Brazil’s International Status and Recognition as an Emerging Power: Inconsistencies and Complexities 3031475747, 9783031475740

Table of contents :
Foreword
Preface—Brazil, Show Your Face
Acknowledgements
Contents
About the Author
Abbreviations
List of Figures
List of Tables
1 Introduction
1.1 Brazil’s Quest for Prestige
1.2 Status Matters
1.3 A Coveted Pawn and the Recognition of New Powers
1.4 Structure of the Book
References
2 Brazil’s Status Ambition
2.1 Aspirational Identity
2.2 The Pursuit of Status
2.3 Where Does Brazil Stand?
References
3 The Eyes of the Beholders: Intersubjectivity and Status in International Relations
3.1 Stratification of States
3.2 What Is Status?
3.3 Evolution of Status in IR
3.4 Identity, Recognition and Roles
3.5 Status Inconsistencies and Ontological Security
3.6 Solving Methodological Challenges
References
4 Brazil’s International Status: A Coveted Pawn
4.1 A Coveted Pawn
4.2 Brazil is not perceived as an important player
4.3 Not Important, but Still Wanted as an Ally
References
5 Out of War and Peace: Brazil’s Insignificance in Global Security
5.1 Soft Power Is Not Enough
5.2 The Impossibility of a Permanent Seat at the UNSC
References
6 Brazil Is Its Own Biggest Enemy
6.1 Brasil vs. Brazil
6.2 Appearance Over Substance
References
7 Reaching New Heights: Towards a Theory of Recognition of New Powers
7.1 How to Achieve Higher Status
7.1.1 With Great Power Comes Great Costs
7.1.2 The Hard Power Path
7.1.3 Fixing Domestic Problems
7.1.4 Bandwagoning for Status
7.1.5 Slowly Building Influence
References
8 Brazil’s Status Inconsistency and the Barriers of the International Status Quo
8.1 Breaking Through to the Other Side: How Brazil Can Increase Its Status
8.2 Final Remarks and Future Research
References
Index

Citation preview

GOVERNANCE, DEVELOPMENT, AND SOCIAL INCLUSION IN LATIN AMERICA

Innconssisstencies and Complexities Daniell Buarque

Governance, Development, and Social Inclusion in Latin America

Series Editors Rebecka Villanueva Ulfgard, International Studies, Instituto Mora, Mexico City, Mexico César Villanueva Rivas, Department of International Studies, Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City, Mexico

This series seeks to go beyond a traditional focus on the virtues of intraregional and inter-regional trade agreements, liberal economic policies, and a narrow security agenda in Latin America. Instead, titles deal with a broad range of topics related to international cooperation, global and regional governance, sustainable development and environmental cooperation, internal displacement, and social inclusion in the context of the Post-2015 Development Agenda – as well as their repercussions for public policy across the region. Moreover, the series principally focuses on new international cooperation dynamics such as South-South and triangular cooperation, knowledge sharing as a current practice, and the role of the private sector in financing international cooperation and development in Latin America. The series also includes topics that fall outside the traditional scope of studying cooperation and development, in this case, (in)security and forced internal displacement, cultural cooperation, and Buen Vivir among indigenous peoples and farmers in Latin America. Finally, this series welcomes titles which explore the tensions and dialogue around how to manage the imbalance between state, markets, and society with a view to re-articulating cooperation and governance dynamics in the 21st century.

Daniel Buarque

Brazil’s International Status and Recognition as an Emerging Power Inconsistencies and Complexities

Daniel Buarque São Paulo, Brazil

ISSN 2569-1341 ISSN 2569-1333 (electronic) Governance, Development, and Social Inclusion in Latin America ISBN 978-3-031-47574-0 ISBN 978-3-031-47575-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47575-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Architectura/Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Paper in this product is recyclable.

For Claudia, the most prestigious in my life, the reason for my enthusiasm

Foreword

The first two presidencies of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003–2010) were accompanied by an unprecedented surge in Brazil’s international presence. Everywhere you turned there appeared to be a Brazilian delegation putting forward alternate language in treaty negotiations, proposing new models of development cooperation, negotiating new corporate take overs, or working to calm simmering tensions between contending parties. From Haiti through Geneva and Doha to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Brazil was there. As commentators and pundits quipped, Brazil had arrived. Brazil’s global influence also prompted a cottage industry in the academy with scholars seeking to explain Brazil’s rise. The big questions dominating this literature were hardly surprising. What was it about the 2000s that allowed Brazil to assume such influence in the global and regional system? How might we characterize the role Brazil saw for itself in world affairs? Was there something particular about the Brazilian approach to foreign policy that marked a new era? Could we argue that Brazil’s approach to South-South Cooperation required a fundamental rethink of international relations theory with a specific look to thinking from the South? Thousands of pages of high-quality research were published answering these and many other related questions about Brazil in the world. Yet, almost all of this literature side-stepped a critical question: what did the established powers think about Brazil’s rise? Perhaps more importantly, much of this scholarship did not quite explain

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‘what went wrong’ and why Brazil faded with the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff in 2016. An obvious, but largely unanswered question has been left lingering: what does a country like Brazil have to do in order to become a major world power with a permanent seat at key global governance decision tables? To date the attempts to answer this question have largely relied on theoretical and analytical frameworks to support inductive hypotheses. Although there have been a few publications by decision-makers in other countries musing on Brazil’s place in the world and some academic papers informed by conversations about Brazil’s rise, deep and systematic research is absent. This is where Daniel Buarque’s book steps in. Rather than relying on the traditional tropes and inductive techniques, Buarque has undertaken the hard task of developing a methodological framework for collecting the empirical research necessary to answer the question of how Brazil is actually perceived. Moreover, Buarque chose to focus his research on the key gate keepers to lasting power and influence in the international system. After all, it is the Permanent Five in the UN Security Council that ultimately will decide who has power and influence in global affairs, even if such acceptance is grudgingly given. The result in this book is a careful exploration of what key powerbroking countries saw Brazil doing well during its boom years in the 2000s and where the country failed. For the specialist in Brazilian foreign policy the wealth of elite interview data and accompanying analysis is of obvious interest. Yet, the lessons from this book extend far beyond the specific case of Brazil to offer deeper insights into how status changes in the international system and what exactly the dominant actors expect to see in a country that would be their equal in practice and not just legal name. Copious reference to elite interviews with experienced diplomatic and government officials from the P5 countries paints a detailed picture of what sort of behaviour is expected from a would-be global power. In itself this betrays much of the underlying preconception and prejudice about what makes a country important and worth listening to, which in turn offers further avenues for understanding why new ideas in the global system may stutter and fragment. It also serves as a diagnostic for how Brazil or any other aspirant to global powerdom might want to shape their behaviour and approach going forward. As this book is being published policy and scholarly circles are devoting a tremendous amount of energy to exploring the question of potential hegemonic transition, shifts in global power structures and the possible

FOREWORD

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end of the liberal international order. Brazil under newly re-elected Lula clearly wants to be a major player in this process. Whether you are studying the wider macro questions of change in the global system or the specifics of evolution in Brazilian foreign policy, Buarque’s book is of enormous value. Per Giovanni Sartori’s arguments about the ‘ladder of abstraction’, the detailed single case study provided by Buarque here offers us an ideal platform for opening up new questions and formulating new, testable hypotheses about status and change in world order. Moreover, his research methodology points us back to an important lesson sometimes lost in modern political science, namely the need to patiently sit down and speak with the people who populate the institutions mediating power and influence in world order. July, 2023

Sean Burges Carleton University Ottawa, ON, Canada

Preface---Brazil, Show Your Face

Quando eu te encarei frente a frente não vi o meu rosto Chamei de mau gosto o que vi, de mau gosto, mau gosto É que Narciso acha feio o que não é espelho 1 (But when I first met you face-to-face and didn’t see my own face I wrote it all off as just more of the city’s bad taste You know Narcissus likes only what he sees when he looks in the mirror)2

In the late 1980s, as the country turned the corner after more than two decades of an oppressive military dictatorship, one of its most popular singers asked Brazil to introduce itself and explain to its population, and the world, who it was. ‘Brazil, show your face’, sang Cazuza.3 For the following three decades, the then-established democratic state would work hard to understand and consolidate this identity that it was developing, as well to present itself to the rest of the planet and to try to be recognized as the important global player it had long wanted to be.

1 Caetano Veloso. 1978. ‘Sampa’. Track 7 on Muito. Philips Records. 2 Rogow, Zack. ‘Translating ‘Sampa’ by Caetano Veloso’. World Literature Today

(blog), 2014. https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/translation/translating-sampa-cae tano-veloso. 3 Cazuza. 1988. ‘Brasil’ Track 6 on Ideologia. Philips Records.

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PREFACE—BRAZIL, SHOW YOUR FACE

Trying to know oneself is one of the most pressing questions of humankind, however, and great philosophers have since Ancient Greece thought about and discussed the importance of self-knowledge. Achieving that is a challenge. When we think about the real world, this interrogation might be fundamental to understanding the very identity not only of individuals, but also of entire countries. In international relations, states have a need to know themselves and the type of recognition they get from others in order to understand their place in the world. And that is particularly true for those nations that want to be among the ‘greatest of all’, as Brazil does. For more than a century in its not so long history, Brazil has believed it was destined to greatness and tried to project itself to the rest of the world as an important, modern, developed nation, worth of admiration and respect. Long has it believed it deserved to be seen as it saw itself and tried to find out what was the image reflected, what the others in the world thought about it. Mirrors can help with this search for self-knowledge. They allow one to see oneself on his own as well as to closer perceive what others see. Even the wicked woman of the fairytale would need to use magic to find out how beautiful she really was in comparison to the others in her realm. ‘Mirror, mirror, on the wall, Who in this land is fairest of all?’,4 she would ask to be convinced of her own grace. This appeal to a reflection is a result of one of the two traditional paths to trying to know oneself. There is the introspective (thinking in first person) and extrospective (thinking in the third person). The first one might appear easier, since it comes from inside, but self-distancing, viewing oneself from an external perspective, can be more conducive to wisdom. It appears to be imperative to learn about oneself from the outside in order to fully develop one’s own identity. But in international relations there are no magic mirrors. And while it might be possible to develop and introspective understanding about this identity as well as interests and aspirations, seeing a state’s own image from the outside may be even more difficult. This is the challenge that this book has tried to solve. Even without magic, it applies a systematic research method to go beyond what Brazil

4 Walt Disney’s Snow White and the seven dwarfs. 1st ed. Disney Princess. New York: Disney Press, 2005.

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believes itself to be and what it tries to project. The study presented here wanted to learn about the other side of the mirror, what is seen of the country and reflected back. What kind of recognition can such a rising state get from others. Not what Brazil wants to be, but what it is perceived as being. The book is the result of over four years working on a Ph.D. at King’s College London (in partnership with Universidade de São Paulo, in Brazil), but it also comes from more than a decade researching and writing about the foreign perceptions of Brazil both as an academic and as a journalist. It all began in the early 2000s, writing articles for the Brazilian newspaper ‘Folha de São Paulo’ about how the world was watching one of the waves of violence in the country. It has long been very common for all the national media to publish articles alluding to what was said about the country abroad. Brazilians often pay attention to the work of Brazilianists, academics studying the country with a foreign perspective, as well as to what the international media says about whatever is happening in Brazil and its ‘repercussions’ abroad. And I wrote a good share of articles like that not only for ‘Folha’, but also for ‘G1’, ‘Terra’, ‘Valor Econômico’, ‘BBC News Brazil’, ‘UOL’ and many other outlets—and these foreign perspectives ended up becoming several other reports, two books, a masters and doctoral research, academic articles and this book. In 2010, I travelled to the US and spent six months conducting interviews and developing independent research that would be published as the book ‘Brazil, um país do presente’ (Brazíl, a country of the present). Based on over a hundred interviews conducted while living in New York and travelling to ten states, It surfed on the wave of optimism about Brazil and argued that the country ‘had arrived’. It didn’t take long for that to change, however, and by 2013 I was abroad again, living in London and doing a M.A. in Brazil in global perspectives at KCL and watching the positive images about the country crumble under a wave of protests, political and economic crisis. The dreamed ‘future’ seemed to be far away once again. But there was something in that oscillation that deserved more attention. It was clear that Brazil wanted to be seen as an important country in the world and valued seeing its reflection in the mirror of international opinion. One problem, though, was that there was not a consolidated image reflected. There were interpretations of the international media, there were anecdotal evidence from interviews, there were several

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PREFACE—BRAZIL, SHOW YOUR FACE

different global surveys repeating stereotypes related to the country, but there was not a clear image that represented the reflection of Brazil. Especially when thinking about international relations and the actual role the country plays in the world. This is part of what motivated the research presented in this book. I started my Ph.D. trying to develop an understanding of Brazil’s reflection in the mirror of international relations. I’ve tried to do so by conducting interviews with foreign experts from great powers of the world. These are the countries that decide the paths of global politics, this is the group that Brazil wants to be a part of, so it would be important to reveal their perceptions about the country. It would be a means to achieve the necessary self-distancing in order to think extrospectively about the country so that it would be possible for it to know itself better. And the study ended up going beyond that and developing an important understanding about what any state that has the same aspirations as Brazil can do in order to achieve international recognition for a high level of prestige. Based on the perceptions of elites from the top of the global hierarchy, it analyzes the challenges to change the status quo and provides a typology about possible (albeit difficult) paths emerging countries can follow in order to attempt to gain recognition from the established great powers. As in the fairytale, the reply from the mirror might not be what the person/country looking at it wants to hear. The reality of what is perceived from the outside can be frustrating. But in the real world, instead of going ‘wicked’ and trying to get rid of rivals as in ‘Snow White’, it is important to understand this feedback, learn from it, align the expectations and develop an actual strategy to work out how to improve the reality so that the reflection can be more suited to what one wants. This book offers an analysis that can help in this process and allow Brazil to learn about itself and how it is seen from the outside so that it can know itself a little better and think about its identity, its place and its aspirations in the world. This may surely help the country show its face to the world and try to find the best place for itself in global relations.

