Brazil’s Management of the Global Governance Status Quo
Sean Burges
Australian National University
[email protected]
19 March 2013
DRAFT PAPER ---- PLEASE DO NOT CITE
WARNING: The scope and scale of this paper took on a life of its own
during the research and writing process, becoming somewhat larger than
was originally envisioned. The paper consequently is very much a work in
progress and is thus not stitched together particularly neatly and is
subject to sudden jumps and soaring leaps of logic. Comments and
criticisms are very much welcome (and needed).
Much of the rhetoric around the BRICs is that they will seek to transform or alter the
shape of global governance. The Southern-focused rhetoric of leftist Brazilian president
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva combined with an apparently obstructionist approach in
institutions such as the WTO to give the impression to some that Brazil wanted to
fundamentally change the nature of global governance. This paper will argue that such an
impression is wrong. Rather than fundamentally reshaping global governance, Brazil and
the other BRICs simply want to ensure that they are key the decision-makers and have a
fundamental input into how global governance structures emerge and are shaped as the
system goes forward. In part this is because Brazil and the other BRICs have done
remarkably well under the current global governance system and are thus more interested
in using the appearance a substantive reform agenda to capture support from the South. In
short, the goal is relative positioning within an existing structure, not transformation of
the current systems and institutions.
The question driving this paper is thus what impact will the rise of the BRICs have on
global order? Is China going to be a positive or negative influence on the international
system? How do we understand Brazil’s ambitions to be a world leader? What does an
increasingly outward-orientated India mean for global governance frameworks? The
common point to these and many other questions driven by the rise of major emerging
market countries is a sense that the international system is going to undergo a profound
transformation and that the core precepts that have governed international relations for
decades might be invalidated. In empirical terms this DRAFT PAPER will loosely
outline a portion of the Brazilian side of the story after developing a systemic structural
theoretical understanding. On the theoretical side, which dominates this paper, by turning
to a Coxian interpretation of Gramsci’s writing on hegemony this paper argues that these
sorts of questions are needlessly alarming. Through a focus on a what hegemony is and
how hegemony changes attention is turned to Cox’s metaphor of hegemony as a pillow to
argue that the very nature of hegemony dictates that the core precepts of the system, its
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fundamental structures and rules of operation, are not being contested. Change is instead
being sought in how the rules are applied and who gets to benefit from the rules, a
metaphor for contestation in international affairs that the article develops by riffing on
Robert W. Cox’s pillow metaphor to present hegemony as an all-encompassing blanked
with states competing for the ‘warm spots’ in the middle.
The theoretical argument that this paper presents is simple: hegemony is not fixed and
thus resistance to it or questioning of it elicits changes in its shape and application, but
not its core principles. It is this malleability that makes resistance productive, not futile.
In structural terms the article focuses purely on the developing the conceptual metaphor.
While the idea presented here was designed with international relations in mind – which
was not the case with Gramsci’s original work – it might equally apply to any situation
with strong power structures. The paper begins with a discussion of the difference
between ‘hegemon’ and ‘hegemony’, a distinction that is not always as clear as it should
be in international relations theory. Attention is then turned to a survey discussion of
hegemony in action, which sets the stage for the subsequent section’s examination of the
resilience of hegemony. The next section takes up Robert W. Cox’s hegemony as pillow
metaphor to make the point that hegemony is neither static nor immutable. Finally, the
paper picks apart Cox’s pillow and restitches it as blanket in order to fully develop this
paper’s metaphor of hegemony as an embracing blanked under which actors struggle for
the ‘comfortable’ spot.
The draft nature of this paper becomes very clear when attention is turned to the
empirical sections presenting evidence that will eventually be used to illustrate the theory.
By way of explanation, as work for this paper was competed the scope grew greatly and
the sorts of questions involved multiplied many-fold. While the theoretical modeling still,
I feel, holds, new dimensions into other areas are needed, most particularly some sort of
crossing of a realist approach to constructivism as well as a greater elaboration of norm
formation, maintenance and modification. Wrapped over top of this is a question of the
coercive element of a Gramscian/Coxian approach to hegemony is manifest as both a tool
for driving change and a limiter on how much change the BRIC countries can seek.
THE HEGEMON AND HEGEMONY
In the realist/neo-realist and liberal/institutionalist frameworks hegemony and the
concomitant ability to construct effective regimes and mobilize international action is
almost synonymous with a preponderance of the power allowing a state to either
dominate other states into submission, or absorb the costs of public good provision that
will ensure the loyalty of weaker states. A central problem with this logic is that it
conflates two nouns – hegemon and hegemony – that are neither identical, nor
interchangeable. The former is the near all-powerful actor capable of setting the rules of
the game – the sort of actor to whom Susan Strange (1994) would attribute structural
power. Hegemony is the thing this actor constructs, namely the rules of the game or the
structure of the international system. This distinction between the two terms is critical
because you do not need to have the former for the latter to persist. In other words,
drawing on Strange again and pointing towards Pedersen and Burges, hegemony can
continue to exist without the presence of a hegemon. The contest is thus not about the
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nature of the system, but who enjoys the most benefits of the system, which assumes the
existence of a zero-sum game. To encapsulate this idea I will eventually cast hegemony
as a blanket covering the community of states in the international system. Political
struggle in this context thus becomes a contest for the warm cozy spot in the middle, far
away from the drafty cold of the outer edges.
As David R. Mares (1988) has noted, the neorealist/liberal institutionalist
conceptualizations of hegemony mean that lesser and medium powers must include a
‘force’ calculus in their foreign policy planning and ambitions, factoring in their
importance to major powers as well as their capabilities compared to neighbouring states
in an assumption that change and power ascension necessarily means a retooling of the or
resistance of the system. In a point echoed by Michael Cox (2001: 321-315), Alan W.
Cafruny (1990: 115) criticizes such neo-realist approaches to hegemony for their focus on
the policy and bargaining processes inherent in international regimes. As Cox and
Cafruny argue, this oversight causes realists to miss important questions about the longrange stability of the system because insufficient attention is given to understanding the
underlying structural elements of power. Moreover, it passes over the impact that
subergional developments might have on the global system by automatically assuming
that lesser powers, even if pursuing a shared foreign policy agenda, will automatically
follow on issues which dominant states consider to be of prime importance.
In a shortfall shared by some adherents of the so-called ‘Italian School’, Keohane
(1984) pursues his interpretation of Gramsci without any direct reference to the Italian
philosopher’s work or mention of the Italian in his bibliography. Rather than drawing on
Gramsci’s original text, Keohane derives his interpretation from a less-than-complete
examination of the path-breaking work of Robert Cox, which in part explains the
apparently fudging of the distinction between naked domination and the idea that some
measure of consensus is important to hegemony. Central to Cox’s (1987: 7) framework,
and arguably crucial for Keohane’s approach as well, is a specific interpretation of the
term hegemony: “The dominant state creates an order based ideologically on a broad
measure of consent, functioning according to general principles that in fact ensure the
continuing supremacy of the leading state or states and leading social classes but at the
same time offer some measure of prospect of satisfaction to the less powerful.” In a
similar vein Benedetto Fontana (1993: 5) defines hegemony as, “the unity of knowledge
and action, ethics and politics, where such a unity, through its proliferation and
concertization throughout society, becomes the way of life and the practice of the popular
masses.” At first glance, Cox’s clear argument that hegemony is designed to perpetuate
the ascendancy of the leading transnational social classes would appear to support
Keohane. Yet, a deeper reading bolstered by Fontana reveals a subtle differentiation
between cooperation and coercion, reasoning that if coercion must be exercised to
maintain control, the relationship is one of domination, not hegemony (Cox 1996a: 127).
