías del
sur: nexos entre teoría y praxis en Argentina y Brasil.” Relaciones Internacionales: 9-26.
14. Moura, Gerson. 1980. Autonomia na dependência: a política externa brasileira de 1935 a 1942.
Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira.
15. Ovando, Cristian Santana & Gilberto Aranda Bustamante. 2013. “La autonomía en la política
exterior latinoamericana.” Papel Político: 719-742.
16. Pinheiro, Leticia. 2004. Política externa brasileira (1889-2002). Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar
Editora.
17. Puig, Juan Carlos. 1984. América Latina: políticas exteriores comparadas. Buenos Aires: Grupo
Editor Latinoamericano.
18. _____. 1980 Doctrinas internacionales y autonomía latinoamericana. Caracas: Universidad
Simón Bolivar, Instituto de Altos Estudios de América Latina, Fundación Bicentenario de
Simón Bolivar.
19. Russell, Roberto & Juan Gabriel Tokatlian. 2002. “De la autonomía antagónica a la autonomía
relacional: una mirada teórica desde el Cono Sur.” Perfiles Latinoamericanos: 159-194.
20. _____. 2015 “Grand Strategy.” In Routledge Handbook of Latin America in the World, edited by
Jorge I Domínguez & Ana Covarrubias, 58-73. New York & London: Routledge Taylor &
Francis Group,.
21. Saraivo, José Flávio. 2014. “Autonomia na Inserção Internacional do Brasil: Um Caminho
Histórico Próprio.” Contexto Internacional: 9-41.
22. Soares de Lima, Maria Regina. 1990. “A economia política da política externa brasileira: Uma
Proposta de Análise.” Contexto Internacional: 7-28.
23. _____. 2016. “Autonomia na dependência: a agência da Política Externa.” Observatorio Político
Sul-Americano, Boletim OPSA n.1. Janeiro-Marzo de 2015. Accesed December, 2016.
http://observatorio.iesp.uerj.br/pdfs/19_boletins_Boletim_JanMar.pdf
24. Spektor, Matias. 2014. “O projeto autonomista na política externa brasileira.” In Desenvolvimento
nas Ciências Sociais, o estado das artes, Livro 3: Política Externa, Espaço e
Desenvolvimento, edited by Aristides Monteiro Neto, 17-58. Brasilia: Instituto de Pesquisa
Econômica Aplicada - IPEA.
25. Vigevani, Tullo, & Gabriel Cepaluni. 2011. A política externa brasileira. a busca da autonomia,
de Sarney a Lula. São Paulo: Editora Unesp.
18 19