PREFACE—BRAZIL, SHOW YOUR FACE

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As the Rolling Stones would say: You can’t always get what you want, But if you try sometimes you just might find, You just might find that you, You get what you need’.5 São Paulo, Brazil

Daniel Buarque

5 The Rolling Stones. 1969. ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’. Track 9 on Let It Bleed. Decca.

Acknowledgements

This book would not exist without the huge support I have received from many people during the more than four years of study of my Ph.D. as well as over a decade writing about the international status of Brazil and almost one year preparing this manuscript. First and foremost, it is important to thank each one of the 94 members of the foreign policy community of the P5 who accepted to be interviewed for this study. The respondents will remain anonymous to protect their identities, but they know who they are, and I am grateful to all of them. In a study about intersubjectivity and based on perceptions, it would not be possible to develop this analysis about the status of Brazil without their time and attention. I also want to thank my Ph.D. supervisors. Anthony Pereira, Felipe Botelho and Janina Onuki, as well as the thesis examiners: Feliciano de Sá Guimarães (now my post-doctoral supervisor at USP), Sean Burges (who I need to thank twice, as he wrote a splendid foreword to this book) and Mahrukh Doctor. Their comments, compliments and criticism were essential in shaping the final result presented in this book. Wayne Selcher and the seven anonymous reviewers who read the manuscript before its publication were also very important and adapting an academic work to a book that can be interesting even for a public outside the university and the diplomatic world.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many people offered comments, criticism and ideas about the research during my Ph.D. research, be it at student seminars and academic conferences, which helped shape the study presented in this book. Professors Richard Ned Lebow and Melissa Nisbett offered fundamental criticism to the original research proposal. Their comments allowed me to refine the methodology, improve the interview protocols and adopt reflexive thematic analysis to systematically assess the data collected. Matias Spektor offered very important guidance in developing the theoretical framework used in this study. Jeff Garmany helped refine the interview protocol used in this study and offered important feedback in numerous occasions in the first two years of research. Professors and colleagues at the Brazil Institute of KCL were also extremely helpful during the period of research, offering important suggestions and feedback: Vinicius Mariano de Carvalho, Leslie Bethell, Arthur Galamba, Anna Grimaldi, Christoffer Guldberg, Darcio Pimenta, Fernanda Odilla, Maria Berta Ecija, Maisa Edwards, César Jiménez-Martínez and many others. This study would not be possible without the financial support of the Graduate School of King’s College London. The joint Ph.D. scholarship offered in partnership with USP was essential to allow me to live in London for most of the four years conducting the research and writing the thesis and this book. Most importantly, I need to thank my family for their support throughout my life. My parents Sergio and Ester, my brothers, ‘mauro brothers’, in-laws, nephews, uncles, aunts, cousins and especially my wife, Claudia, who accepted to turn our lives upside down, leave Brazil and embark with me in the academic life in London and back home in São Paulo.

Contents

1

Introduction 1.1 Brazil’s Quest for Prestige 1.2 Status Matters 1.3 A Coveted Pawn and the Recognition of New Powers 1.4 Structure of the Book References

1 4 8 10 11 12

2

Brazil’s Status Ambition 2.1 Aspirational Identity 2.2 The Pursuit of Status 2.3 Where Does Brazil Stand? References

19 22 25 35 44

3

The Eyes of the Beholders: Intersubjectivity and Status in International Relations 3.1 Stratification of States 3.2 What Is Status? 3.3 Evolution of Status in IR 3.4 Identity, Recognition and Roles 3.5 Status Inconsistencies and Ontological Security 3.6 Solving Methodological Challenges References

61 63 65 68 73 77 80 86

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CONTENTS

4

Brazil’s International Status: A Coveted Pawn 4.1 A Coveted Pawn 4.2 Brazil is not perceived as an important player 4.3 Not Important, but Still Wanted as an Ally References

97 98 102 107 112

5

Out of War and Peace: Brazil’s Insignificance in Global Security 5.1 Soft Power Is Not Enough 5.2 The Impossibility of a Permanent Seat at the UNSC References

115 123 130 135

6

Brazil Is Its Own Biggest Enemy 6.1 Brasil vs. Brazil 6.2 Appearance Over Substance References

139 142 147 155

7

Reaching New Heights: Towards a Theory of Recognition of New Powers 7.1 How to Achieve Higher Status 7.1.1 With Great Power Comes Great Costs 7.1.2 The Hard Power Path 7.1.3 Fixing Domestic Problems 7.1.4 Bandwagoning for Status 7.1.5 Slowly Building Influence References

157 160 161 166 170 172 174 175

8

Brazil’s Status Inconsistency and the Barriers of the International Status Quo 8.1 Breaking Through to the Other Side: How Brazil Can Increase Its Status 8.2 Final Remarks and Future Research References

Index

179 181 188 192 197

About the Author

Daniel Buarque is a post-doctoral researcher at the Instituto de Relações Internacionais of Universidade de São Paulo (IRI/USP—Brazil). He holds a joint Ph.D. in international relations from King’s College London (KCL—UK) in partnership with USP and also holds an M.A. in Brazil in Global Perspective from KCL and a B.A. in Social Communication (Journalism) from Universidade Católica de Pernambuco (Brazil). His research focuses on the study of international status of states from an intersubjective external perspective, working towards a theory of how nations can increase their level of prestige and gain recognition from the established great powers. He has published widely in Third World Quarterly, Carta Internacional, Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, International Journal of Communication, Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional, Brasiliana, Interesse Nacional and more. A journalist with more than 20 years of experience in Brazilian news outlets, has also published six books, including ‘Brazil, um país do presente’ (2013) and ‘O Brazil é um país sério?’ (2022).

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Abbreviations

BRICS EU FPC G20 GDP IBSA IMF IR MRE P5 PKO R2P RTA RWP SIT TA UN UNSC WTO

Brazil, Russia, China, India and South Africa European Union Foreign Policy Community Group of Twenty Gross Domestic Product India, Brazil and South Africa International Monetary Fund International Relations Brazil’s Minister of Foreign Relations Group of five permanent members of the UNSC Peacekeeping Operations (UN) Responsibility to Protect Reflexive Thematic Analysis Responsibility While Protecting Social Identity Theory Thematic Analysis United Nations United Nations Security Council World Trade Organization

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List of Figures

Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

4.1 5.1 5.2 5.3

Fig. 6.1 Fig. 6.2

Thematic map ‘Brazil is a coveted pawn’ Thematic map ‘Brazil is not relevant in security issues’ Thematic map ‘A limited soft player’ Thematic map ‘The impossibility of a permanent seat at the UNSC’ Thematic map ‘Brazil is its own biggest enemy’ Thematic map ‘An ambitious state without a plan’

101 117 125 131 142 149

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List of Tables

Table 2.1 Table 4.1 Table 7.1

Brazil’s status pursuit General analysis results Strategies to attempt to achieve great power status

30 99 162

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, everything appeared to be going the way Brazil had always dreamed it would be. Democracy was consolidated, inflation was under control and, fuelled by a commodities boom, the economy was growing, the country was recognized as investment grade by different international risk agencies, domestic politics were stable, it was selected to host the Olympic Games and the football World Cup. The moment of incredible optimism was summarized by ‘The Economist’ with a now famous cover that showed Rio’s Christ statue flying like a rocket over a headline that read ‘Brazil Takes Off’ (Prideaux 2009b). Called ‘the most popular politician on earth’, then President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was surfing on a high (Newsweek Staff 2009). He often reacted to Brazil’s success arguing that world was recognizing the rise of the state and that Brazil was considered a serious country in the world. This was a celebration that the so often called ‘the country of the future’ had finally reached its destination. As Brazil had long aspired, its time appeared to have come, and it was ready to take its place in the centre of the world stage (Buarque 2013). Even without amassing a huge amount of hard power, it was poised to rise and become the next great power of the world on the basis of its attributes and its soft power (Rohter 2012; Brainard and Martinez-Diaz 2009; Buarque 2013; Mares and Trinkunas 2016). © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Buarque, Brazil’s International Status and Recognition as an Emerging Power, Governance, Development, and Social Inclusion in Latin America, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47575-7_1

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D. BUARQUE

Or was it? While the government celebrated what it saw as the long-awaited recognition for the status Brazil believed it always deserved the Brazilian foreign policy community taped itself in the back arguing the country would become more important in the world and assume the role of an active global player (G1 2008; Folha Online 2009; Souza 2008), the signs from the rest of the world were not as clear. What is evident, particularly looking back more than a decade later, is that a lot of the celebration and rhetoric about the so-called rise of the country was exaggerated (Mares and Trinkunas 2016; Lessa et al. 2020; Cervo and Lessa 2014). While Brazil long sought high international status and believed it had reached a great level of prestige in the early twenty-first century, the world did not necessarily agree with Brazil’s coming of age. A very popular (although apocryphal) anecdote in Brazil tells the story of how football star Garrincha reacted after receiving instructions prior to an important World Cup match against the USSR in the 1950s. After being told what he was supposed to do in the pitch in order for his team to score, he asked the coach: ‘Did you agree all that with the Russians?’ (R. Castro 2021). The phrase became a common reference to situations in which someone makes a decision without considering what others involved might think or whether there might be external opposition to their objectives. As in the popular story, Brazil failed to agree its new, higher, status with the rest of the world, and particularly the established great powers. It forgot to agree its rise into the world stage with the Russians, the Americans, the British, the French and the Chinese. It was only through their acceptance of the country as a peer that its prestige as a great power could be realized. And what do these great powers actually think about Brazil’s rise? Diplomats and scholars have long discussed the country’s search for international prestige, but until the 2010s there was little empirical analysis about where the country actually stood in the international hierarchy in terms of status, and a lot of it was based on wishful thinking, without a clear attempt to systematically assess the level of recognition the country received from abroad. Even if for most of its history the country had tried to assert itself as an important global player, it did not seem to have considered whether the world was ever ready to accept it as such. This is particularly significant for a study of international relations because status cannot be achieved unilaterally. Within IR, status refers to a state’s position within a social stratification and hierarchy and consists

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of collective beliefs about a state’s standing and membership and is recognized by voluntary deference. (M. K. Murray 2019; Esteves et al. 2020; MacDonald and Parent 2021; Larson and Shevchenko 2019; Thazha et al. 2014). This book intends to fill this gap in the scholarship and introduce a study of status in IR that emphasizes the fact that standing needs to reflect collective beliefs. With this focus on intersubjectivity, the research presented here aims at understanding Brazil’s international status from the perspective of the foreign policy community (FPC) of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (the P5 of the UNSC). Its aim is to focus on the intersubjective character of status to understand to what degree was Brazil able to achieve an increase in its global status. It compares the long-standing ambitions of the Brazilian foreign policy elites with the external perspective from the observers in states that have more status and would have to recognize Brazil as a great power in order for it to achieve this level of prestige. The book aims to go beyond what Brazil wants and focuses on understanding what it gets, meaning how it is perceived from abroad, which is fundamental for the state’s international status. In order to do so, this book is based on a multidisciplinary approach influenced by studies of sociology and psychology, and giving special attention to the importance of recognition, while drawing on IR scholarship that focuses on prestige, identity, roles and ontological security. Its research was developed by conducting semi-structured interviews with 94 single respondents from great powers. Since there is no consensus on the definition and classification of who are the great powers of the world, within this book the term is used to refer to the five states that hold permanent seats in the UNSC (the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia and China) and to the level of status Brazil wants to achieve. The historic affiliation of the P5 to the high-status group of the UNSC allows to see them as globally recognized since WWII as great powers (G. R. Berridge and Young 1988; Mulligan 2008). Even if it is true that more than seven decades after the end of the war the hierarchies of international politics may have changed, the P5 remains a reference group of states that hold decision power about important subjects of international politics. This is also an important reference because it is a group of which Brazil aspires to be a part and that will serve, in this book, as a symbol of the status Brazil wants to acquire in international

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D. BUARQUE

politics (Mares and Trinkunas 2016; Stolte 2015; B. de Carvalho 2020; Lebow 2008; Stuenkel and Taylor 2015). The study offers contributions to the scholarship of status in international relations and the study of Brazil’s prestige. It innovates by focusing on a qualitative assessment based on the importance of recognition of status and can speak to a tacit debate in this scholarship’s literature about the nature of the international hierarchy of states. The empirical study, on the other hand, fills a gap in the scholarship of the prestige and international identity of the emerging state. This is a less than orthodox approach within IR traditional theories, but it is proposed as the best way to fully account for the importance of perceptions and intersubjectivity in status assessment. This study aims at filling this important gap in the scholarship about Brazil’s status while addressing external perceptions, a fundamental characteristic of status that is understudied. Moreover, it builds from the perceptions of Brazil’s status in order to develop an understanding about what the great powers believe any state that aspires to increase its status should do attempt to achieve recognition.

1.1

Brazil’s Quest for Prestige

When Brazil was selected to host the Olympic games, in 2009, the thenPresident Lula da Silva said the world was recognizing the rise of the state. A year prior to that, Brazil was declared investment grade by Standard & Poor’s, and Lula argued it was a sign that Brazil was considered a serious country in the world. After more than two decades since democratization in the late 1980s, with continued pragmatic politics, stabilization and growth of the economy, Brazil was deemed to be on the rise, an important part of the emerging BRICS, and many believed it was poised to leave behind the idea of being the country of the future and was becoming the country of the present, a powerful player in international politics (G1 2008; Folha Online 2009; Buarque 2013; Chatin 2013; Fonseca 2017; Gardini 2016; Prideaux 2009a; Roett 2011; Rohter 2012; Silva 2007). One year after the Olympic victory, however, when Brazil joined forces with Turkey to try to broker a nuclear deal between Iran and the West, the great powers involved in the negotiations practically ignored the efforts of the emerging powers (Lampreia 2014). Similarly, a proposal to mediate negotiations between Israel and Palestine was not taken seriously in the Middle East, and powerful states expressed frustration with some of Brazil’s positions as it tried to project itself actively in discussions about

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global environmental politics, international security and Brazil was seen by the most powerful states as a blocker at the Doha Round and other global trade negotiations (Burges 2017; Mares and Trinkunas 2016). Brazil’s enthusiasm with its international agenda seemed to face barriers in the world. There appeared, thus, to be a dissonance between the apparent increased prestige of the state that was seen to be ‘on the rise’ and its ability to have actual relevance in different perspectives of international politics. Brazil had risen enough to host the Olympics, the World Cup and the Rio + 20 environmental summit. It could be a frequent temporary member of the UNSC and send troops to UN peacekeeping operations (PKOs). But when it pushed to have more influence in matters of war and peace, and tried to have its high status recognized, it seemed to fall short of its ambitions. It is true that Brazil’s apparent emergence was limited, and its domestic situation started to take a turn for the worse in 2013, with massive protests around the country. After the re-election of Dilma Rousseff to the presidency in 2014, Brazil entered a downward spiral, with a series of political and economic crises that ended the period of its so-called rise (Beaumont and Røren 2020; Buarque 2018; B. de Carvalho 2020; Cervo and Lessa 2014; Jiménez-Martínez 2020; Mares and Trinkunas 2016). Still, while Brazil believed it was increasing its international status on the way to becoming one of the major players of the world, the states that are really on the top of the stratified global system avoided such favourable views about the country. These great powers often praised Brazil for some actions in attempting to have a stronger participation in global politics, such as in peacekeeping operations, but rejected a strong voice of the state in what were perceived as matters of more importance globally, such as its candidacy to become a permanent member of the UNSC. These apparent contradictions between what Brazil tried to do with its proactive foreign policy in attempts to increase its standing, and the reaction of great powers, are evidence that there can be inconsistencies in Brazil’s level of prestige. While the country believed it was destined for greatness and worked to become one of the major players of the world, great powers offered mixed signals, appeasing some of the ambitions of the state, but never fully recognizing it as a peer in high-status groups such as at the permanent membership of the UNSC. This poses a serious question about Brazil’s status; it has never been clearly established where the state stands in the global stratified society, or what its role in the world