The crucial difference between the frameworks offered by Keohane and Cox lies
in the importance accorded to the central actors, in this case the state. In the theory
advanced by Keohane ideas become simply another, relatively minor harness with which
to rein in the actions of potential challenger-states, implying that the active
conceptualization of how the global system operates must be imposed on other states by
the dominant power. Cox (1996a: 137) eschews such a state-centric analysis, positing
that hegemony is not just an order amongst states, but a “dominant mode of production
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which penetrates into all countries and links into other subordinate modes of production.”
Hegemony is thus more than a concept applying solely to inter-state political relations; it
is an all-embracing system ordering economic, political, and social relations within and
between countries. While this overarching structure dictates the behaviour of states, it is
not necessarily the expression of one state’s dominance at any particular given moment
in time.
Hegemony operationalized
In the hands of Gramsci, and subsequently Cox, the concept of hegemony thus
encompasses more than the school-yard bully dynamics evoked by realists. As Gramsci
noted:
The fact of hegemony undoubtedly presupposes that the interests and
strivings of the groups over which the hegemony will be exercised are
taken into account of, that a certain balance of compromises be formed,
that, in other words, the leading group makes some sacrifices of an
economico-corporative [155] kind; but it is also undoubted that these
sacrifices and compromises cannot concern essentials, since if the
hegemony is ethico-political, it must also be economic, it must have its
foundations in the decisive function that the leading group exercises in the
decisive sphere of economic activity (Gramsci 1957: 154-155).
Unlike the situation described by Keohane, a Gramscian conception of hegemony focuses
more on inclusion than imposition. Emphasis is placed squarely upon the construction of
a consensual order where the dominant or hegemonic party--the hegemon--formulates a
specific conceptualization for the shape of economic, political, and social relations. In a
different frame this is almost exactly what Susan Strange was getting at with her model
of structural power when she discussed the ability of an all-dominant state to set the
‘rules of the game’ even if that state fell in relative power (Strange 1994). Giovanni
Arrighi builds on Gramsci’s work, characterizing hegemony as an additional level of
power which a dominant state accumulates when it is able to articulate and implement an
ordering of the system which is perceived as being in the universal interest Arrighi 1993:
149-150; Cafruny 1988: 77). The construction of a hegemonic system is thus an
expression of more than the naked dominance of one powerful state. Instead, the historic
bloc is considered the product of discussion and negotiation about how affairs shall be
ordered, bounded by the proviso that the fundamental economic interests of the dominant
group will not be compromised. The dominant group will go to the extent of making
minor or tangential sacrifices, even in the economic realm, in order to incorporate the
subordinate, creating a system of political economy which subtly, yet indelibly, commits
the subaltern to preserving the hegemony for what at first glance may appear as selfinterested reasons (Gill and Law 1988: 77). Thus, it is not the latent threat of coercion
found in neo-realist theory – the wielding of unadorned, raw power by the dominant –
that maintains the hegemony established by the dominant group, but the ‘ethico-political’
construct that causes the subaltern to identify its self-interests with the perpetuation of the
existing hegemony (Cox 1996a: 127).
The differentiation between the idea of hegemony as the expression of a
consensual system and hegemony as an expression of domineering power is captured by
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Cox (1996a: 127) when he paraphrases one of Gramsci’s most recognized lines, noting
that power is like a centaur, “half man, half beast, a necessary combination of consent
and coercion.” While the possibility of coercion is not discarded by Cox, it is held in the
background as a last resort. A hegemon’s aversion to the use of direct domination is
grounded in a view that sees power as being at its most effective when its instruments are
well hidden from sight (Payne 1994: 153). When force is brought to bear by the hegemon,
its application is often masked, veiled behind altruistic statements that the interests of all
must be protected; overt demonstrations and applications of power to enforce the
hegemony are a sign of weakness in the hegemon, not strength of the hegemony (Augelli
and Murphy 1993: 128). The image of hegemony emerging from this position is
intrinsically more subtle and inclusive than that advanced by realists such as Gilpin and
Keohane, focusing solidly upon the securing of consent for and cooperation with the
hegemon’s leadership rather than obeisance to the dominant state. Taken to its ultimate
conclusion this form of leadership can create a situation where the need for force is
removed, allowing potentially profound conscious and unconscious contributions from
states that are neither interested, nor capable of engaging in realist-style power politics.
The distinction between leadership and domination is emphasized by a more
careful examination of the Gramscian passage paraphrased by Cox. In the original
‘Centaur’ text the reader is presented with a series of paired concepts: “savage and human,
force and consent, authority and hegemony, violence and civilisation, the individual stage
and the universal stage, agitation and propaganda, tactics and strategy, etc” (Gramsci
1957: 161). For Gramsci these groupings proved emblematic of the ‘double perspective,’
corresponding to two aspects of the same concept, bound in a dialectical relationship.
Manifestations of those concepts found in the first of half of the pairings are the most
immediate, or elementary form of the idea; the second half is “the more complex,
elevated” of the pair, arguably the more desirable (Gramsci 1957: 161). The shift from
the elementary to the more complex represents a transition from the basal to the civilized
values of Gramsci’s vision of humanity.
Hegemony thus emerges as a more evolved form of authority. It is a more
sophisticated, nuanced, and desirable type of supremacy because it operates within the
bounds of civilization and humanity, a point recognized by Gill’s (1990: 44) observation
that hegemony involves the ruled consenting and actively embracing the hegemonic order
of their own accord instead of through fear and repression. Thus, the arbitrariness and
uncertainty of asserted authority is replaced by the stability and security of consensually
internalized obedience to the hegemonic order, an order bearing closer resemblance to
that of leader and follower than that of master and servant.
Of course, there remains the question of how the ruler gains the active consent of
the ruled, a topic which also explains the resilience of hegemony and Gramsci’s decision
to classify it as the civilized manifestation of authority. As Joseph Femia observes, and
Cox clearly recognizes, a central aspect of Gramsci’s approach to hegemony is the
division of the state into the two realms of political society and civil society. The coercive
apparatus necessary to satisfy the ‘domination’ aspect of hegemony is primarily the
machinery of the state. But, because hegemony is dependent upon consent, equal, if not
greater emphasis must be placed upon the attainment of moral and intellectual leadership,
something which Gramsci saw as rooted in the realm of civil society. While it is quite
possible at this point to digress into a discussion of the significance of organic
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intellectuals (Augelli and Murphy 1993: 131), Femia (1987: 24) observes that hegemony
is attained and maintained through a diffuse network of direct and indirect cognitive and
institutional structures, not active and sustained coercion. It is the ability of the dominant
to systematize and cause the subordinate to internalize an ideational approach to order
that is the key to achieving and maintaining hegemony (Femia 1987: 219). A hegemon
must articulate its project in such a manner that subordinate groups willingly embrace the
core elements of the hegemony as being not only a shared set of interests, but also a
legitimate ordering of economic, political, and social relations (Augelli and Murphy
1993: 20-21). The consequent psychological weight, conscious or subconscious, of the
widespread perception of the hegemony’s legitimacy creates an order undergirded by an
agreement on shared values, priorities, and objectives so strong that the hegemony is able
withstand assault from potentially disruptive elements, as well as internalize and subsume
divergent positions such that they work to strengthen, rather than weaken, the hegemony
(Gramsic 1957: 154-55; Femia 1987: 37-39).
HEGEMONY’S RESILIENCE
Gramsci draws on the writings of Machiavelli to suggest how a hegemonic project might
be constructed. Significantly, it is not the aggressive repression of dissent that gave rise to
the adjective ‘Machiavellian’ which serves as Gramsci’s inspiration, but the nature of the
book The Prince, a volume which is cast as a textbook for enlightened leaders seeking a
fruitful rule. The underlying theme of Gramsci’s reading is the idea that the naked
application of force should be avoided whenever possible. Instead of imposing one’s will,
a process of dialogue should be initiated, with great care being given to how the would-be
hegemon articulates its conception of a new order. In Gramsci’s words (1957: 160-161),
“a consciously planned struggle to win ‘understanding’ of the requirements of the
economic position of the masses.” According to this line of reasoning, the hegemonic
view should be negotiated. Rather than using brute force to impose hegemony, the
ideational underpinnings of the existing order are adapted to incorporate the concerns and
aspirations of the subaltern in a manner that does not threaten to fundamentally supplant
the core values and priorities of the hegemon. The would-be hegemon should also avoid
framing its proposed leadership in an exclusive manner, seeking instead to formulate a
vision beneficial to both the leader and the led. Moreover, this interactive process is
ongoing, continuing to the point where the line between the teacher and the student,
leader and follower, blurs, opening the possibility of a reversal of roles that would see the
subordinate offering the programmatic proposals necessary to further entrench and
advance the hegemonic project (Fontana 1993: 126).
The incorporative nature of hegemony presents a serious challenge to those
seeking to overturn the existing order. While there is ostensibly a clear separation of the
space occupied by civil and political society, Femia points out that the actions of civil
society are effectively circumscribed by laws and regulations formulated by political
society. Through the formation of institutions, the accumulation of regulatory rulings, and
direct or masked support of specific actors, the dominant class is gradually able to
infiltrate the fabric of civil society. The previous space for dissent appears to remain in
place, but the ability to conceptualize counter-hegemonic programs declines because civil
society actors have become a de facto expression of the will of the dominant class (Femia
1987: 27-28). Dialogue and negotiation directed towards the formation and maintenance
6
of hegemony results in an environment where dissenting ideas are not so much
suppressed as absorbed and subsumed. The instruments of hegemony are thus
strengthened and supported because they become an expression not only of the power of
the dominant social group, but also of the goals and aspirations of the subordinate social
groups (Femia 1987: 44).
Gramsci called on two different styles of warfare – a war of movement and a war
of position – to explain the challenges faced by any group seeking to overturn an existing
hegemony. A war of movement can be likened to a guerrilla campaign, with those
seeking a new order constantly assaulting the structures supporting and perpetuating
hegemony. Drawing on his division of the state into the two components of civil society
and political society, Gramsci posited that a war of movement was destined to fail in
most western countries because the structures of power had become the expression of
civil society. A war of position is thus necessary, which requires not only that an alternate
ordering of society be constructed and developed, but also that it be kept independent
until such time as it is powerful enough to challenge the existing hegemonic structure as
an equal. The problem for a war of position strategy in contemporary international
strategy is that the global political economy has hit a point of interconnectedness where
delinking is not a realistic option.
Beating the Hegemonic Pillow
Cox (1996a: 128-129) joins Gramsci in positing that the problem with a premature attack
on the state, as in a war of movement, is that it exposes the immature nature of the
revolutionary project, leaving it open to an effective counterattack and cooption by the
dominant class. The reality of this reimposition of the dominant order is not necessarily a
resort to coercion, but a willingness of the institutions supporting hegemony to actively
engage in dialogue with dissenting elements in order to strengthen bridges between the
dissenting class and the dominant class. Through a process of transformismo, a process of
active engagement, potentially dangerous ideas in subaltern groups are assimilated and,
through the sort of intellectual exchange discussed above, adjusted so that they reinforce
rather than challenge the policies and objectives of the dominant group. The malleability
of the institutions established by the dominant class for this end, buttressed by civil
society, is neatly captured by Cox (1996a: 139) in a simple metaphor: “Hegemony is like
a pillow: it absorbs blows and sooner or later the would-be assailant will find it
comfortable to rest upon.” To overturn the existing order it is therefore necessary to
create a vision of an alternate historic bloc (Cox 1987: 106), which requires that the
dissenting group establish a relationship of hegemony over another group. In the realm of
international relations this would require that one state devise an alternate
conceptualization of world order and then establish a relationship of hegemony with other,
subordinate states (Cox 1996a: 136, 132). To affect change in the international system –
to overturn a hegemon – would therefore necessitate either a marshalling of resources to
create a viable, independent, alternate historic bloc, or a severe crisis which causes the
legitimacy of the existing order to be widely questioned and rejected.
The underlying message of the analytical narrative offered by Cardoso and Faletto
in Dependency and Development is that attempts by developing countries to foment a war
of position failed, mostly because the economies of Latin America are intimately
embedded in the global political economy (Prebisch 2011; Dosman 2008). In a post
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scriptum authored 10 years after the volume’s original publication the authors note that
Brazil, Mexico, and Venezuela,
seem to aim at establishing a place for themselves in the international
political order, particularly in the case of Brazil… This observation does
not diminish the impact which the more active presence of economic and
political interests of these countries may have upon neighboring nations…
However, it seems premature to speak of sub-imperialism (Cardoso and
Faletto 1979: 198).
The author’s derive this conclusion from the observation that the larger states in Latin
America are seeking to pursue foreign policies that exploit contradictions in the
international order, opening a space for a greater degree of national policy-making
autonomy (Cardoso and Faletto 1979: 199). Nevertheless, the central problematic of
dependency remains. The fabric of the global political economy has been woven in a
manner that would seem to perpetuate the subaltern status of the larger countries in the
region irrespective of how their economic relations with the region’s smaller countries
might be altered (Robinson 2004; 2008).
That the fundamental fabric of hegemony is unlikely to be sundered, even by
independence-minded policies such as import-substitution industrialization, does not
mean that the system is immune to change. Gill discusses the mutability of hegemony in
the context of a war of position, observing that a challenge to the existing order through
the collective action of a war of position opens an avenue through which agency can
transform the nature of the overarching hegemonic structure (Gill 1993a: 23). As noted in
the discussion above, such a challenge elicits a dialectical process of discussion, which
the hegemon in turn uses to defuse serious challenges to its preeminence. This is the same
process that Gramsci points to when he explains the ultimate failure of a war of
movement against an established hegemony, suggesting that the power of hegemony is its
ability to continuously absorb and prosper from attempts to upset the hegemonic order.