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is. So far, Brazil’s status has been understudied and not entirely understood. Recent studies tried to make sense of this and applied different methodologies and theoretical frameworks to address the level of prestige and recognition that the state has, but the results fall short of offering a clear picture about Brazil’s standing in global hierarchies (Esteves et al. 2020; Larson and Shevchenko 2014; Mares and Trinkunas 2016; Røren and Beaumont 2019). What is clear in the scholarship about Brazil’s foreign policy is that it wants to have high international status. Attempting to gain prestige and recognition as one of the most important players in global politics is part of the very formation of the state and has been a constant in Brazil’s history. It was present when the Portuguese court moved to what was still its colony in 1808, after Independence was declared in 1822, following the proclamation of the Republic in 1889, and in the thoughts and actions of the founding father of Brazilian diplomacy, the Baron of Rio Branco in the early twentieth century. Similarly, status was one motivation for Brazil in its discussions about participating in the League of Nations, as well as in the decision to send troops and participate actively in World War II, and in the designs of the UN institutions in the post-war period. During the military dictatorship starting in 1964, there were also disputes over Brazil’s image in the world (Buarque 2015; Burges 2017; Cervo and Bueno 2002; Esteves and Herz 2020; F. de S. Guimarães and Almeida 2018; Herz 2011; Lafer 2000; 2009; Mares and Trinkunas 2016; Ricupero 2017; Santos 2018). It was on the eve of the twenty-first century that the idea of increasing Brazil’s status became more evident as a motivation for the state, with what was called its ‘rise’ in the 1990s and 2000s (Esteves et al. 2020; Fonseca 2017; Gardini 2016; Hurrell 2008; Nogueira and Burity 2014; Ricupero 2010). Brazil’s ambition is also evident in surveys that unveil its international agenda. For Brazil’s foreign policy community, prestige is important and the state deserves a place at the global decision table (Souza 2002; 2008). Status, however, cannot be achieved unilaterally, just by an actor or state wanting it. It is an intersubjective attribute that is dependent on recognition by external parties (G. Casarões 2020; Clunan 2014; Larson and Shevchenko 2019; Mares and Trinkunas 2016; M. K. Murray 2019; Thazha et al. 2014; Volgy et al. 2011). This means that there can be inconsistencies between what a state believes to be its standing in the world and what other states perceive to be its status in international politics (Larson and Shevchenko 2014; 2019; Onea 2014; Thazha et al.

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2014; Volgy and Mayhall 1995). Although the early twenty-first century offered clear signs that Brazil was on the rise, and its international image improved, there is very little evidence that Brazil was ever recognized as a first order player in global politics, especially when dealing in discussions about global politics, security, war and peace. For some time, the state acquired a strong voice in global economic fora, and it was a major player in environmental politics, but it appeared to never be strong enough to exert influence on its own, and its attempt to meddle with security issues such as the Tehran deal, or peace negotiations in the Middle East, drew little attention and respect from the actual great powers of the world (Burges 2017; Mares and Trinkunas 2016; Stuenkel and Taylor 2015). Status is fundamental in understanding Brazil’s foreign policy because, for the state, power is often used as a social phenomenon linked to the influence the state can have in the world - a reading of the concept that puts it closer to theories of status in IR, since the state’s level of prestige depends on how it is perceived by other members of the international system and the type of recognition it gets (Hurrell 2013a; Burges 2017; G. Casarões 2020; Gardini 2016). Brazilian diplomats often focus on this emphasis on ‘social power’, the power of ideas and the ability to influence and build consensus in international disputes, avoiding more classical hard power projections and contests of relational power that would draw on coercive options - an approach that is built on the idea of protecting the autonomy of the state (Hurrell 2013a; Burges 2017; Ricupero 2017). The theoretical framework of status in IR becomes an important approach, given the clear stress Brazil has historically put on this international recognition. While it is clear that the state has other international interests besides status, such as national development, autonomy and multilateralism (Doctor 2015), it is not difficult to see that prestige is a priority for Brazil and is also connected to these other objectives. Although the search for prestige is a fundamental part of Brazil’s international agenda, little is known about the country’s status in the world. Part of the challenge is that status itself has only recently become the focus of attention in international relations (IR) scholarship, having been developed as a separate research agenda in the first decades of the twentyfirst century (Götz 2020; Larson and Shevchenko 2019; MacDonald and Parent 2021; Thazha et al. 2014; Volgy et al. 2011). This book proposes to unravel this question and focus on the intersubjective character of status to understand what Brazil’s level of prestige in the international

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stratified society is from the perspective of other states that have more status than Brazil in order to assess how it is perceived from abroad and what is its international status.

1.2

Status Matters

Status is the language states traditionally use to discuss power positions in international relations. It influences most exchanges between states, as it defines notions of super- and subordination in a stratified global society and leads to competition for levels of standing and prestige that can ultimately engender escalating tensions, conflict and war. Status can be understood as a key source of authority in world politics. It is fundamental to the consolidation of legitimacy for the right to command, and thus involves high stakes for the study of IR (Clunan 2014; Larson and Shevchenko 2019; Lebow 2010; MacDonald and Parent 2021; Thazha et al. 2014). Status is defined as the rank or standing in the hierarchy of a group and has only in the twenty-first century become the centre of attention of IR scholars. Focusing on its use in IR, the concept is built around the idea that the world order is stratified and that there are social hierarchies in the globe. Status, thus, refers to the position of one state within the international stratification, and consists of collective beliefs about a state’s standing and membership, based on valued attributes, and is recognized by voluntary deference (MacDonald and Parent 2021; Thazha et al. 2014). IR scholars have long acknowledged that prestige and status play a role in IR besides the traditional focus on power and wealth hierarchies. A new wave of scholarship focusing on status has emerged since the early 2000s and reinforced the importance of the concept within IR. This new approach has been instrumental in pointing out the limitations of traditional theories that do not include themes related to recognition and prestige in their appraisal of the propensity for war and peace in the international realm (Larson and Shevchenko 2019; Lindemann 2011; Renshon 2017; Thazha et al. 2014). The approach to status developed by IR scholars is based on the employment of theoretical and empirical literature from cognate disciplines like sociology, social psychology, political theory, behavioural economics and IR. This has expanded the range of phenomena in which status-seeking may be implicated and offers the perspective of building

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status into models in a way that will provide leverage upon the core theoretical and policy concerns raised by the rapidly shifting scales of world power (Thazha et al. 2014; Renshon 2017; Markey 1999; Clunan 2014; Stolte 2015; Lebow 2008; Larson and Shevchenko 2019). Many studies have been developed since the 2000s to understand states’ interest to increase their status, however, little has been done as systematic assessments of the extent to which these status-seeking policies have fulfilled their purpose, especially when considering the intersubjective nature of status (Røren and Beaumont 2019; Volgy et al. 2014; Thazha et al. 2014; Rosecrance et al. 1974). Despite growing evidence of the importance of status in IR and prevalence of status-seeking behaviour, there are still few credible ways of measuring status in IR. Conventional approaches range from a focus on proxies such as military power or on measures of diplomatic connectivity. In the first decades of the twenty-first century, scholars have applied analysis of diplomatic representation as a means of understanding this status with a quantitative approach (M. G. Duque 2018; Beaumont and Røren 2020; Røren and Beaumont 2019). Although most studies of status use this quantitative approach, the method has limitations and seems to capture a state’s military or economic power more than the reputation states get for it and how much it is recognized as an important player (Mercer 2017). While economic strength and military forces represent measurable attributes that serve as the basis for status, other more intangible assets such as recognition, cultural achievements, soft power and moral authority are not easy to quantify. Therefore, scholars looking at status defend stressing the importance of intersubjectivity of prestige. It is something that cannot be attained unilaterally and must be recognized by others. The question of which states occupy a higher position than others is not an environmental attribute independent of perception and observable by all; it is a social construction (Thazha et al. 2014, 9; Mercer 2017). So far, however, there are not a lot of studies about status in international relations through the eyes and perceptions of third parties, or analysis of the foreign gaze towards one state and its status. The research presented in this book focuses on the fact that status reflects collective beliefs. It is not a pure reflection of a state’s material attributes but depends on others’ perceptions, on how a state is seen from abroad. It refers to higher order beliefs about a state’s relative ranking. It refers to ‘beliefs about what others believe’ (Thazha et al. 2014, 8). Status depends not only on the intentions of a state intending to be of

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a particular rank, but on the perceptions from outside, on the eyes of the beholders (Clunan 2014, 280). It discusses Brazil’s status according to these eyes of the beholders, allowing a more in-depth study of the collective beliefs of a selection of representative actors who are part of the community that can offer status recognition to an aspiring state like Brazil.

1.3 A Coveted Pawn and the Recognition of New Powers Based on the analysis of the interviews conducted for this book, Brazil is not perceived as an important player in world politics. According to this perception of Brazil from the foreign policy community of the P5, the country is far away, geographically isolated in a region that is not central for global politics. At the same time, it does not attract a lot of attention from the powerful nations and is not thought about a lot, it is not really a serious nation in global geopolitics, and it is not particularly important. Still, powerful nations want to have the country by their side, as an ally. Powerful nations overlook Brazil’s aspiration for great power but see it as a possible force to counterbalance with their rivals and competitors. These states support Brazil’s quest for status, see it as a strategic partner and take it more seriously as an important global player when it seems to be aligned with them. Moreover, the nations of the P5 do not want to see Brazil aligned with countries that are seen as competitors. From this interpretation of Brazil’s role according to the perceptions of the foreign policy community of the great powers, Brazil is a pawn in international politics, albeit one that is desired as an ally by the powerful nations. It is a coveted pawn. This analysis about Brazil’s status reveals the perception that the state was not able to achieve recognition for the level of prestige it aspired to have. However, the country’s failure to increase its status offer clues about the immobility of the status quo, the difficulties faced by other states aspiring to increase their prestige and strategies they could adopt in their pursuit of higher status. This book builds on the analysis about the failure of the Brazilian attempt to achieve the status of great power in order to develop hypotheses and build a theory about how other states can develop strategies to try to increase their international prestige. Based on the analysis

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of the interviews in this research, it proposes a typology of five strategies states can follow when aspiring to attempt to be recognized as a great power. These strategies are presented as important because they are perceived as the ones that may allow a state to help shape and manage the international system, thus becoming a great power. They can help surpass the idea of voluntarism on the part of the established great powers and create a situation in which these powers are obliged to share their prestige—either because it is an advantage to them or because they can no longer circumvent the incumbent not because it is asking to be recognized or adopting a rhetoric of global leader, but due to its level of economic and military power and actions it takes as a leader in the world.

1.4

Structure of the Book

This book is divided in eight chapters. After this Introduction, it provides an assessment of Brazil’s international identity and the strong sense the state has that it should have a more significant role in world politics in Chapter 2, ‘Brazil’s status ambition’. It argues that prestige has been a constant goal for Brazil, but the country has often lagged great powers in terms of its ability to influence international relations. By proposing a contribution to the scholarship of status in IR, Chapter 3, ‘The eyes of the beholders’, provides a theoretical review about the growing consensus on status in IR. It develops a thorough analytical approach to the growing literature of the field, discusses the concept of status and its use in international relations. It includes a critical discussion of the quantitative methods used to attempt to measure status, develops the argument that qualitative analysis is an important tool to assess the status of a state and proposes a new approach focusing on the intersubjective character of status and on the idea that it requires external recognition to exist. Chapter 4, ‘Brazil’s international status’, introduces the main part addressing the empirical results of the research. It presents a summary of the main empirical findings about the intersubjective status of the country from the study presented in the book and discusses the perception powerful states have that Brazil is a coveted pawn in international politics, explaining how the state is not seen as particularly significant, but that at the same time is wanted as an ally by the states of the P5. Chapter 5, ‘Out of war and peace’. presents the analysis that great powers generally do not recognize the country as having enough status

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to be a significant player in matters of international security. It addresses matters linked to the hard power amassed by Brazil and discusses the limits of the emergence of a state like Brazil using only soft power – which, in Brazil’s case, is linked mostly to superficial stereotypes about the country. And Chapter 6, ‘Brazil is its own biggest enemy’, concludes the analysis of the empirical data and explains that the potential of the state is seen as hindered by domestic problems that should be addressed so that it can project itself into the world with more chance of gaining recognition. According to the FPC of the P5, one of the main reasons why Brazil is not able to achieve recognition as an important global player is that it has so many internal problems that get in its way. The seventh chapter, ‘Reaching new heights’, advances in the analysis using the case of Brazil to propose to develop a theory about how states can achieve high status. It is based on the case study of Brazil’s intersubjective status to set out a theory-building element in order to develop hypotheses to understand how states that aspire to achieve the status of a great power can act to shift status and graduate to be recognized as a part of the group of states that are established as great powers. The book concludes with Chapter 8, ‘Brazil’s status inconsistency and the barriers of the international status quo’, which discusses the importance of understanding the differences between Brazil’s status aspirations and the level of prestige it gets from an intersubjective perspective and explains how understanding the foreign perceptions of its status provide a very important point of reference that can help guide foreign policy decisions.

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Buarque, Daniel. 2015. One Country, Two Cups—The International Image of Brazil in 1950 and in 2014: A Study of the Reputation and the Identity of Brazil as Projected by the International Media during the Two FIFA World Cups in the Country. International Journal of Communication 9: 19. ———. 2018. ‘The Tainted Spotlight—How Crisis Overshadowed Brazil’s Public Diplomacy Bet in Hosting Sports Events and Led to a Downgrade of the Country’s Reputation’. Revista Trama 8 (3). https://doi.org/10.5935/ 2177-5672/trama.v8n3p71-92. Burges, Sean W. 2017. Brazil in the World: The International Relations of a South American Giant. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Carvalho, Benjamin de. 2020. ‘Brazil’s (Frustrated) Quest for Higher Status’. In Status and the Rise of Brazil, edited by P. Esteves, M. Gabrielsen Jumbert, and B. de Carvalho, 19–30. Springer. Casarões, Guilherme. 2020. ‘Leaving the Club Without Slamming the Door: Brazil’s Return to Middle-Power Status’. In Status and the Rise of Brazil, edited by P. Esteves, M. Gabrielsen Jumbert, and B. de Carvalho, 89–110. Springer. Castro, Ruy. 2021. ‘Sem combinar com os russos’. Folha de S.Paulo, April 4, sec. Ruy Castro. https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/colunas/ruycastro/2021/ 04/sem-combinar-com-os-russos.shtml. Cervo, Amado Luiz, and Clodoaldo Bueno. 2002. ‘História Da Política Exterior Do Brasil’. Cervo, Amado Luiz, and Antônio Carlos. Lessa. 2014. O declínio: Inserção internacional do Brasil (2011–2014). Revista Brasileira De Política Internacional 57 (2): 133–151. https://doi.org/10.1590/0034-7329201400308. Chatin, Mathilde. 2013. ‘Brazil: A New Powerhouse without Military Strength?’ BRICS Policy Center—Working Paper, 1–25. Clunan, Anne L. 2014. ‘Why Status Matters in World Politics’. In Status in World Politics, edited by T. V. Paul, Deborah Welch Larson and William C. Wohlforth, 273–96. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Doctor, Mahrukh. 2015. Brazil’s Role in Institutions of Global Economic Governance: The WTO and G20. Global Society 29 (3): 286–300. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/13600826.2015.1025041. Duque, Marina G. 2018. Recognizing International Status: A Relational Approach. International Studies Quarterly, April. https://doi.org/10.1093/ isq/sqy001. Esteves, Paulo, and Mônica Herz. 2020. ‘Climbing the Ladder: Brazil and the International Security Field’. In Status and the Rise of Brazil, edited by P. Esteves, M. Gabrielsen Jumbert, and B. de Carvalho, 113–31. Springer. Esteves, Paulo, Maria Gabrielsen Jumbert, and Benjamin de Carvalho, eds. 2020a. Status and the Rise of Brazil. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Folha Online. 2009. ‘Lula Chora Após Rio Ser Eleito e Diz Que o Mundo “Reconheceu a Vez Do Brasil”’, October 2, sec. Esporte. https://www1. folha.uol.com.br/folha/esporte/ult92u632498.shtml. Fonseca, Carmen. 2017. O Brasil de Lula - A permanente procura de um lugar no sistema internacional. Relações Internacionais 55: 51–70. G1. 2008. ‘Brasil Foi Considerado País Sério, Diz Lula’, April 30, sec. Economia e Negócios. https://g1.globo.com/Noticias/Economia_Negocios/0„MUL 449770-9356,00-BRASIL+FOI+CONSIDERADO+PAIS+SERIO+DIZ+ LULA.html. Gardini, Gian Luca. 2016. ‘Brazil: The State of the Art of Its Rise and Power Projection’. In Foreign Policy Responses to the Rise of Brazil, edited by G.L. Gardini, M.H.T. de Almeida, 12–28. Springer. Götz, Elias. 2020. Status Matters in World Politics. International Studies Review, September. https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viaa046. Guimarães, Feliciano, and de Sá, and Maria Herminia de Almeida. 2018. Brazil’s Entrepreneurial Power in World Politics: The Role of Great Powers and Regional Politics for Successful Entrepreneurship. International Journal: Canada’s Journal of Global Policy Analysis 73 (4): 518–534. https://doi. org/10.1177/0020702018810876. Herz, Monica. 2011. ‘Brazil: Major Power in the Making?’ In Major Powers and the Quest for Status in International Politics, 159–79, Springer. Hurrell, Andrew. 2008. Lula’s Brazil: A Rising Power, but Going Where? Current History 107 (706): 51–57. https://doi.org/10.1525/curh.2008. 107.706.51. ———. 2013. The Quest for Autonomy: The Evolution of Brazil’s Role in the International System, 1964–1985. Coleção Política Externa Brasileira. Brasília: Fundação Alexandre de Gusmão. Jiménez-Martínez, César. 2020. Media and the Image of the Nation during Brazil’s 2013 Protests. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Lafer, Celso. 2000. Brazilian International Identity and Foreign Policy: Past, Present, and Future. Daedalus 129 (2): 207–238. ———. 2009. ‘Brazil and the World’. In Brazil: A Century of Change. Translated by Robert N. Anderson, 101–20. University of North Carolina Press. Lampreia, Luiz Felipe. 2014. Aposta Em Teerã: O Acordo Nuclear Entre Brasil, Turquia e Irã. Objetiva. Larson, Deborah Welch, and Alexei Shevchenko. 2014. ‘Managing Rising Powers: The Role of Status Concerns’. In Status in World Politics, edited by T. V. Paul , Deborah Welch Larson and William C. Wohlforth , 33–57. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2019. Quest for Status: Chinese and Russian Foreign Policy. Yale University Press.

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Lebow, Richard Ned. 2008. A Cultural Theory of International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lebow, Richard Ned. 2010. Why Nations Fight: Past and Future Motives for War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lessa, Antônio Carlos, Danielly Silva Ramos Becard, and Thiago Gehre Galvão. 2020. ‘Rise and Fall of Triumphalism in Brazilian Foreign Policy: The International Strategy of the Workers Party’s Governments (2003–2016)’. In Status and the Rise of Brazil, edited by T. V. Paul, Deborah Welch Larson and William C. Wohlforth, 71–88. Springer. Lindemann, Thomas. 2011. Peace Through Recognition: An Interactionist Interpretation of International Crises: Peace Through Recognition. International Political Sociology 5 (1): 68–86. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.17495687.2011.00121.x. MacDonald, Paul K., and Joseph M. Parent. 2021. The Status of Status in World Politics. World Politics 73 (2): 358–391. https://doi.org/10.1017/S00438 87120000301. Mares, David R., and Harold A. Trinkunas. 2016. Aspirational Power: Brazil on the Long Road to Global Influence. Geopolitics in the 21st Century. Washington, D.C: Brookings Institution Press. Markey, Daniel. 1999. Prestige and the Origins of War: Returning to Realism’s Roots. Security Studies 8 (4): 126–172. https://doi.org/10.1080/096364 19908429388. Mercer, Jonathan. 2017. The Illusion of International Prestige. International Security 41 (4): 133–168. https://doi.org/10.1162/ISEC_a_00276. Mulligan, William. 2008. ‘Great Powers’. In The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World, edited by Peter N. Stearns. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/978019 5176322.001.0001/acref-9780195176322-e-653. Murray, Michelle K. 2019. The Struggle for Recognition in International Relations: Status, Revisionism, and Rising Powers. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Neumann, Iver B. 2008. Russia as a Great Power, 1815–2007. Journal of International Relations and Development 11 (2): 128–151. https://doi.org/10. 1057/jird.2008.7. Newsweek Staff. 2009. ‘Brazil’s Lula: The Most Popular Politician on Earth’. Newsweek. September 21. https://www.newsweek.com/brazils-lula-most-pop ular-politician-earth-79355. Nogueira, Silvia Garcia, and Caroline Burity. 2014. A construção da imagem do Brasil no exterior e a diplomacia midiática no governo Lula. Revista De Ciências Sociais, 41: 375–397.

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Onea, Tudor A. 2014. Between Dominance and Decline: Status Anxiety and Great Power Rivalry. Review of International Studies 40 (1): 125–152. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210512000563. Paul, Thazha V., Deborah Welch Larson, and William C. Wohlforth. 2014. Status in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Prideaux, John. 2009a. Getting It Together at Last: A Special Report on Business and Finance in Brazil. The Economist 14: 2–16. ———. 2009b. ‘Brazil Takes Off’. The Economist, November 12. Renshon, Jonathan. 2017. Fighting for Status: Hierarchy and Conflict in World Politics. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Ricupero, Rubens. 2010. À Sombra de Charles de Gaulle: Uma Diplomacia Carismática e Intransferível. A Política Externa Do Governo Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva (2003–2010). Novos Estudos-CEBRAP, 87: 35–58. Ricupero, Rubens. 2017. A Diplomacia Na Construção Do Brasil 1750–2016. Rio de Janeiro: Versal. Roett, Riordan. 2011. The New Brazil. Brookings Institution Press. Rohter, Larry. 2012. Brazil on the Rise: The Story of a Country Transformed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Røren, Pål., and Paul Beaumont. 2019. Grading Greatness: Evaluating the Status Performance of the BRICS. Third World Quarterly 40 (3): 429–450. https:// doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2018.1535892. Rosecrance, Richard, Alan Alexandroff, Brian Healy, and Arthur Stein. 1974. ‘Power, Balance of Power, and Status in Nineteenth Century International Relations’. Sage Professional Papers in International Studies, no. 29. Santos, Luís Cláudio Villafañe Gomes. 2018. Juca Paranhos, o Barão Do Rio Branco. Editora Companhia das Letras. Silva, Luiz Inácio Lula da. 2007. ‘Discurso Do Presidente Da Republica Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva Na Cerimonia de Anúncio Do Brasil Como Sede Da Copa Do Mundo de 2014’. http://www.biblioteca.presidencia.gov.br/presid encia/ex-presidentes/luiz-inacio-lula-da-silva/discursos/2o-mandato/2007/ 30-10-2007-discurso-do-presidente-da-republica-luiz-inacio-lula-da-silva-nacerimonia-de-anuncio-do-brasil-como-sede-da-copa-do-mundo-de-2014. de Souza, Amaury. 2002. A Agenda Internacional do Brasil: Um Estudo sobre a Comunidade Brasileira de Política Externa. Rio de Janeiro: CEBRI. de Souza, Amaury. 2008. Brazil’s International Agenda Revisited: Perceptions of the Brazilian Foreign Policy Community. Rio de Janeiro: CEBRI. Stolte, Christina. 2015. Brazil’s Africa Strategy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137499578. Stuenkel, Oliver, and Matthew M. Taylor. 2015. Brazil on the Global Stage: Power, Ideas, and the Liberal International Order. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Volgy, Thomas J., Renato Corbetta, Keith A. Grant, and Ryan G. Baird, eds. 2011. Major Power Status in International Politics. In Major Powers and the Quest for Status in International Politics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230119314. Volgy, Thomas J., Renato Corbetta, J. Patrick Rhamey, Ryan G. Baird, and Keith A. Grant. 2014. ‘Status Considerations in International Politics and the Rise of Regional Powers’. In Status in World Politics, edited by T. V. Paul , Deborah Welch Larson and William C. Wohlforth, 58–84. Cambridge University Press. Volgy, Thomas J., and Stacey Mayhall. 1995. Status Inconsistency and International War: Exploring the Effects of Systemic Change. International Studies Quarterly 39 (1): 67. https://doi.org/10.2307/2600724. Waltz, Kenneth N. 1979. Theory of International Politics Addison-Wesley Series in Political Science. Addison-Wesley.

CHAPTER 2

Brazil’s Status Ambition

A former American diplomat who served in Brazil in the early 2000s clearly remembers the day one of his colleagues was visiting the country and was scolded by the Brazilian Minister of Foreign Relations for not recognizing Brazil for the level of status he believed it deserved. During a visit of an American congressional delegation to Brasília, one of the visitors finished a meeting with the Minister arguing that ‘it is always very important for us as a world power to be meeting with a leading regional power’.1 According to the diplomat, this led to an irritated reaction from the Brazilian: ‘What do you mean only a regional power? We can’t be a world power?’, he questioned, before giving a five-minute speech about how Brazil was, and should be recognized, by all rights, a world power.2 While this is just an anecdote recounted by memory decades later, it is one of many examples of how important status is for Brazil and its foreign policy. Traditional IR scholarship tends to see states as being motivated to act by their interests in security to guarantee their own survival (and in reaction to fear of external threats), in power (be it economic, military and 1 Interviewee identified as US9 (American diplomat), interviewed by the author, April 29, 2019. 2 US9, interview.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Buarque, Brazil’s International Status and Recognition as an Emerging Power, Governance, Development, and Social Inclusion in Latin America, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47575-7_2

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even its soft version), in accumulating wealth and building relations within international institutions, among other motivations (Bull 2002; Goldstein and Keohane 1993; Waltz 1979; 2001; Wendt 1992). The IR literature centred on Brazil traditionally focuses less on these conventional realist, liberal and even constructivist approaches, and tends to see the state as using foreign policy in the pursuit of its internal development, an interdependent relation with other states, autonomy, insertion, and an attempt to build consensual hegemony (Burges 2017; Doctor 2015; Hurrell 2013a; Lafer 1990; 2009; Lessa et al. 2010; Ligiéro 2011; Lopes and Vellozo Junior 2004; Pautasso and Adam 2014; Ricupero 2017; Vigevani and Cepaluni 2018). While not necessarily disagreeing with the traditional approach developed by studies about Brazilian foreign policy, this chapter argues that one of Brazil’s main historic motivations in the international society has been a permanent attempt to increase the prestige and standing of the state in the world. Even if Brazil also has the other motivations the literature has traditionally described the ambition for status has permeated many of the state’s actions in world politics since before its independence. The interest in increased prestige was part of the formation of the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Relations (MRE, also known as Itamaraty), and can be seen as a permanent focus of the foreign policy of the state (Buarque 2013a; Coelho 2015; Esteves et al. 2020; Lafer 2000; 2001; Ricupero 2010; 2017). Examples of this motivation, such as the anecdote at the beginning of this chapter, abound in the scholarship of Brazilian foreign policy. Studies argue that the interest in becoming a permanent member of the UNSC is largely defined by the desire for prestige (Andrade 2012; Coelho 2015; Vargas 2008). The increased presence of the state in Africa in the early 2000s was justified by its search for higher status (Stolte 2015). Brazil’s humanitarian actions in the world, as well as its participation in UN Peacekeeping Operations (PKOs) have also been linked to a permanent interest in international recognition as an important global player (B. de Carvalho et al. 2020; V. M. de Carvalho et al. 2015; Kenkel 2010). Brazil tried to project positive images to the rest of the world in nation branding campaigns, and used hosting the World Cup and the Olympics as part of this strategy to improve its international standing (Bender and Saraiva 2012; Buarque 2015; A. S. e Castro 2013; Mariutti and Giraldi 2012; Rhamey and Early 2013; Schallhorn 2020). The country engaged in what is called conspicuous consumption as part of its ambition to achieve

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higher status, buying a French aircraft carrier as an attempt to broadcast Brazil as having improved its social standing (Gilady 2017). Furthermore, the state’s behaviour at the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Group of Twenty Leaders’ Summit (G20) showed that Brazil moved away from its primary interest in national economic development to a more complex one that included both material and status-based aspects (Doctor 2015). Discussion about Brazil’s status from the point of view of the United States has been a frequent point in speeches during encounters and visits between the two states and became part of the scholarly debate about Brazil’s prestige. It was seen as important when, in speeches from 2005 to 2008, then—U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice referred to Brazil as a regional power, a stakeholder of international order and a global partner, as well as espoused the view that Brazil had a growing global role and was emerging as a global power (Diaz and Almeida, 2008; Pecequilo, 2010; Rice, 2005a, b; Flemes, 2010c). Later, it was seen as cause for celebration when then-President Barack Obama met with Dilma Rousseff in Washington, DC. and referred to Brazil as a global power. Even if it was seen as a way of appeasing Brazil (as he would later write that the state rarely takes sides in international politics), and that the United States still officially perceived Brazil as just a regional power, albeit with the potential to play a constructive role in global governance, it was still celebrated by Brazilian officers (Chagas 2015; Corrêa 2015; Mares and Trinkunas 2016; Obama 2020). Even in 2023, as Lula visited Joe Biden in Washington, DC, the Brazilian president nodded vigorously when the American said he saw Brazil not as a regional power, but a global power (Winter 2023). This chapter contributes to the scholarship of Brazil’s foreign relations by establishing that Brazil wants to have an important role in international politics and that it has long been motivated by the ambition to increase its level of prestige in the world, while at the same time presenting the established understanding about where it actually stands in terms of what has been studied about its status. This national will for external recognition has led to frustration as Brazil felt it did not get the recognition it believes it deserved, and to status anxiety, as it tries to project itself to the rest of the world and does not feel accepted as it wants to be. As it will be discussed in the following chapters, understanding the selfconception of a state and comparing it to the way others perceive it is fundamental to understand not only the status of that state, but also to find out if a potential lack of connection between the two can create status inconsistency and even ontological insecurity.