Cox’s pillow metaphor is particularly instructive at this point, suggesting that the
strength of hegemony lies in its ability to absorb attacks without being destroyed. Like a
pillow, hegemony simply cushions the impact of a blow, internalizing and absorbing the
intellectual and ideological force of dissent through a process of dialogue and discussion.
The image Cox evokes is a pointless and ultimately frustrated attack on the existing
structure that results in little real change. In gross structural terms, this may well be the
case. The pillow remains a pillow irrespective of the quantity or force of the blows rained
down upon it. Indeed the underlying fundamental shape and nature of the
pillow/hegemony is not going to change. Nevertheless, even though no amount of battery
will make a square pillow triangular without fundamentally rending its fabric, the
repeated blows are not without impact. An impression is left on the pillow, the size and
permanence of the impression being dictated by a combination of the force of the blow
and the quality of the pillow.
In more vernacular terms, a pillow can be folded, plumped, twisted or compressed
to make it a more comfortable resting place. The fact that it is a pillow is not the issue.
How it feels under one’s head is. Shifting this metaphor to international relations, the
issue is not that the system exists or even has specific characteristics that close off some
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potential avenues of action. The issue is instead how a particular state or actor fits into
the system and is able to use the characteristics of the hegemony to advance its own
interests and ambitions. In other words, beating the pillow does have an impact because it
changes the manner in which the pillow cushions a head. Shifting back to the language of
political theory, an assault mirroring Gramsci’s war of movement will have an impact on
hegemony. The basic nature of the hegemony will not be changed by this tactic; as noted
above, the central ideas and constructs of hegemony are not open for discussion. But, as
with the pillow metaphor, a sustained assault on the hegemonic order can lead to a
revision of how the system is applied and how it acts to incorporate subordinate elements.
As Mittelman (1999: 47) observes, “hegemony is not a stable condition; it is
always being created and undermined,” which in turn suggests that there is constant space
for reshaping the feel of the pillow without actually destroying the pillow itself. If one
assumes that the goal is to gain power or position within, but not necessarily overturn the
existing system, then the key to a potentially successful war of movement strategy is to
not dogmatically challenge the fundamentals of the hegemony. As such, the goal is not
necessarily to convert the pillow into a chair, but to reshape the contours of the pillow in
such a way that it becomes a more comfortable resting-place. In international political
economy terms this assault on the hegemonic pillow can be likened to attempts at
reshaping national insertion into the international economy. Cox (1996b: 105) points to
this idea in a discussion casting international political economy “as a pattern of
interacting social forces in which states play an intermediate though autonomous role
between the global structure of social forces and local configurations of social forces.”
Because power is presented as emerging from social process, the strategy underlying the
war of movement under discussion here is to reformulate transnational socio-economic
relations, altering the relative power of a particular state in the global order. Gramsci
(1957: 148-150) alludes to this when he argues that the emergence of a dominant party is
a historical phenomenon, representing a moment in time when the party begins to
represent strong elements of commonality that incorporate rather than suppress other
sectors of society. In the international arena, where states do retain a high degree of
importance (Germain and Kenny 1998: 16-17), the moment to watch for is the emergence
of new institutions and organizations which either embed the hegemony in the global
order (Gill 1993b), or provide a platform from which an otherwise weaker state might use
a carefully constructed foreign policy to garner support for a mildly transformative war of
movement.
Restitching Hegemony
For the purposes of the discussion in this paper, what we are interested in is what sort of
power needs to be accumulated to shift application and interpretation of the hegemony.
Returning to Cox’s pillow metaphor, we are left asking how an actor desiring change in
the overarching hegemony might collect sufficient power to strike the pillow hard enough
to create a more comfortable resting place for its interests. Unfortunately, it is at this
point that Cox’s metaphor breaks down. While it aptly describes the absorptive and
cooptive nature of an effective hegemony, the fundamental reality remains that a pillow is
something upon which one reposes; a pillow is not something which embraces and
envelopes as the structure of hegemony does. What we therefore need to do is shift our
metaphorical thinking a bit and cast hegemony as a blanket, not a pillow.
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Like a pillow, a bundled blanket can be beaten endlessly and fruitlessly to the
point where it is simply easier to just lie down upon it and rest. Unlike a pillow, a blanket
can also be spread out and used to envelop and enclose an individual or group in much
the same manner as the structural rules that govern a system when hegemony is in
operation. This shift in metaphor opens space for a shift in how we might think about the
resilience and process of change in the international system through a ‘war of movement’.
As has been suggested above, the desire is not so much to overturn the system as to
ensure that it more comfortably accommodates the interests and desires of a group
agitating for change. The desire is thus not to weave a new ‘blanket’, something that
would require a massive preponderance of power a civilizational war, but to shift the
manner in which the blanket of hegemony lies overtop of the community of states.
In effect, the struggle for power and influence in the international system is being
transmuted into a tug-of-war for the best and warmest spots underneath the blanket of
hegemony. In more conventional terms, it is not that power contenders are seeking to
radically reframe and redraw the operating rules of the international system that comprise
the substance of the hegemony. Rather it is a desire to tweak these rules, to see them
interpreted in a particular manner that embodies a different set of priorities and protects a
particular set of interests. This in turn would reflect the changing nature of the productive
capacity of dominant actors as well as the shift in loci of economic power from region to
region and state to state. In other words, while the reality of power remains largely the
same, the characteristics and capabilities that are needed to have power change, and that
these changes result in pressures for a shift in the application of the broad principles of
the hegemony enveloping the international system.
An important implication of the blanket/bedspread approach to hegemony is that
individual states or coalitions of states can act to try and pull the cover in one direction or
another, privileging particular interests or encompassing new ideas in a manner that
reinforces the validity and importance of the hegemony rather than causing it to be cast
aside. This also creates space for a shifting in the relative weight of importance accorded
to different actors within the system, something that is suggested by the current shift in
concentration away from smaller G8 countries towards the larger BRIC countries. What
is significant, and strongly redolent of the argument that Cardoso and Faletto elaborated
in Dependency and Development, is that the hegemony is not directed against any
particular group. The exercise of power is far more sophisticated. It offers benefits for
those who accept its rules and try to work with them, something highlighted in the
discussion of transnational capitalist linkages in Dependency and Development. Power is
maintained by the possibilities for action and the ability to push for change. In other
words, the structure delimits the realm of possible for agency; yet, sustained pressure
from agency gradually will shift all but the core requisites of the structure.
Theoretical Implications
The blanket approach to hegemony is useful for understanding the changes that are
currently being seen in the international system. Conventional approaches to hegemony
and/or core-periphery/dependency relations would suggest that it is the developed
countries of Western Europe and North America that continuously suppress and repress
the ‘other’ in order to maintain prestige and privilege. This logic rather spectacularly
collapses in the face of current international realities, particularly the enormous outwards
10
spread of Indian and Brazilian multinational corporations, the rise of China incorporated,
and the recent rescue of the US financial system by capital inflows from nominally
developing areas. Apart from a few delusional outliers such as Hugo Chavez in
Venezuela and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran, there is little serious rejection of the
liberal economic substance of the existing hegemony – indeed, Chavez’s constant railing
against globalization is a curious stance for a president entirely dependent on the
international trade of commodities for his political survival. What we see instead is an
active reinterpretation of the meaning and application of the core ideological requisites of
the hegemony – a challenging of how fundamental norms are understood – be it the
strategic use of quasi-national resource companies such as Petrobras or the fierce
application of liberal free trade economics within the WTO as a device to promote
Southern developmental priorities. The debate is best explained not as a pillow fight, with
actors seeing who has the firmest and fastest moving pillow, but as a struggle to secure
the warm center-spot under the blanket, far from the cold and drafty edges of the
anarchical international system.