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2.1

Aspirational Identity

The drive for recognition, for international prestige and for change in the global status quo is in the very formation of Brazil and is even considered part of the international identity of the state (Lafer 2001; Ricupero 2017; Mares and Trinkunas 2016; Milani, et al. 2017). Seeking international recognition as a great power has been a standard of Brazilian governments since the state became independent, and the objective has gained even more relevance in recent decades (B. de Carvalho et al. 2020; Lafer 1990; 2000; 2009; Mares and Trinkunas 2016; Milani et al. 2017; Ricupero 2017). National identity is a structural factor that is often overlooked by IR scholarship and foreign policy analysis, but discussion about the development of this identity is a defining aspect of Brazilian foreign policy (Burges 2017). It is fundamental because a lot of the construction of the Brazilian international identity was based on a reflection about the position of the state in the international stratification while Brazil pursued a significant role to play in the world (Lafer 2009). Scholars traditionally explain that a lot of the Brazilian international identity comes from the work of José Maria da Silva Paranhos Jr., the Baron of Rio Branco, who served as a diplomat and Minister of Foreign Relations in the early twentieth century. Rio Branco left as his legacy the idea of Brazil as a peaceful state, with defined boundaries and a large territory and is recognized as responsible for inspiring the style of diplomatic behaviour that characterizes Brazil, such as a foreign policy agenda that focuses on reducing conflicts, crises and difficulties (Burns 1967; Lafer 2000; 2001; Ricupero 2017; Santos 2018; 2010). Brazil’s international image and prestige were a constant concern for the Baron as part of a larger strategy to insert Brazil in the international system of his time. He made the search for international prestige a part of the implementation of Brazilian diplomacy, paid foreign periodicals to try and project a positive image of the state and transformed the Itamaraty Palace in Rio de Janeiro into a mandatory stop for personalities of international expression who passed through Brazil (Santos 2018). Rio Branco knew that, in the external sphere, especially when dealing with states with more power, Brazil’s relative weakness required another type of approach, and persuasive means were the only way to succeed in delicate negotiations for a state like Brazil, which lacked sufficient strength to impose its will (Mares and Trinkunas 2016; Nye 2004; Nye Jr 2009b; 2009a; Ricupero

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2017; Saraiva 2014). From his work, Brazilian diplomacy has historically tried to capture the external reality to correctly interpret the world and its opportunities while it explains the country to the world, try to make it be admired, worthy of attracting political support, receiving capital, immigrants, and technology (Ricupero 2017). Two surveys conducted with the Brazilian foreign policy community in the 2000s confirm that this ambition is still present and strong in the twenty-first century. They show that at least 97% of the respondents favour a more active international role for Brazil, while just 1% believe the state should remain distant from global problems (Souza 2002; 2008). Studies with sources inside the Brazilian government argue that officials are almost unanimous in recognizing the importance of the state’s image and prestige (Moura 2013; Nogueira and Burity 2014). Brazilian foreign policymakers want to position their state as a leader. They devote a considerable amount of energy to promoting the status of the state and decrying what they perceive as injustices and inequalities in the global order and global governance institutions (Burges 2017; 2013). It has long been a major goal of Brazil to ascend to the club of the world’s important decision-making states, and the quest for global status has historically been an integral part of Brazil’s international strategy and a key driver of Brazil’s global reach (B. de Carvalho 2020; B. de Carvalho et al. 2020; G. Casarões 2020; Chatin 2016; Lopes et al. 2020; Stolte 2015). This clearly says a lot about the internal perceptions of the state, where it is seen as a candidate for a more prominent global role. Brazil believes it is entitled to this high status because of the way it sees itself and its role in the world. This builds on the arguments of having a continental territory, a great deal of natural resources, and a strong economic profile (Burges 2017; Fonseca 2017; Hurrell 2006; Larson and Shevchenko 2014; Mares and Trinkunas 2016). This aspiration is based on the idea that the state has a vision of the world and its function and that this vision is important in advancing its specific interests (Lafer 2001). It also draws from its traditional international presence as a peaceful and responsible actor, with consistent support for the liberal international order (Diaz and Almeida 2008; Mares and Trinkunas 2016; Stolte 2015; Herz 2011). The view that Brazil deserves to be a major player has been so much a part of the identity of the state that it has been referred to as a complex of greatness, which led to an interpretation of Brazil’s international agenda as megalomaniacal (Stolte 2015; Degaut and Kalout 2017; Zanini 2017;

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Røren and Beaumont 2019). Although other states also aspire to high status, most case studies in the recent status scholarship assess how states that already have a large amount of military or economic power want to achieve more recognition, such as China, Russia and India (Larson 2019; Larson and Shevchenko 2014; 2019; T. V. Paul and Shankar 2014) or states that want more prestige, but do not necessarily seek to be recognized as great powers (B. de Carvalho and Lie 2014; Neumann and Carvalho 2014). This notion of megalomania can be interpreted as a sign that the scholarship about Brazil’s prestige already hints to the idea of status inconsistency, seeing a difference between the high level of prestige Brazil expects to have and the reality of how it is perceived. Another important point is Brazil’s self-perception that it has been exploited by other states, and still suffers from this, as its economy depends mostly on primary goods exports, which puts the state into a cycle of underdevelopment and exploitation that serves to make the rich states richer while Brazil and its people remain poor. This leads to a position critical of the world stratification, which is seen as dominated by Western powers, and does not open space for emerging states, even being described as a new form of colonialism (M. Duque 2016; Herz 2011). Brazil’s ambition for more status is not built out of an interest in tearing down the existing international structure, however, but to shift the frame of reference putting the state near the centre of attention. This is perceived as a means to vouchsafe the Brazil’s autonomy and allow it to pursue national development (Burges 2017; Mares and Trinkunas 2016; Stolte 2015). This vision is based on the fact that Brazil feels uneasy with the European logic of unquestioned conferral of governance over the world order to the great powers. The state has not completely agreed with the proposed distinction between great powers with general interests and powers with limited interests (Lafer 2001). The difficulty in defining Brazil’s place and role in the world can be traced back to Itamaraty, where diplomats have incorporated new concepts into the official discourse, with contradictory implications. Brazilian foreign policy has tried to project the state as emerging power, but also as a middle power, developing country, regional leader, or even a non-Western country—all while aspiring to become a great power (F. de S. Guimarães 2020; Burges 2017; 2013; Spektor 2010; Wehner 2015; Malamud 2011; Lima and Hirst 2006; Stuenkel and Taylor 2015). In diplomatic discourse, it is possible to notice uneasiness, as the state has

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both an aspiration to belong to the West and the credentials of a developing country—as a Latin American state and as a different one in the continent due to its Portuguese colonial roots (F. de S. Guimarães 2020). Even if Brazil wants a seat at the great powers’ table and to achieve recognition, some scholars argue that the aim was less at what the state would do with that new role and more connected to the status that would come with it, meaning that Brazil’s main preoccupation was recognition itself. This is seen as evident in the Brazilian attitudes regarding the global order, which are shaped by national grievances about the past and by the perception that the state remains at the receiving end of an unequal and discriminating international system. The state’s relative position in this system is thus one of the main factors that have shaped the Brazilian international agenda (Spektor 2016). This shows that although the state believes in its greatness, it is also marked by a strong sense of insecurity in its international role and preoccupation about inferiority—something that is usually framed within the idea of the ‘stray dog complex’ (Buarque 2013a; 2019; Burges 2017; Rohter 2012; Stolte 2015).

2.2

The Pursuit of Status

One of the most essential objectives guiding Brazil’s foreign policy for centuries, the attempt to increase its level of global prestige is connected to the state’s search for autonomy, economic interdependence, insertion and consensual hegemony and different strategies were used to try to achieve a higher international standing. It is particularly interesting to notice how the pursuit of prestige in the case of Brazil has often stood away from any type of use of force or imposition and has mostly been associated with strategies that are not connected to traditional power actions. Although Brazil’s economic success in the first decades of this century has been the most important base for the international emergence of the state, Brazil pursued higher prestige in a mostly peaceful and soft approach. This may have limited the state’s ability to achieve its goals but has given way to a very particular navigation of Brazil within the international stratification of states (Burges 2017; Hurrell 2013a; Lafer 1990; Lopes and Vellozo Junior 2004; Mares and Trinkunas 2016; Vigevani and Cepaluni 2018). For many scholars and observers of the history of Brazil’s international agenda, the basic characteristic of Brazil’s foreign relations is the search for real interdependence, making sure there is some equality in

26

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the way the state deals with other states and that there is reciprocity in the realization of interests, through negotiation in multiple spheres and economic internationalization. This is connected to what has been described as a permanent quest for international autonomy, a key characteristic of the state and one of the most influential approaches to thinking about Brazilian foreign policy. It is a guiding ideal central to many of the most important understandings of Brazil’s international project (Cervo and Bueno 2002; Hurrell 2013a; Vigevani and Cepaluni 2018; Burges 2017; Malamud 2017; Lessa et al. 2010; Fonseca Jr 1998). The notion of autonomy to assess the case of Brazil can be contested and differs from its original use in the IR literature, where it is often used as legal recognition of sovereign states in an anarchic system (G. Berridge and James 2003). It is characterized by the state’s ability to determine national policies and implement decisions based on its own objectives, without outside interference or restriction, and resisting attempts at outside control, through its ability to control processes or events produced beyond its borders. It is the ability to adapt and exploit favourable trends in the international environment and to limit and control the effects of unfavourable ones (Vigevani and Cepaluni 2018; Hurrell 2013a). The choice to focus on autonomy led Brazil away from traditional power contests in the international arena, and to avoid using coercive policies and conflicts in general (Burges 2017). This has side effects, however, as its reluctance to accept measures that might restrict national autonomy can become a challenge for the reach of its international actions (Buarque 2020; Burges 2015; Degaut and Kalout 2017; Spektor 2010). Apart from the focus on autonomy, Brazil has been described as being motivated by a quest for international insertion of the state as the means to pursue its agenda and interests. From this perspective (in line with the status scholarship), a peripheral state like Brazil needs to be recognized by the powerful states, which are gatekeepers of the international system. This recognition is not automatic, and the way for states from the Global South to achieve it is through the pursuit of international insertion (F. H. Chagas-Bastos 2017). Although the concept of insertion is not frequently used in the traditional English-speaking IR theory, this is a very common concept within Brazilian IR literature, and it often appears with different meanings and within varied contexts. It can refer to insertion in the international economy, in regional affairs, or international governance, multilateral institutions and rule-making debates, and as a means to

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27

establish the state as a credible international player and change the status quo of global politics, for example (F. H. Chagas-Bastos 2017; Ricupero 2017; Vigevani and Cepaluni 2018; Burges 2017; Chatin 2013; Onuki et al. 2017; Lessa et al. 2010; Vizentini 1999; Lopes and Vellozo Junior 2004; Lafer 2009; Daudelin 2013). A third fundamental concept within the discussion about Brazil’s foreign policy motivations aligned with the pursuit of status revolves around the idea that what Brazil has done since the end of the Cold War and the dictatorship could be classified as building a consensual hegemony. The concept was developed by Sean Burges in reference to a structural vision that is articulated, disseminated, and maintained without relying on force to recruit the participation of other actors. It was a concept that attempted to break away from the traditional realist, neorealist and neoliberal institutionalist approaches to hegemony, which privileged coercion as its means of asserting leadership (Burges 2017). The state attempted to exercise international influence through the dissemination of ideas, and by creating a situation in which it would be costly for other states not to follow its leadership, all without directly and openly applying its power (Burges 2008). It relied, thus, on voluntary deference, which is aligned with the concept of status, being dependent on the perceptions other states have about Brazil’s Foreign policy, agenda and ability to lead. Studies focusing on the status ambitions of rising powers contend that they are more likely to cooperate in global governance exactly to seek recognition. Building on social identity theory (SIT), this assessment suggests that these states may use three strategies to try to enhance their status: emulation of states with higher status; competition with more powerful states; or highlight their distinctive strengths (Larson and Shevchenko 2014). In the 1990s, after the end of the military regime, Brazil’s actions were linked to the use of a social mobility strategy in order to adapt to the liberal globalization regime, which led to the state opening its economy in a constant search for international credibility. During Brazil’s actual emergence in the first decade of this century, however, the state used a social creativity strategy which helped it achieve success in enhancing Brazil’s international standing, as seen in the selection of the country to host the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics. Brazil increased its participation in informal clubs and its presence in international institutions in this period. The state pursued a permanent seat at the UNSC, assumed responsibility for the UN peacekeeping operation

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in Haiti (Minustah), attempted to broker a nuclear agreement between the West and Iran and boosted its profile as a global diplomatic player, even if not all these strategies ended up with positive results (Larson and Shevchenko 2019; Sotero 2010; Malamud 2017). Building on these formal and established understandings about the development of Brazilian foreign policy, scholars mention several strategies as part of the drive for increased international reputation. Brazil’s emergence was linked to the use of soft power based on diplomacy, cultural charm and the growing role as negotiator. Brazil attempted to build on regional leadership and its participation in international groups such as IBSA and BRICS—both connected to multilateralism and the increased importance of the Global South and the state’s presence in Africa. Brazil’s strategic ambitions were marked by the participation in UN PKOs as well as the attempt to broker the deal between Iran and the West. The state also engaged in international humanitarian actions to project itself in the global arena. The participation in trade deals, and the role played in WTO rounds are also part of this attempt to achieve prestige, along with the creation of the G20. Other areas in which Brazil was able to use as a path for a more important role were the climate negotiations and the emergence of the state as an agricultural powerhouse (Burges 2017; B. de Carvalho et al. 2020; Chatin 2013; Doctor 2010; 2015; Efstathopoulos 2012; Esteves et al. 2020; Finazzi and Amaral 2017; Flemes 2010b; Lampreia 2014; Larson and Shevchenko 2014; Malamud 2017; Ricupero 2017; Soares 2001; Stolte 2015). Estimating foreign policy success is difficult as it relies on several different criteria, and that goal attainment can be thought of more as a matter of degree than of binary option between success and failure (F. de S. Guimarães and Almeida 2017). Still, the many strategies adopted by Brazil achieved different success rates in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Even if the state was not able to become a permanent member of the UNSC or to achieve any other formal recognition of high status as a new great power, it was able to host the World Cup and the Olympics as well as the Rio+ 20 environment summit, which are also evidence of that increased status. Other scholars have a more critical approach, however, arguing that Brazil was not able to reach its objectives and achieve recognition. One such criticism argues that the state was not successful in the reform of the UNSC, South American integration, extra regional trade policy or performance within the BRICS (Degaut and Kalout 2017).

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An important caveat in the analysis of Brazil’s pursuit of higher prestige is that projecting status and achieving reputation is not always a simple process with a yes or no result, such as in the acceptance of the states within a ‘club’ such as the permanent membership of the UNSC. It is a process that might take time, and even strategies that had the potential to bring change to Brazil’s status in the long term may have been stopped or abandoned. Even if Brazil was able to show a clear increase in its international recognition as an important player in the period between democratization in 1989 and 2014, each of the different strategies bared their own results and limitations. Some faced contextual problems, others faced international contextual changes, as well as domestic transformations in the interest in promoting a strong diplomatic presence due to the importance of presidential diplomacy. While the candidacy to a permanent membership of the UNSC is traditionally pointed as one of the main paths Brazil sought as it tried to push for more prestige, the literature on Brazilian foreign policy presents myriad different strategies employed by the state to advance its status-seeking agenda. Some of these strategies are naturally linked to one another. The Africa strategy, for example, is connected both to the attempt to give strength to the national economy, to increase multilateralism, to include Brazil in groups such as IBSA and, ultimately, to attempt to achieve a permanent seat in the UNSC. In the Table 2.1, some of these main strategies used by Brazil to increase its status and their results are going to be assessed based on the scholarly literature related to Brazilian foreign policy concerned with the period analysed. It works as a sort of status index, showing where the state appeared to have gained standing and what strategies did not generate the pursued results. The scholarship on Brazilian foreign policy offers some clues to why so many of the strategies adopted by Brazil faced limitations in generating positive results for the state. One clear problem is that the strategies did not match the realities of the international order, nor did they contribute to achieving their objectives particularly well (Mares and Trinkunas 2016). Similarly, domestic problems such as poor infrastructure and crime limited its economic development and weakened social cohesion limited Brazil’s actions, so the state was not broadly accepted as a global leader. Scholars also argue that the non-fulfilment of necessary conditions limited the ability of the state to realize this ambition. In some cases, when Brazil tried to project itself to the world as an important player, the state did manage to gather material capabilities, political will,

The UNSC has not been reformed and Brazil has not become a permanent member of the council (see more in Chapter 5) Brazil’s attempt to be a mediator was not successful, the state failed to broker the deal and created discomfort with great powers, who questioned the state’s ability to influence matters of war and peace (Bastos 2016; B. de Carvalho 2020; B. de Carvalho et al. 2020; F. H. Chagas-Bastos 2017; Kassenova 2015; Lampreia 2014; Ricupero 2017; Rohter 2012) Brazil’s campaigns were not able to build a strong ‘brand’ for the state beyond stereotypes of fun and games. The state is generally seen as a ‘cool’ and fun nation, and has generally positive images, but there is a gap between the general perceptions populations across the globe hold about Brazil and the role the state wants to play internationally. Even if the state wants to be a great power, it is not seen in the rest of the world as a serious state (Buarque 2009; 2013a; 2013b; 2019; Mariutti and Giraldi 2012; Stuenkel and Taylor 2015; Spektor 2009; Bignami 2002; Amancio 2000; Bender and Saraiva 2012) Strategy did improve Brazil’s relational status with African states. The number of Brazilian embassies in Africa increased from 17 in 2002 to 37 in 2011, while 17 new African embassies were opened in Brasilia. Total Brazilian trade and commercial exchanges with Africa grew from US$ 4.2 billion to U$ 27.6 billion from 2000 to 2011. However, these ties lost strength over time and expansion was not enough to promote the state in the rest of the world or to increase Brazil’s global status (Stolte 2015; Chatin 2016; 2019; Zanini 2017; Lafargue 2008; Russo et al. 2013; Abdenur and Marcondes 2016; Collecott 2008; Lopes et al. 2020; Burges 2013; Alencastro and Seabra 2020; Fogel 2018)

Candidacy for a permanent membership of the UNSC

Expansion of diplomatic, political, cultural and economic ties with Africa

Promotion of a positive international image (through soft power and nation branding campaigns)

Attempt to broker the nuclear deal between Iran and the West

What resulted from its pursuit of status

Brazil’s status pursuit

What Brazil did in pursuit of status

Table 2.1

30 D. BUARQUE

Participation in United Nations peacekeeping operations (PKOs)

(continued)

Itamaraty is admired and respected worldwide, but the tendency for presidential diplomacy has grown since the democratization, leading to a weaker Ministry of Foreign Relations under presidents that do not seek a stronger role for Brazil in the world, such as with Dilma Rousseff (Lafer 2009; Ricupero 2017; Mares and Trinkunas 2016; Ferber 2012; Lopes et al. 2020; Diaz and Almeida 2008; Burges 2012; 2017; Rohter 2012; Buarque 2020; Mesquita, Medeiros, and Amelotti 2019; Danese 2017; Cason and Power 2009; Malamud 2017; Lessa et al. 2020; Burges and Chagas Bastos 2017; Schenoni et al. 2019; Hurrell 2010) Groups like BRICS did gain international weight, but Brazil was an underperformer in terms of status among its states, and in the end it did not promote a significant improvement in the standing of the state (O’Neill 2001; Stuenkel 2014; Røren and Beaumont 2019; Beaumont and Røren 2020; Flemes 2010b; Ricupero 2017; Mares and Trinkunas 2016; Larson and Shevchenko 2019; 2014; Doctor 2015; Schenoni, Lopes, and Casarões 2019; Degaut and Kalout 2017; Pant 2013; Neumann and Carvalho 2014; Rohter 2012; Hodzi 2019) PKOs did push Brazil’s insertion in the international security debate, however, they were limited and not able to be used to increase Brazil’s status. The momentum passed after the end of Minustah, in Haiti (Abdenur et al. 2017; Beaumont and Røren 2020; B. de Carvalho et al. 2020; Chatin 2013; V. M. de Carvalho et al. 2015; Degaut and Kalout 2017; Esteves and Herz 2020; Fishel 2008; Hamann and Teixeira 2017; Monica Hirst 2015; Kenkel 2010; Kenkel et al. 2020; Mares and Trinkunas 2016; Røren and Beaumont 2019; Schenoni et al. 2019; Souza 2008; Svartman 2016; C. E. Uziel and Fontoura 2017; E. Uziel 2015; Visentini 2009)

Competence and professionalism of Itamaraty and institutional leadership

Multilateralism and affiliation to groups such as BRICS and IBSA

What resulted from its pursuit of status

What Brazil did in pursuit of status

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Global events tend to signal the state’s achievement of world-class status and international legitimacy and they increase international media coverage of the state. However, the series of political and economic crises that took over Brazil since 2013, with social unrest and the worst recession in the history of the state, led to the events having the opposite effect. Instead of promoting Brazil, instability ensued and bad news overshadowed the successful organization of the events, so the image of the state only got worse with the events (Buarque 2015; 2016; 2018; Schallhorn 2020; Mares and Trinkunas 2016; A. S. e Castro 2013; Signitzer and Coombs 1992; Larson and Shevchenko 2019; Anholt 2009; D. Black 2007; Walsh and Wiedmann 2008; Yao 2010; Grix and Lee 2013; Grix, Brannagan, and Houlihan 2015; T. Guimarães 2016; Pereira de Mello 2013; Vieira 2016) Brazil gained traction in this area and became a prominent player in climate negotiations, hosting and leading the ECO 92 and Rio + 20 conferences, but it faced many limitations, it was questioned for its own practices, it misperceived its own role and that it was never able to become a full-fledged leader in the area. Moreover, Brazil was clearly not able to project the relevance acquired through environmental policies to a more general growth of international status (Larson and Shevchenko 2014; Diaz and Almeida 2008; Lopes, Casarões, and Gama 2020; Hurrell 2018; Riethof 2020; Lessa et al. 2020; Lincoln 2016; Lafer 2000; Ferreira et al. 2014; Mittermeier et al. 2010; Charlton 2013; O’Neil 2010; Barros-Platiau 2010; Yamin 2013; Franchini and Viola 2019; Loyola 2014; Karlsson et al. 2011)

Hosting international sports events such as the World Cup and the Olympics

Assuming global environmental leadership

What resulted from its pursuit of status

(continued)

What Brazil did in pursuit of status

Table 2.1

32 D. BUARQUE

(continued)

Brazil managed to gain strength, to increase its prestige in the WTO and to collectivize efforts to counter richer states, especially at the Doha Round. The status was attached to the economic development of the state, however, and it lost momentum with the crises starting in 2013 (Brands 2010; Burges 2017; Cervo and Bueno 2002; Collecott 2014; Diaz and Almeida 2008; Doctor 2010; 2015; Goodman 2009; Mônica Hirst and Hurrell 2005; Larson and Shevchenko 2014; Lopes et al. 2020; Malamud 2017; Porzecanski 2015; Ricupero 2010; 2017; Stuenkel and Taylor 2015) Brazil saw itself as a natural regional leader and had more capacity than the other states of South America, thus having the potential to become a type of regional hegemon. One study about Brazil’s perceived role in the region argues it was recognized by the neighbours as having a leadership role (Wehner 2015). However, a few problems got in the way of the state, as it adopted an ambiguous strategy, that never fully put it in front of the neighbours. A study of public opinion surveys within Brazil showed that the public tends to reject regional leadership when it involves costly decisions in regime change and regional conflicts. At the same time, the state failed to have a strong identification with the other states and was never fully accepted by them as their leader (Andrade 2012; M. B. M. de Araújo 2011; Bethell 2010a; 2010b; Burges 2015; 2017; Degaut and Kalout 2017; M. Duque 2016; Flemes 2010b; 2010a; Gobat 2013; Goodman 2009; F. de S. Guimarães and Almeida 2017; F. de S. Guimarães and Maitino 2017; Herz 2011; Ikenberry 1996; Lima and Hirst 2006; Malamud 2011; 2017; Mourón and Onuki 2015; O’Neil 2010; Onuki, Mouron, and Urdinez 2016; Pecequilo and Carmo 2015; Pinheiro and Gaio 2014; Saraiva 2016; Souza 2008; Spektor 2010; Stuenkel and Taylor 2015; Volgy et al. 2014)

Economic development and international trade

Regional leadership

What resulted from its pursuit of status

What Brazil did in pursuit of status

2 BRAZIL’S STATUS AMBITION

33

The ambiguity of the Brazilian position on NPT has created uneasiness in the world. Although signing the treaty led Brazil to be seen as responsible, with time the state was often seen as not involved enough with the objectives of non-proliferation, and thus powerful states would expect Brazil to assume a more solid position along with them. Brazil’s critical position created tensions with the US, and revealed mutual distrust between the two states (Stuenkel 2010; Herz 2011; Mônica Hirst and Hurrell 2005; Diaz and Almeida 2008; Malamud 2017; Lopes, Casarões, and Gama 2020; Lampreia 2014; Burges 2013; Mares and Trinkunas 2016; Hurrell 2006; Esteves and Herz 2020; Lafer 2000; Bertolucci 2020; Kassenova 2015; Larson and Shevchenko 2014) Brazil managed to become an important player in food security in two fronts, as an example of the fight against hunger and as a global farm. The first profile brought some prestige, but lost momentum after the global financial crisis. The second has become one of the areas in which Brazil has more global relevance, providing food to different parts of the world (Coelho and Inoue 2018; Tollefson 2010; Mares and Trinkunas 2016; Charlton 2013; Rohter 2012; Almeida 2007; Lampreia 2014; Burges 2017; Stolte 2015; Belém Lopes and Ferraz Oliveira 2017; Malamud 2017; Rezende 2010)

Leadership in non-proliferation policy

Leadership in food and agricultural policy

What resulted from its pursuit of status

(continued)

What Brazil did in pursuit of status

Table 2.1

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electoral support and recognition by peers, but lacked cohesion among strategic elites, such as the case when Bolivia nationalized hydrocarbons in 2006, and the Paraguay renegotiation of the Itaipu binational treaty between 2008 and 2009. In other situations, such as the mediation on the Iranian nuclear deal, there was an absence of cohesion among strategic elites, of recognition by peers and by the world’s major powers, which limited Brazil’s ability to graduate (Brands 2010; Milani et al. 2017).

2.3

Where Does Brazil Stand?