Looking in a New Direction: The South-South Alternative
This raises the question of how an emerging market state such as Brazil can get a strong
enough hold on a corner of the ‘blanket’ of hegemony to keep itself under the
comfortable spot. An important part of the BRIC/Brazil effort to rewire how the
international system works has been predicated on a shift in attention away from a focus
on South-North opportunities to explore new possibilities in the South-South direction.
This was made clear in 2004 through Brazil’s benchmark foreign policy statement, the
annual opening address to the UN General Assembly, which specifically targeted at
recruiting African support when Lula explicitly quoted Frantz Fanon, a key intellectual
architect of African independence. Lula directly called on the global South to take charge
of its own affairs and pursue Southern, not Northern priorities: “I have a life-long
commitment to those silenced by inequality, hunger and hopelessness. To them, in the
powerful words of Franz Fanon, the colonial past has bestowed a common legacy: ‘If you
so desire, take it: the freedom to starve to death.’”1 This publicly expressed sense that
Southern countries should make their own decisions and take charge of their own fate led
to some curious contradictions in Brazil’s own foreign relations. While Lula adopted a
remarkably subdued outward reaction to the 2006 Bolivian nationalization of Petrobras
gas interests and treated it as an internal Bolivian issue with bilateral implications in need
of discussion,2 the Brazilian president was not shy about directly intervening in the
domestic politics of neighbouring countries by publicly stating his preference for
particular leftist candidates. Brazilian firms fed this quiet abeyance of Brazil’s traditional
maximalist approach to soveriengty in foreign affairs by engaging in a deep process of
internationalization throughout South America through an extensive program of foreign
direct investment and market penetration.
The reality is that the turn to Africa has provided results on a number of fronts for
Brazil’s larger political and economic foreign policy. In essence Lula’s foreign policy
innovation represented little more than an extension of some of the global positioning
strategies used during the Cardoso administration. During the Cardoso years stabilizing
Mercosur and South America became critical elements of Brazil’s reinsertion into the
international community, with leadership of the bloc and continent winning him
11
invitations to key global talk shops such as the ‘Third Way’ forums and positioning the
country as a gateway to South America.3 Lula’s launch of pan-Southern and Africaspecific foreign policy programs fit within this mold, particularly through its efforts to
use ideas to shift the foreign policy decision-making matrix across the global South and
reorient it towards Brazil and away from the US and other Northern countries.
As was the case with Brazilian initiatives in South America, Lula’s attempts to
position Brazil as a pan-Southern leader have not been totally successful.4 At a basic
level Brazil has been unwilling or unable to meet the demands it has created, most
particularly in the constant petition for development assistance and foreign direct
investment from African partners. Yet, it is in the very failure to satisfy what amount to
demands for Brazilian leadership that we also find the signs of success in Lula’s
ideational leadership. Attitudes across the global South shifted to see Brasília as a
potential source of political support, developmental assistance, and commercial
opportunity. This in turn shifted decision-making matrices, generating important
elements of political support for key Brazilian initiatives, most notably formation of the
G-20 WTO trade negotiating coalition and at least a renewal of discussions about
reforming the United Nations Security Council, all of which helped entrench Brazil’s
position in what became the G20 global governance framework. Continued work by Lula
and his foreign policy team to mobilize and coordinate pan-Southern voices added
density to Brazil’s calls to be included as a major player at global decision-making tables
even if the price of admission was fundamentally as interlocutor to an increasingly vocal
global South.
Working the system
As Soares de Lima and Hirst point out, Brazil is committed to multilateralism.5 But, for
Brazil this commitment to multilateralism appears thin,6 taking a decidedly self-interested
direction that is closer to the realpolitik of the US or France than the notion of
enlightened self-interest attributed to the actions of Australia and Canada within the
normative boundaries of the US-vision for global governance frameworks. Indeed,
policy-makers in Northern capitals have often expressed some frustration with Brazil’s
apparent foot-dragging in multilateral forum as a form of passive obstructionism. United
States Trade Representative Robert Zoellick blasted Brazil for this very type of behaviour
after the 2003 Cancun WTO ministerial. A more regionalized set of concerns came in the
wake of the 2009 coup in Honduras, with Brazil holding out against an OAS consensus
on how to normalize the situation.7
It is not that Brazil is rebelling against the international system and trying to
overturn it. Quite the opposite, Brazil does very well within the existing system. Rather
than rebelling, Brazil is attempting to prioritize the place of its interests within that
system by advancing the different normative agenda identified by Hurrell. Viewed
another way, there is a natural affinity between middle powers such as Australia and
Canada with the US that sees an almost irresistible gravitation towards US-friendly
positions in foreign policy even if masked in a questioning rhetoric and strong principled
differences on politically-charged foreign policy issues such as Cuba and the Second Gulf
War.8 This same affinity is seen at times in Brazilian foreign policy, but only because
Brazil sees gains for itself in maintaining the structure of the system, which is very
different from the traditional middle power idea of working within the normative frames
12
set by the US in the post-World War Two period. A different track has been followed by
Brazil, which questions key assumptions about the predominant normative frame for
global governance and directly questions the Brazilian position within it. Brazil has
increasingly turned towards a policy of autonomy that privileges concepts such as
sovereignty in order to maximize the policy space and independence from global
marginalization that Brasília feels it critical for advancing national development
projects.9
Three examples serve to highlight Brazil’s sustained efforts to improve its relative
agency within the existing multilateral system. During the WTO Doha Round Brazil
worked to advance its relative position by advocating an orthodox liberal economic
approach to the global trade regime which actively questioned US and EU attempts to
manipulate the system. Moreover, we see a clear break between the traditional middle
powers and Brazil in the WTO case. Questions about nuclear non-proliferation serve as
an example of Brazil attempting to maintain the pre-eminence of existing sovereignty
norms in order to isolate itself from potential pressure from core countries such as the US.
Finally, the issue of financial global governance stands as an example where almost no
questions are asked about the overarching structure of the existing multilateral system,
only about Brazil’s place within it.
The WTO Doha Round
Brazil played an active role in creating coalitions within the WTO to advance its position
and push the trade talks in a direction away from that preferred by the US and EU.10 This
highlighted a direct rift with middle powers and their approach to global trade talks with
Brazil effectively abandoning the North-South Cairns Group to form the South-South G20 coalition of developing countries. The view in Brasília was that the leaders of the
Cairns group, middle powers Australia and Canada, were excessively beholden to the US
view and would not advance anti-subsidy positions that might erode American relative
power in the global economy or impact their own domestic interests.