Indicating Brazil’s precise location in the international stratification of states has proved problematic. There is no consensus among scholars and analysts, who have mostly focused on whether Brazil is a middle power, a great power or something else. Different theoretical perspectives and methodologies can be used to assess Brazil’s status and its position in the global stratified society, however, and there is not one single definition that can point specifically to the status of the state, as Brazil does not fit traditional labels used to identify categories of states in IR (Gardini 2016). As it will be further discussed in the following chapters, this is in part because of the contested nature of the concepts of status and power, which has led to different interpretations of how to organize the international stratification (Gardini 2016; Hurrell 2007; Larson and Shevchenko 2014). Many studies applied different methods to assess Brazil’s place in a global hierarchy and define the state within this international context. Several different definitions have been used to describe Brazil in IR literature. The state has been called a regional hegemon, an emerging power, an emerging global power, an intermediate power, a secondary power, a global power for development, a regional leader for development, and a solid regional leader (Mourón and Onuki 2015). Going beyond these and those used by US authorities described at the start of the chapter, other ambivalent and contrasting descriptions of Brazil common in scholarship are: rising power (Hurrell 2008; Gardini 2016; Larson and Shevchenko 2014); emerged, global power (Sotero 2010, ); middle power (Flemes 2010a; F. de S. Guimarães and Almeida 2018); entrepreneurial power (F. de S. Guimarães and Almeida 2018; 2017); global player (Larson and Shevchenko 2014; Gardini 2016); manager of global affairs (Gardini 2016); full-fledged world power (Diaz and Almeida 2008); regional influential (Larson and Shevchenko 2014); shaper nation (Hitchcock 2016);

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rising soft power (Chatin 2016); aspirational power (Mares and Trinkunas 2016); economic giant, diplomatic dwarf, and industrial and agricultural powerhouse (Rohter 2012); leader without followers (Malamud 2011). It has also been deemed: an interloper in world affairs; a nation that does not quite measure up to the status and power (Stuenkel and Taylor 2015); a military lightweight in a global scale (Malamud 2017); a land of the future (Zweig 2013); and a nation that has a very good image in the rest of the world, but that is not perceived as serious (Buarque 2019). Other definitions described Brazil as a significant player in world affairs albeit one that does not shape the global environment and has limited contribution to global governance (Herz 2011), or a developing country on the periphery, but not an indispensable player on the world scene (Mares and Trinkunas 2016). While the search for prestige can be traced back to the very formation of the state, the scholarship related to this ambition establishes that Brazil has historically fallen short of achieving a significant role in the world. Another complication in understanding Brazil’s status is that it may go through constant changes through time. Even if at various points in its history it may have seemed that greatness was within Brazil’s reach, systematic limitations and its own missteps have prevented it from reaching this recognition (Diaz and Almeida 2008; Mares and Trinkunas 2016). Brazil was not an important player in World War I, it felt undervalued in the formation of the League of Nations and participated late and with limited capacity during World War II, when it was coveted as an ally by Americans and Germans but did send troops to fight the Axis in Italy. After the war, it was not accepted as a permanent member of the UNSC, but at least got the consolation prize of being the first to speak at the UN General Assembly. Still, the state was not able to have as strong presence in the world as it wanted, and it was the target of international criticism during the military dictatorship that ruled national politics until the 1980s (Andrade 2012; Arraes 2005; Coelho 2015; Garcia 2011; Larson and Shevchenko 2014; Vargas 2008). Throughout the twentieth century and even immediately after the end of the military regime, Brazil was not seen as a significant player in international politics and finance. It seemed to be isolated from the great powers. It lacked industrial capacity and had a reputation of financial and economic crisis and instabilities (Burges 2017; Cervo and Lessa 2014; Gardini and Almeida 2016; O’Neil 2010). At the start of the twenty-first century, however, Brazil seemed to have reached its long promise of being

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a land of the future. It had risen and was seen as having achieved part of its great potential, fuelled by domestic stabilization and the economic growth brought by the commodity boom. Brazil achieved an international presence it had never enjoyed before, and started to be treated as influential in world affairs with a chance to really become a major power at some point (Buarque 2013a; Burges 2017; Chatin 2016; Doctor 2010; Gardini 2016; Gardini and Almeida 2016; Hershberg 2015; Lopes et al. 2020; Mares and Trinkunas 2016; Pereira 2017a; 2017b). Brazil’s voice became stronger with presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso and especially Lula da Silva, under whom Brazil formulated a program to give it more international status through its participation in international and multilateral forums and Brazil’s relationship with the major powers, active diplomats in other regions, and its interventions on issues on the international agenda (Cervo and Bueno 2002; Esteves et al. 2020; Fonseca 2017; Sotero 2010). Around the turn of the century, the pursuit of international status became more evident as a key foreign policy objective. This was noticed in the diplomatic rhetoric and ambitions that based the state’s actions in multilateral and bilateral relations. The foreign policy was based on the idea of changing Brazil’s relative position on the world’s wealth and power scale by quickly boosting its influence capacity on different international arenas, investing in the concept of reciprocity (Cervo and Bueno 2002; Doctor 2010; Herz 2011; Lessa et al. 2020). The period analyzed in this book was marked by what became known as a rise in Brazil’s international profile. After the end of the dictatorship, the state was able to stabilize its domestic politics and economics in the 1990s, and to achieve economic growth, which led to higher external visibility and a clear recognition of an increased global importance. Brazil’s so-called rise led to a growth in the capacity and credibility of the state, allowing it to be more assertive in the pursuit of its ambitions for more international prestige and recognition, and to develop capabilities closer to its ambitions to become an important player on the global stage (Bethell 2010a; Burges 2017; Chatin 2016; Diaz and Almeida 2008; Doctor 2010; Gardini 2016; Gardini and Almeida 2016; Hurrell 2010; Lopes et al. 2020; O’Neil 2010; Pereira 2017b; 2017a; Saraiva 2016). The popular narrative about Brazil’s emergence onto the global stage in the late 1990s and the early 2000s gave way to a multitude of studies and publications discussing what was seen as the increasingly important role Brazil seemed to play in the world, and improvements to the prestige

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of the state. Brazil’s ‘rise’ became one of the most discussed subjects in the international relations scholarship about the state (Buarque 2013a; Chatin 2013; Esteves, Jumbert, and Carvalho 2020; Gardini 2016; Hurrell 2010; 2013b; Rohter 2012). It was in this period that ‘The Economist’ put Brazil on its cover, arguing that it was ‘taking off’, and that ‘The Financial Times’ launched ‘Brazil Confidential’, a research service offering analysis and insights into what was called ‘one of the world’s most exciting emerging markets’. Similarly, elites in established great powers would publicly refer to Brazil as emerging, as an economic superpower and even as becoming the ‘country of the present’, as argued by British economist Jim O’Neill in interviews (Brainard and Martinez-Diaz 2009; Buarque 2013a; ‘FT—About Us’ 2011; Prideaux 2009). With that emergence, Brazil was sought for counsel at global governance decision tables. At the same time, the state was able to draw attention to its investment, trade and economic cooperation in the Global South (Burges 2017; Rohter 2012; Pereira 2017a; Stuenkel and Taylor 2015). This allowed Brazil to be proactive in an attempt to change the structures of regional and global politics and economics in order to pursue a stronger international insertion and to promote its interests (Burges 2017). Brazil’s emergence was the fruit of the relative success of its domestic situation in the period considered, but it was also boosted by the global context, which offered favourable systemic factors. Beginning at the end of the Cold War, but especially after the global financial crisis in 2008, the powerful states needed to solve their own problems and left a gap in international politics. This space was filled to a large extent by Brazil and other ‘rising powers’ of the Global South, which were allowed to play an increasingly active role in global economic and political governance. This led to a push to reform this governance in order to allow for a stronger role for these states and to accelerate trends to challenge the geopolitical status quo (Gray and Murphy 2013; Malamud 2017; Stuenkel and Taylor 2015; Diaz and Almeida 2008; Goodman 2009). The narrative about Brazil’s emergence, as mentioned earlier, did not last very long, however. Soon it faced important setbacks with a change in the domestic situation which had an impact on foreign policy (Cervo and Lessa 2014). By 2013, the picture started to change more radically. The slower pace of the economy allied with a decrease in diplomatic proactivity started to put the image of Brazil’s rise into question. In June of that year, when massive protests broke out throughout the country, it was clear

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that things had changed and that Brazil was no longer rising (JiménezMartínez 2020). By 2014, it was evident to the world that domestic political and economic crisis had compromised the state’s capacity to implement its ambitious strategy (Cervo and Lessa 2014; Lessa et al. 2020; Mares and Trinkunas 2016). And although the period after that is not the focus of this book, the process would intensify even more with the impeachment of Rousseff, corruption scandals and the rise of the far right with Jair Bolsonaro, who led Brazil close to being an international pariah (Buarque 2022; G. S. P. e Casarões and Barros Leal Farias 2022; W. F. H. Chagas-Bastos and Franzoni 2019; G. Casarões and Flemes 2019; Buarque 2023). While the once rising state started to fall, it did not mean Brazil became insignificant or as distant to global politics as before the end of the dictatorship. By 2014, the last year of the timeframe of this research, the country would still host the World Cup and the Olympics, and still had representatives leading some very important international organizations. Even if the period after the one assessed in this study showed a continued crisis with a decrease in Brazil’s insertion, by 2014, it was still a heavy weight, at least in its region (Doctor 2010; Gardini and Almeida 2016; Stuenkel and Taylor 2015). Brazil stopped emerging, but it still had important assets such as a large population and territory, possibility of economic growth and cultural influence (Mares and Trinkunas 2016). Going beyond the symbolic status approach and assessing different scholarship about the general position of the state through the period analysed in this book, it is clear that, from a traditional (neo)realist perspective, there seems to be a consensus in the literature that Brazil does not have sufficient hard power capabilities to be considered a great power (Gardini 2016; Malamud 2017; Flemes 2010b; Mares and Trinkunas 2016). Furthermore, Brazil has not been accepted or recognized as a peer among great powers (B. de Carvalho 2020). Drawing from the traditionally accepted criteria for a state to become a great power, it would be necessary to focus not only on this recognition, but on the capacity to contribute to the production of international order, internal cohesion and capacity for effective state, economic power, and military power resources. Focusing on this last one, engaging with a neorealist approach, it has been argued that Brazil definitely does not fulfil the criteria, which would place it far from being a great power (Flemes 2010a; 2010b; Hurrell 2006). From a global comparative standpoint, the state is far from being one of the greats. It is the only member of the original BRIC group that

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does not have nuclear weapons, for example (Rohter 2012). For many scholars, unlike the actual great powers like the US, the EU and China, Brazil cannot achieve such a status because it lacks the material resources for that. It does not have the economic, political or military power to exercise influence on a global scale (Flemes 2010b; Gardini 2016; Volgy et al. 2014). It is also important to consider Brazil’s geographic structural shelter in the Southern Atlantic as significant in this analysis about the amount of power it has, since the state is far from the main areas of interest of global security and also from the recognized great powers. Another significant characteristic about the ways Brazil can achieve its full potential and the limits to doing that is the state’s political will (or lack thereof) to take forceful decisions in international politics. As mentioned earlier, Brazil is perceived from abroad as a state that avoids choosing sides in international disputes, and this can be seen as hindering the ability to reach the full power potential it has. Looking at traditional measures of power, however, Brazil does have weight. It is a big country in geographic terms, both in area and in population. It has one of the ten largest economies in the world, its military capabilities are significantly beyond regional parameters and the country is largely self-sufficient in terms of natural resources (Gardini 2016). Its hard power capabilities are not negligible, and different international indexes show that it has significant capacity in the variables of military, demographic, geographic and economic capacity. Brazil is listed in the top tier of states in a power ranking based on economic and military power3 in the National Material Capabilities of the Correlates of War project (COW)4 (Amorim Neto 2014; Beckley 2018; Volgy et al. 2011). In the period analyzed in this book, Brazil even appeared above P5 states like the United Kingdom and France (Singer, Bremer, and Stuckey 1972 V 5.0). When looking specifically at military power, Brazil does not fare as well as

3 The ranking considers CINC, an index based on the six variables and included in the data set: military expenditure, military personnel, energy consumption, iron and steel production, urban population, and total population (Singer et al. 1972). 4 In 1989, the beginning of the period analysed in this book, Brazil was 7th place in this global ranking, after the US, Russia, China, India, Japan and West Germany. In 2012 (the most recent data considering the period analysed here) it was 6th, behind China, the US, India, Russia, and Japan (Singer et al. 1972 V 5.0).

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shown in the COW. The state was 11th place5 among the ranking of the 15 states with the largest defence budgets in the world, according to the 2014 data of IISS, with US$ 31.9bn. This would justify the classification of the top defence budgets as great powers, if it weren’t for Saudi Arabia being in third place (80.8bn). Other ‘middle’ and ‘emerging’ powers such as India (8th - 45.2bn) and South Korea (10th - 34.4bn) are also above Brazil in the ranking (‘Chapter Two’, 2015). Although Brazil has shown a lot of economic capability in the period analyzed, exceeding the threshold of a potential great power on the size of GDP, it did not move forward enough in order to achieve the threshold to be accepted in the great economic power clubs (Volgy et al. 2014). Even if it is the largest economy in Latin America, the state is poorer in per capita GDP than neighbours such as Argentina and Chile, and lacks the leverage to buy its way into global leadership (Malamud 2017). Another limitation of Brazil’s capability is its unwillingness to act as a great power both in terms of cooperation and conflict. The state has been active in its region but did not demonstrate enough level of engagement outside to reach a global threshold (Volgy et al. 2014). One of the problems described in the literature is that the diplomatic proactivity of the state during its international emergence can be thought of as an overexpansion (Schenoni et al. 2022). While there were systemic changes that supported some growth in multilateral politics, and Brazil for some time felt vindicated, believing it was right in its assessment of the ways the world was changing (Hurrell 2010), Brazilian policymakers fostered a ‘myth’ around the idea of multipolarity, and this became an ideological basis for an unsustainable surge in the international ambitions of the state. From this point of view, the idea that Brazil could become a pole in this new global order was always an illusion, since the state never had the material capabilities for that (Schenoni et al. 2019; Schenoni et al. 2022). However, measuring military and economic power resources does not tell the whole story when talking about status in IR, as it will be discussed in the following chapter, and status is not a mirror reflection of the capabilities of a state; it depends on recognition from others, and depends on how the state is perceived from abroad (Volgy et al. 2014; B. de Carvalho 2020; Larson and Shevchenko 2014; 2019; Hurrell 2006). Looking at

5 The United States comes first (581bn), China second (129.4bn), Russia fourth (70bn), the United Kingdom fifth (61.8bn) and France sixth (53.1bn).

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immaterial capabilities, such as soft power and the ability for agendasetting to achieve legitimacy, there is a consensus that Brazil was able to increase its international influence in the period analyzed in this book, albeit not in any way that could consider the state near recognition as a global power capable of influencing only with soft attributes (Gardini 2016; Mares and Trinkunas 2016; Esteves et al. 2020). Although Brazil focused on the use of soft power to advance its quest for international status, IR theories so far have not fully incorporated the possibility of a developing state rising to a prominent position in international governance through the use of soft power or other means than hard power capabilities. Besides that, Brazil lacked a compelling narrative that would attract other states to follow it (Hodzi 2019; Mares and Trinkunas 2016). Studies looking specifically at status with different methodologies also address Brazil’s standing in the international hierarchies. The most important recent work to analyze Brazil’s level of prestige and recognition is the book ‘Status and the Rise of Brazil’, a collection of articles that already stipulated the achievement of status as a key driver of Brazil’s global reach and offers a thorough discussion on the subject with different approaches. It is an important contribution both to this newly developed theoretical approach to IR and to the analysis of Brazil’s standing. The book is the final product of a research project called Brazil’s Rise to the Global Stage: Humanitarianism, Peacekeeping and the Quest Great Powerhood (BraGS). It explains that Brazil’s quest for higher status has been frustrated by internal problems and changes in the international order. It argues that Brazil is a hybrid power, trying to appease both the developed West and the emerging South, and that the country underperforms in terms of status when compared to other emerging nations, facing problems in the strategies used in this quest for prestige (Esteves et al. 2020). The book, however, follows a more traditional approach to status without focusing on methods that focus on the perceptions of external parties. Another recent study evaluated the performance of Brazil’s status between 1990 and 2008 focusing on a method based on diplomatic contacts, high-level state visits and number of embassies sent to a major power. Although Brazil did show itself to have a relatively independent foreign policy from the leading major power, the state did not reach the threshold to be nearly accepted in a club of great power status (Volgy et al. 2014). Using a relational approach based on a quantitative analysis of a network of embassies, a study shows that Brazil is out of the main circle of powers of the world (M. G. Duque 2018). Another research

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with a similar approach showed that Brazil underperforms in terms of status since democratization. While the powerful states refused to accept Brazil as a peer in ‘clubs’ such as the P5, the state has also struggled with recognition from smaller powers, such as its neighbours in Latin America (Beaumont and Røren 2020). With a more positive result for Brazil, one study developed a methodology to measure status through the analysis of the placement of world leaders in ‘family photographs’ at international meetings, such as the G20 photos. In this assessment of the position of world leaders, Brazil appears 6th in terms of status, below (in hierarchical order) China, the US, Indonesia, Turkey, and Germany (Lundgren 2018), which shows a very different situation in comparison to the stratification of great powers of the world. Another analysis of the foreign perceptions of Brazil argued that the world powers saw that Brazil had little to offer to help resolve important issues on the world agenda, and was unprepared to assume global leadership (Diaz and Almeida 2008). Similarly, international surveys point to the idea that Brazil is perceived by the general public in the rest of the world as a country that is not serious (Buarque 2019). These aspects of the image of the state as focusing on stereotypes of exoticism and on leisure are also reinforced by studies of the reputation of the state in tourism and in international cinema (Bignami 2002; Amancio 2000). Brazil’s role in the world is also subject to a lot of discussion, but with little consensus. Leslie Wehner evaluated the role Brazil plays in its region by considering the importance of other states’ perceptions of Brazil’s ability to enact the role of regional power. He argues that secondary powers in the region recognize, for Brazil, the regional power master role as an achieved status (Wehner 2015). Another view is that the state can have the role of a bridge between old and new powers. In this sense, the established powers also expect Brazil to deliver the South and bring developing states on board to support the decisions made at the core global governance decision tables. However, Brazil rejects this ‘middle power’ role and tries to position itself as a potential great power. This creates frustration in powerful states because the state subscribes to the idea of a middle power only inasmuch as it seeks to preserve the existence of a multilateral order (Burges, 2017). To go beyond any of those previous approaches about where the state stands in the international hierarchy, this book analyzes the perceptions held by elites in great powers in order to develop a better understanding of Brazil’s status with a focus on the intersubjectivity of this attribute.