The vituperative reaction of US and EU trade officials to Brazil’s role in the
collapse of the 2003 Cancun WTO ministerial meeting pointed directly at a concern that
Brazil intended to kill the entire process in a pique of protectionism. As tempers cooled, a
more nuanced story emerged. The first clear element was that Brazil was quite forcefully
advocating elements of a global free trade regime. As a newly emerged agricultural
superpower, Brazil was simply advancing its own commercial interests within the WTO
framework by pushing for a more sweeping set of liberalization measures. A second, less
obvious aspect was the work Brazil was undertaking to keep a large group of
disenchanted developing countries at the table. By 2004 it was becoming increasingly
apparent that these countries were having serious second thoughts about the entire WTO
process and might try to derail the institution. In the interest of preserving an institution
that was serving Brazilian interests, particularly through the dispute settlement system,
Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorim addressed a meeting of G-90 ministers and
sought their acquiescence to his lead.11 Amorim’s success at this meeting helped to vault
Brazil into the inner circle of WTO talks where he continued to push for greater
liberalization on the agricultural front until the surge in global commodity prices made
many Brazilian products competitive exports despite the trade distorting subsidy practices
in the US and EU.
13
By 2007 the Brazilian position began to moderate on issues such as nonagricultural market access and some ground was surrendered on the agricultural front
despite the concerns of other G-20 Trade and G90 members. Significantly, the rationale
was not appeasement of the US or EU, but rather a shift in the underlying economics of
Brazil’s position as global commodity prices rose and a perceived need to keep the WTO
alive as a useful institution in which Brazilian interests could be advanced. Away from
the Doha Round talks Brazil had been busy in the WTO’s Dispute Settlement
Understanding mechanism, bringing a succession of cases against the US and EU that
achieved revisions of trade policies that were proving elusive at the negotiating table.
Concerns from other members of the G-20 Trade coalition about Brazil’s softening
negotiating stance, most notably the bloc’s Latin American members, were given space
for discussion at weekly group strategy sessions in Geneva, but somehow faded from the
radar when Brazil met with the other major countries to negotiate the specifics of a
possible Doha Round agreement.
Priority was placed on maintaining the WTO as a credible institution that could be
used to advance Brazilian interests and prevent a return to the sort of tit-for-tat trade
retaliations that would be inimical to increasingly internationalized segments of Brazil’s
economy. Brazil thus exhibited many of the characteristics associated with middle
powers, namely coalition formation, policy entrepreneurship, support of the multilateral
structure. Unlike a traditional middle power, the Brazilian approach questioned the
central normative assumptions underlying the WTO by taking a stance that asked why
development and the encouragement of South-South interaction should not be a priority.
The result was an implicit question not of the need for the WTO, but of how it should
conceptualize its agenda and go about advancing a liberal global economic model.
Nuclear non-proliferation
Brazil’s core position is that nuclear weapons proliferation is a bad thing. As Brazil’s
former representative to the UN Conference on Disarmament explains, ‘Brazil and Latin
America will not develop nuclear weapons and will remain active and constructive
partners in the establishment of a world safe from weapons of mass destruction’.12 Such
forceful statements from former government officials as well as constitutional provisions
banning the development and use of nuclear weapons would appear to make Brazil a
natural ally of US policies to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Yet
Brazil has emerged as one of the more difficult partners in the fight against proliferation
due to its repeatedly expressed position that the existing anti-nuclear regime is more of an
entrenchment of unequal military power relations and technological dependencies than
something dedicated towards global piece and security.13 Concerns that governments of
the P5 five declared nuclear powers might harbour about Brazil’s intentions are not
helped by Brasília’s efforts to maintain relations with Iran and the tenor of joint
statements with countries distrusted by the West.14
The issue starts with the legal framework around the non-proliferation regime.
While Brazil did eventually sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1998, it has vehemently
and repeatedly refused to accede to the additional protocol that allows the International
Atomic Energy Agency sweeping inspection rights.15 Principles of sovereignty and
commercial secrecy have been continually held up by Brazil as a justification for its
position. On a more pragmatic level Brazil claims a need to protect future commercial
14
prerogatives. With some of the world’s largest uranium reserves, the country is seeking to
master the atomic fuel cycle on an industrial scale so that it can position itself as a key
energy broker in the future. Setting aside the sovereignty considerations, the issue for
Brazil is one of predatory commercial practices from the established nuclear powers and
their potential efforts to keep new entrants from the atomic energy industry.16
Of course, commercial considerations are not placed to the fore in Brazil’s
international stance. Emphasis is instead on the right of all nations to make pacific use of
atomic energy. In particular, Brazil frequently draws attention to provisions in the NPT
that require the established nuclear powers to disarm. The result is a very difficult
international stance from Brazil on the nuclear question. Efforts in May 2010 by Brazil
and Turkey to broker a deal with Iran that would maintain the country’s right to develop
enriched-fuel energy systems while simultaneously assuaging the proliferation concerns
of the P5 created a massive clash with the US and a near breakdown in bilateral relations
highlighting a fundamentally different view of how the non-proliferation regime worked.
From the Brazilian point of view the idea was to provide assurances to both sides. To the
P5 the priority was that nuclear materials were not being weaponised. Conversely the
assurance for Iran was that the nuclear materials would in fact be processed and returned,
not seized by the US and other P5 countries.17 An approach to the Iranian challenge
through the IAEA was not rejected by Brazil,18 but a question was asked about who was
making the decisions: was it the US, or the multilateral organization running the NPT
regime at the IAEA? The answer matters to the relational power calculations at Itamaraty.
Ceding a measure of sovereignty to the IAEA would be difficult, but nevertheless easier
than surrendering it to another country.
Global financial governance
As Almeida points out, Brazil has been a solid user of global financial institutions.19
Funds from the World Bank Group and the Inter-American Development Bank played an
important role in Brazil’s internal development as well as in new programs by financing
the Brazilian firms working on regional infrastructure schemes like IIRSA.20 For Brazil
the issue has never been that institutions such as the IMF and World Bank are
unnecessary. Rather, the point that has been made with increasing force since the
Cardoso presidency is not just that global financial institutions are fundamentally nondemocratic, but also that they often engage in spurious programming and analysis.
Lula reiterated the importance of these institutions shortly after the 2008 Global
Financial Crisis, calling for a new approach to global financial governance that was more
open, participative, and explicitly aware that the supposed experts in the G-7 did not have
the answers and lacked the necessary conditions to keep the world from economic
disaster.21 Significantly, Lula did not call for dissolution of the global financial
architectures or a fundamental redesign of the existing institutional structures. Instead, he
sought to embed a series of principles – representation and legitimacy, collective action,
good domestic governance, responsibility, transparency, and prevention – as avenues for
broadening participation in global decision making.
In 2011, President Dilma Rousseff’s central bank head, Alexandre Tombini
explained that Brazil’s involvement in setting the Basel III regulatory framework in the
Bank of International Settlements meant that the country was directly contributing to the
evolving shape of the global financial governance structure.22 More significantly, Brazil
15
was successfully pushing for an approach with more stringent reserve and reporting rules
for the banking sector, something that was normal for Brazilian banks, but a significant
challenge for countries such as the US. Additional pressure along these lines came as the
G20 turned its collective attention to dealing with the financial crises sweeping Europe.
Working in conjunction with the other BRIC countries, Brazil floated the idea that it was
possible to provide a financial rescue package for Europe, but not as a blank cheque.
One economist speaking to the Brazilian newspaper Valor Econômico wondered
if the IMF would impose the sorts of austerity programs experienced in Latin America on
countries like Spain and Italy, making the point that Europe must follow the same rules of
the game as other countries in the global financial system.23 Responding to the
Portuguese financial crisis, Brazilian reaction was a mix of caution and promise of
assistance. Shortly after arriving in Portugal for her first visit to Europe as president,
Dilma indicated that Brazil would be willing to help its fellow Lusophone country with
some of its financial challenges as part of the Brazilian Central Bank’s plan to diversify
its reserve holdings.24 The twist thrown into this proposition by Brazilian monetary
authorities was that such assistance would not be provided if it amounted to a
Brazilian/BRIC bail out of French and German banks that had engaged in foolish lending
practices.25 Brazilian coordinated assistance from the BRICs would require substantive
indications that Europe was sorting out its financial house in much the same way that the
South had in the 1990s. The clear message was that while the global financial system
should be maintained and protected, this did not extend to protecting the privileged
position of the existing actors.
ODA Provision
One thing that is immediately apparent about Brazil-provided ODA is that it tightly
subscribes to the interest-advancing imperatives that often mark DAC assistance
provision. Just as Australia engaged in a mammoth expansion of ODA to underwrite its
efforts to win a UNSC seat in 2010 and reengage Africa and Latin America, the Brazilian
government has not shied away from the use of South-South technical cooperation to
underwrite its foreign policy agenda. This is immediately apparent if we look at the
distribution of Brazilian assistance, with South America receiving 23%, Central America
and the Caribbean 12% and Africa 50%, focused tightly on the Lusophone Africa. These
regional distributions align almost exactly with the travels of Lula, who made twelve trips
to Africa and visited 21 countries as well as hosting a series of summits in Brazil. The
clear impetus for Lula was to give Africa a more central place in Brazil’s international
political and economic engagement both to support the rise of Brazilian global leadership
and open new opportunities for the country’s firms (White, 2010). Similar concerns drove
engagement with South and Latin America, where Lula’s foreign policy team was
working to entrench Brazil’s quiet leadership and preeminence in the region.
The intra-governmental critique of the expansion of Brazil’s foreign aid stems
from its totally responsive nature, which in turn means that it is not guided by an
overarching strategy or sense of program or policy priorities. In interviews in Brasília
some diplomats and officials in other internationally oriented ministries observed that
their country’s foreign aid projects were almost being given as greeting gifts during
Lula’s travels throughout Africa or when the president received visiting presidents and
ranking officials. This sort of observation is supported by a survey of the projects
16
catalogued in the ABC publication A Cooperação Técnica do Brasil para a África, which
outlines a long succession of very specific projects such as the transfers of CCT
methodology (to Benin), surveys missions to development technical cooperation projects
(Burkina-Faso), cacao management programs (Cameroon), capacity building advice for
agronomists (Nigeria), or assistance with the expansion of Eucalyptus plantations
(Tunisia) (ABC, n.d.). Where a country is small and of relatively minor trade, investment,
or political importance to Brazil, the listing of works underway or planned is also small.
The number of planned and implemented projects mushrooms and grows in complexity –
creation of experimental farm systems, reform of national health systems – when the
recipient country is either a member of the CPLP or of potentially major economic
significance such as Senegal or Ghana.
The argument is not that Brazil ‘bought’ Africa with its foreign aid, but that it
used the provision of South-South technical cooperation as an important door opener and
gesture of goodwill to give rapid substance to Lula’s turn towards the continent as part of
his South-South foreign policy. More to the point, the nature of the assistance provided
by Brazil differed markedly from that coming from the DAC members or other emerging
donors such as China, focusing squarely on the transfer of proven administrative and
technical approaches to shared developmental problems. Both the smaller scale and the
actual operating nature from live programs in Brazil that formed the core of the assistance
delivered through ABC thus carried greater resonance and pointed more firmly towards
the idea of partnership than some competing approaches. For countries such as El
Salvador the horizontal nature of South-South technical cooperation and the fact of
Brazil’s successes in addressing poverty make Brazilian programming highly attractive.
The emphasis on skills transfer as opposed to financial assistance is seen as providing a
new dimension in development assistance that is perceived as carrying a new and
potentially greater potential for achieving lasting developmental results (Garcia, 2012).
The focus on building lasting relationships predicated on local capacity
development is echoed in the approach that Brazilian firms are taking in Africa. While far
from being entirely unproblematic, the predominant approach with Brazilian firms
appears to be one of using local labour and at least attempting to develop local
managerial skill with a view to a long-term in-country investment. This approach stands
in sharp distinction to initiatives often attributed to other new development partners such
as China, which are accused of what amounts to strip mining of resources and leaving
little positive legacy (Kermeliotis, 2012). Surging bilateral trade has been supported by
government financing programs, including Africa-specific export-import credit lines with
the BNDES (OESP, 2012), which aligns with the Dilma government’s decision to
maintain a focus on building engagement with the continent (Leo, 2011). The feedback
from some of the Brazilian empreteiras working in Africa is that their more locally
inclusive approach to project management and execution is helping them to win business
away from international competitors. More to the point, these same Brazilian firms are
increasingly finding themselves courted by Chinese companies looking to rebuild
reputations or gain new contracts, particularly in the infrastructure development sectors.
Although a genuine desire to contribute to global development does underpin
Brazilian development assistance provision, it is not a completely altruistic idea and thus
free of Morgenthau’s idea of ‘aid as bribery’. The difference between Brazilian and
DAC-member ODA is that Brazil ‘buys’ support more through the expression of
17
solidarity than the provision or promise of substantive economic rents. In this line Brazil
has neatly avoided the trap of becoming over-committed or subject to exploitation for
retained political support. Not only is the scale of the aid too small to make such
manipulation worthwhile, the concentration on technical assistance in lieu of cash grants
removes some of the space for aid-dependency. Indeed, the absence of direct cash
transfers means that the technical assistance provided by Brazil remains remarkably free
of the corruption problems that require significant oversight expenditure in OECD-DAC
agencies. This reflects a real sense of partnership in the Brazilian development model,
which is increasingly explicit that continued social and economic progress in Brazil will
not be possible if neighbouring countries and the wider global South do not grow
sustainably, too.
Three items separate Brazilian ODA from that provided by DAC member
agencies and point towards a possible new model of development assistance provision.
First, projects launched by ABC could easily be labeled as tied aid because all of the
resources expended by Brazil are drawn from within the Brazilian state. In a Northern
context such a fixation on tied aid would be problematic, but in the Brazilian context such
a characterization is more strained. Cash is not transferred and it is Brazilian state
agencies with deep expertise in the program areas that are actually engaged in the project
activities, not a bevy of external consultancies and organizations.
The capacity building and knowledge transfer focus of Brazilian ODA is
reinforced by ABC’s entirely responsive approach to assistance provision. Despite the
principles set out in the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the Accra Agenda for
Action, DAC members are still struggling with the idea of being responsive to developing
country needs, insisting instead on engaging in parallel policy planning with prescriptive
implications for the recipient country. ABC lacks such a capacity and as such must
respond to requests for help from petitioning countries. The relevant question thus
becomes whether or not the requisite pocket of expertise exists within a Brazilian
governmental organ.
The impact of the provided aid is reinforced by the fundamentally political nature
of Brazil’s rising ODA profile. New ODA projects often serve as entry points for wider
Brazilian engagement, which results in an expansion of political, economic and technical
linkages. While certainly modest in scale, in many cases the linkages are real and outstrip
the ODA flow in immediate and long-term value, pointing towards something closer to
the whole-of-government commitment to development that organizations such as the
Center for Global Development are trying to measure through the Commitment to
Development Index. Like the Chinese and Indian examples, Brazil’s emerging
development assistance provision appears to be one of joined up government and
business engagement with developing areas. The unanswered questions are whether or
not this is having the bigger and more sustainable developmental outcomes suggested by
the latest theoretical thinking and if Brazil will continue to pursue a meaningful
engagement program predicated on real partnership and solidarity.
Conclusions
If you have made it this far, congratulations for surviving a very rough agglomeration of
disparate thoughts built around a theoretical model that is still in the process of
development. More seriously, the overarching point to this paper is that we should not
18
expect massive systemic change. Instead, we should be thinking in terms of a shuffling of
who sits at the main decision tables, which in turn will bring about a turn in how norms
are interpreted and applied. This is not quite a Lampedusian moment of changing
everything so it can remain the same, but instead a continuation of longer run processes
of gradual change in attitudes towards global governance and approaches for managing
the international system.
In practical terms we should expect to see obstreperous language, but broadly-speaking
system-supporting behavior from emerging market actors such as Brazil. The difficulties
for established actors such as many of the countries in the European Union is that there is
likely to be something akin to an ‘inversion’ of the established power relations, with
countries such as Brazil insisting on the application of rules Northward and not just
Southward. More significantly, this will be paralleled by a continued growth in SouthSouth interaction, including trade and political integration/coordination that will create
new options in the global economy and new axes of power. For Brazil this was an
explicit intention of the Lula presidency’s turn towards Africa and Latin America, and
formed the substance for some of Brazil’s diversionary trade practices (competitive
import-substitution) and an expansion of South-South Technical Cooperation as a new
basis for the provision of international development assistance. This latter case stands as
an example of using behavior to change approaches to a core international activity and
create new pressures for changes in how recipient countries approach development
assistance (preliminary research in Mozambique points to this
1
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, “Statement opening the general debate of the 59th session of
the gen- eral assembly of the United Nations,” 21 September 2004, www.mre.gov.br.
2
Sarah John de Sousa, “Brazil and Bolivia: The Hydrocarbon ‘Conflict’”, FRIDE
Comment (November 2006):
http://www.fride.org/descarga/COM_Hidrocarb_ENG_nov06.pdf
3
Fernando Henrique Cardoso with Brian Winter, The Accidental President of Brazil: A
Memoir (New York: Public Affairs, 2006): chapter 10 and 11.
4
Andrés Malamud, “A Leader without Followers? The Growing Divergence Between the
Regional and Global Performance of Brazilian Foreign Policy”, Latin American Politics
and Society 53 (3) (2011), 1-24.
5
Maria Regina Soares de Lima and Mónica Hirst, ‘Brazil as an Intermediate State and
Regional Power: Action, Choice and Responsibilities’, International Affairs, 82:1, 2006,
pp. 21-40.
6
Jean Daudelin and Sean Burges, ‘Moving In, Carving Out, Proliferating: The Many
Faces of Brazil’s Multilateralism Since 1990’, Pensamiento Proprio 33, January-June
2011, pp. 35-64.
7
Luiz Felipe Lampreia, ‘Brasil comete erro de avaliação em Honduras’, Política Externa,
18:3, Dez/Jan/Fev 2009/2010, pp. 117-122; Marco Aurelio Garcia, ‘O que está em jogo
em Honduras’, Política Externa 18:3, Dez/Jan/Fev 2009/2010, pp. 123-130.
8
Sean Burges, ‘Canada’s Postcolonial Problem: the United States and Canada’s
International Policy Review’, Canadian Foreign Policy, 13:1, 2006, pp. 97-112.
19
9
Vigevani and Cepaluni, Brazilian Foreign Policy in Changing Times; Sean Burges,
Brazilian Foreign Policy After the Cold War, Gainnesville, FL, University Press of
Florida, chapter 3.
10
Amrita Narlikar, ‘The Ministerial Process and Power Dynamics in the World Trade
Organization: Understanding Failure from Seattle to Cancun’, New Political Economy,
9:3, September 2004, pp. 413-428; Amrita Narlikar and Diana Tussie, ‘The G20 and the
Cancun Ministerial: Developing Countries and their Evolving Coalitions in the WTO’,
The World Economy, 27:7, 2004, pp. 947-966.
11
Celso Amorim, ‘Statement by Minister Celso Amorim at the G-90 Meeting’,
Georgetown, Guyana, 3 June 2004.
12
Marcos C. de Azambuja, ‘A Brazilian Perspective on Nuclear Disarmament’, in Barry
M Blechman (ed.), Brazil, Japan, and Turkey, New York, The Henry Stimson Center,
2009, p. 14.
13
Luiz Felipe Lampreia, Diplomacia Brasileira: Palavras, Contextos e Razões, Rio de
Janeiro, Lacerda Editores, 1999, pp. 383-389.
14
Amorim, Coversas com jovem diplomatas, pp. 279-310.
15
Jamil Chade, ‘Brasil recusará acordo com a AIEA, diz Jobim’, O Estado de São Paulo,
12 March 2010.
16
Carlo Patti, ‘Brazil and the Nuclear Issues in the Years of the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
Government (2003-2010)’, Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional, 53:2, 2010, pp.
178-197.
17
Santos, ‘Building Trust and Flexibility’.
18
Denise Chrispim Marin and Lisandra Paraguassu, ‘Irã seque tema incômodo no diálogo
Brasil-EUA’, O Estado de São Paulo, 18 March 2011.
19
Paulo Roberto de Almeida, ‘O Brasil no Contexto da Governança Global’, Cadernos
Adenauer, 9:3, 2009, pp. 199-219.
20
Ricardo Carciofi, ‘Cooperation for the Provision of Regional Public Goods: The IIRSA
Case’, in Pía Riggirozzi and Diana Tussie, (eds) The Rise of Post-Hegemonic
Regionalism: The Case of Latin America, London, Spinger, 2012.
21
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, ‘Discurso do Presidente da República, Luiz Inácioa Lula da
Silva, durante reunião plenária dos ministros de fazenda do G-20 Financeiro’, São Paulo,
8 November 2008, www.fazenda.gov.br, accessed 12 September 2011.
22
Alexandre Antonio Tombini, ‘Discurso do Presidente do Banco Central do Brasil,
Senhor Alexandre Antonio Tombini, Cerimônia de Posse do Presidente do Conselho
Diretor da Federação Brasileira de Bancos, Senhor Fábio Colletti Barboso e do novo
Presidente Executivo de Febraban, Senhor Muilo Portugal,” São Paulo, 17 March 2011.
23
Eduardo Campos, ‘Será que os Brics podem salvar o mundo?’, Valor Econômico (São
Paulo), 14 September 2011.
24
Tânia Monteiro, ‘Dilma sinaliza, em Coimbra, ajuda a Portugal’, O Estado de São
Paulo, 29 March 2011.
25
Assiss Moreira, ‘China decidirá ajuda de Brics a europeus’ Valor Econômico (São
Paulo), 14 September 2011.
20