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Before developing this new empirical analysis, the following chapter will address the theoretical framework used in the study, addressing the concepts of status and the evolution of its use in different scholarships until consolidating its use within IR and its importance for a better understanding of Brazil, its identity, its roles and its place in the global stratification of states.

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Santos, Luís Cláudio Villafañe Gomes. 2010. O Dia Em Que Adiaram o Carnaval: Política Externa Ea Construção Do Brasil. Editora UNESP. ———. 2018. Juca Paranhos, o Barão Do Rio Branco. Editora Companhia das Letras. Saraiva, Miriam Gomes. 2014. The Brazilian Soft Power Tradition. Current History 113 (760): 64. ———. 2016. ‘Brazil’s Rise and Its Soft Power Strategy in South America’. In Foreign Policy Responses to the Rise of Brazil, 46–61. Springer. Schallhorn, Christiana. 2020. Samba, Sun and Social Issues: How the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Rio Olympics Changed Perceptions of Germans about Brazil. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 55 (5): 603–622. https://doi.org/10.1177/1012690218822994. Schenoni, Luis L, Dawisson Belém Lopes, and Guilherme Casarões. 2019. ‘Myths of Multipolarity: The Sources of Brazilian Overexpansion’. LSE Ideas LSE Global South Unit Working Paper (1). http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/102 579/. Schenoni, Luis L, Pedro Feliú Ribeiro, Dawisson Belém Lopes, and Guilherme Casarões. 2022. ‘Myths of Multipolarity: The Sources of Brazil’s Foreign Policy Overstretch’. Foreign Policy Analysis 18 (1): orab037. https://doi.org/ 10.1093/fpa/orab037. Signitzer, Benno H., and Timothy Coombs. 1992. Public Relations and Public Diplomacy: Conceptual Covergences. Public Relations Review 18 (2): 137– 147. Singer, J. David., Stuart Bremer, and John Stuckey. 1972. Capability Distribution, Uncertainty, and Major Power War, 1820–1965. Peace, War, and Numbers 19 (48): 9. Soares, Luiz Felipe Guimarães. 2001. ‘War-Joy and the Pride of Not Being Rich: Constructions of American and Brazilian National Identities Through the Discourse on Carmen Miranda’. Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. Sotero, Paulo. 2010. ‘Brazil’s Rising Ambition in a Shifting Global Balance of Power’. Politics 30 (1_suppl): 71–81. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.14679256.2010.01394.x. de Souza, Amaury. 2002. A Agenda Internacional do Brasil: Um Estudo sobre a Comunidade Brasileira de Política Externa. Rio de Janeiro: CEBRI. de Souza, Amaury. 2008. Brazil’s International Agenda Revisited: Perceptions of the Brazilian Foreign Policy Community. Rio de Janeiro: CEBRI. Spektor, Matias. 2009. Kissinger e o Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar. ———. 2010. ‘Brazil: The Underlying Ideas of Regional Policies’. In Regional Leadership in the Global System, 191–204. Farnham: Ashgate. ———. 2016. ‘Brazil: Shadows of the Past and Contested Ambitions’. In Shaper Nations: Strategies for a Changing World, 17–35. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

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Stolte, Christina. 2015. Brazil’s Africa Strategy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137499578. Stuenkel, Oliver. 2010. Identidade, Status e Instituições Internacionais: O Caso Do Brasil, Da Índia e Do Tratado de Não Proliferação. Contexto Internacional 32 (2): 519–561. Stuenkel, Oliver. 2014. Emerging Powers and Status: The Case of the First BRICs Summit. Asian Perspective 38 (1): 89–109. https://doi.org/10.1353/ apr.2014.0003. Stuenkel, Oliver, and Matthew M. Taylor. 2015. Brazil on the Global Stage: Power, Ideas, and the Liberal International Order. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Svartman, Eduardo Munhoz. 2016. Os Think Tanks Dos EUA e as Visões Sobre a Atuação Internacional Do Brasil. Relaciones Internacionales 25 (50): 171– 187. Tollefson, Jeff. 2010. The Global Farm. Nature 466 (7306): 554–557. Uziel, Counsellor Eduardo, and Paulo Roberto Campos Tarrisse da Fontoura. 2017. ‘MINUSTAH, Brazil and the United Nations Security Council’. In Brazil’s Participation in MINUSTAH (2004–2017), 9–15. Rio de Janeiro: Igarapé Institute. Uziel, Eduardo. 2015. O Conselho de Segurança, as missões de paz e o Brasil no mecanismo de segurança coletiva das Nações Unidas. 2a edição. Coleção CAE. Brasília: Fundação Alexandre de Gusmão. Vargas, João Augusto., and Costa. 2008. Persuadir e Legitimar: A Argumentação Brasileira Em Favor Da Reforma Do Conselho de Segurança. Cena Internacional 10 (2): 119–138. Vieira, Maria Carolina. 2016. Um Turbilhão Chamado Brasil: Aspectos Culturais Brasileiros Na Cobertura Da Copa Do Mundo Pelo Jornal The Guardian. Mediação 18 (23): 153–167. Vigevani, Tullo, and Gabriel Cepaluni. 2018. A Política Externa Brasileira: A Busca Da Autonomia, de Sarney a Lula. SciELO-Editora UNESP. Visentini, Paul Fagundes. 2009. ‘Prestige Diplomacy, Southern Solidarity or “Soft Imperialism”’. Lula’s Brazil-Africa Relations (2003 Onwards), Leiden: Africa Studies Centre 16. Vizentini, Paulo Gilberto, and Fagundes. 1999. O Brasil e o Mundo: A Política Externa e Suas Fases. Ensaios FEE 20 (1): 134–154. Volgy, Thomas J., Renato Corbetta, Keith A. Grant, and Ryan G. Baird, eds. 2011. Major Power Status in International Politics. In Major Powers and the Quest for Status in International Politics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230119314. Volgy, Thomas J., Renato Corbetta, J. Patrick Rhamey, Ryan G. Baird, and Keith A. Grant. 2014. ‘Status Considerations in International Politics and the Rise

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of Regional Powers’. In Status in World Politics, 58–84. Cambridge University Press. Walsh, G., and K. P. Wiedmann. 2008. ‘Branding Germany: Managing Internal and External Country Reputation’. Nation Branding: Concepts, Issues, Practice. Oxford, UK: Elsevier. Waltz, Kenneth N. 1979. Theory of International Politics Addison-Wesley Series in Political Science. Addison-Wesley. ———. 2001. Man, the State, and War: A Theoretical Analysis. Columbia University Press. Wehner, Leslie E. 2015. Role Expectations As Foreign Policy: South American Secondary Powers’ Expectations of Brazil As A Regional Power. Foreign Policy Analysis 11 (4): 435–455. https://doi.org/10.1111/fpa.12048. Wendt, Alexander. 1992. Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics. International Organization 46 (02): 391. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818300027764. Winter, Brian. 2023. ‘Is Lula Anti-American?’ Americas Quarterly, July 24. https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/is-lula-anti-american/. Yamin, Patricio. 2013. ‘Status Matters: Brazil and Mexico in Climate Change Negotiations from Kyoto to Copenhagen’. Barcelona: Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals–IBE, Septiembre. Yao, Jiajun. 2010. ‘The Effect of Hosting the Olympics on National Image: An Analysis of US Newspaper Coverage of Host Countries with Reputation Problems’. Zanini, Fabio. 2017. Euforia e Fracasso Do Brasil Grande: Política Externa e Multinacionais Brasileiras Da Era Lula. Editora Contexto. Zweig, S. 2013. Brasil, Um País Do Futuro (A. Dines, Prefácio; K. Michahelles, Trad.). Porto Alegre: L&PM.

CHAPTER 3

The Eyes of the Beholders: Intersubjectivity and Status in International Relations

In the building where I live, in São Paulo, there is a ‘zelador’ who often behaves as if he owned the entire edifice. These persons, the equivalent of a building superintendent in English speaking countries, are professional caretakers that are always around to solve problems in the building and those of its inhabitants. Although the title suggests someone who is a simple professional working in the buildings, in many cases, they act as if they had a much more important role, living in smaller apartments in the same edifice, knowing about everything that goes on and influencing decisions about the life of the owners and tenants. And it is not uncommon to hear similar stories of ‘zeladores’ who appear to rule the buildings where they work in different parts of the country. However, there are limits to what a ‘zelador’ can really do. They may want to have the same level of prestige as someone who owns an apartment in the building, They may act as if they were landlords, they may even believe that this is what they deserve for working there, but their status depends on the recognition they get from the homeowners of the building. While they are not able to buy an apartment, they may even have some influence based on the knowledge and information they have about the inhabitants, but they will continue to be seen just as ‘zelador’, and thus their status will not be what they want, but what others believe it to be. Within the analysis of status, it doesn’t matter if a ‘zelador’ wants to have the same voice as the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Buarque, Brazil’s International Status and Recognition as an Emerging Power, Governance, Development, and Social Inclusion in Latin America, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47575-7_3

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homeowners of a building, what matters is what the owners, who have the power of decision, see as their status (Mitzen 2006; S. Ward 2017). This situation tells a lot about the concept of status and the importance of external recognition for individuals, for professionals, for groups, for clubs, and even for states within the internationally stratified society. Generally defined in different disciplines as the rank or standing in the hierarchy of a group, status is referred to in IR scholarship as a state’s position within a social stratification and hierarchy which consists of collective beliefs about a state’s standing and membership, based on valued attributes, and is recognized by voluntary deference (Clunan 2014; Götz 2020; Larson and Shevchenko 2019; MacDonald and Parent 2021; Paul et al. 2014). Status is connected to roles, identities and responsibilities, including being part of groups, being dominant within a group, having moral authority within a group, being the leader of a coalition, or being the defender of a group of people. It is a positional good, meaning that one state can only improve its standing if another declines in theirs (Larson and Shevchenko 2019; Renshon 2017; Götz 2020). As Thazda V. Paul et al. summarize, it refers to the ‘collective beliefs about a given state’s ranking on valued attributes (wealth, coercive capabilities, culture, demographic position, socio political organization, and diplomatic clout)’ (Paul et al. 2014, 7). The fact that status is intersubjective, perceptual, and dependent on recognition from other actors means that where a state stands in the global stratification depends not just on what it believes itself to be, what it wants, its capabilities or how it behaves (even if these are also important). It relies fundamentally on how others in the international community interpret the identity, intentions and behaviours of that state, and what the collective belief about the status of that said state is (Clunan 2014; MacDonald and Parent 2021; Paul et al. 2014). Most of the literature on status in IR so far, however, has focused more on states’ motivations and behaviour, while studies about perceptions and recognition have been relegated to research with different theoretical frameworks. This chapter fills this gap and introduces a study of status in IR that emphasizes the fact that status reflects collective beliefs, about the ways others see an actor, and interpret its place in the global hierarchy. This may seem like an abstraction, but sociology and psychology scholarships have long considered the importance of such collective beliefs

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and this knowledge, and it is clear that the approach also offers important insights to IR. Status is not a perfect reflection of a state’s material attributes but depends on the perceptions of others. It refers to higher order beliefs about a state’s relative ranking and to ‘beliefs about what others believe’ (Paul et al. 2014, 8).

3.1

Stratification of States

There are many interpretations about the structure of the international society, but scholars do not differ much in their conception of anarchy in global relations. The notion that international politics operates under conditions of anarchy and equality does not explain variation in international political conditions, however. There are clear differences in standing between the states that form the international society, which is not totally based on equality, but on stratification. Even within anarchy, international hierarchies have always led states to subordinate themselves in whole or part to the authority of other, more dominant states. While there is no central authority, there are ruled arrangements in international relations such as virtue, rights and manners (Onuf 1989; Lake 2009). Anarchy and hierarchy are not dichotomous since they are not ordering principles, they indicate that there is a superordinated order, but don’t detail how this is arranged (Donnelly 2009). While anarchy is understood as a structure, hierarchies are seen as constantly subject to renegotiation as bargained orders (Zarakol 2017). As discussed by Georg Wilhelm Hegel and Max Weber, the paradigm of political society in international relations entails super and subordination, and thus, status. This is not to say that there is a single list of states from high to low status, but that the differentiation between states is based on the way that other states perceive the status of one another, which, in turn, is to say that status is how the capabilities of one state is intersubjectively interpreted by the other states and institutions (MacDonald and Parent 2021). Within this stratified international society, differences and hierarchies are evident in the actions of great powers, which do not behave as if they are fully bound by principles of equality. These are states with higher status in the world, who shape and manage the international system, play a major role in global politics, and are recognized as possessing economic, diplomatic, and military strength and influence. They are also recognized by other powerful players and are able to define matters of peace, security and war in the world, holding places at important decision

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tables, such as permanent seats with veto power on the UNSC (Berridge and James 2003; Berridge and Young 1988; Buzan 2018; Cesa 2011; Dasgupta 2015; Levy 2014; Mares and Trinkunas 2016; Mearsheimer 2001; Mulligan 2008; Narlikar 2013; Waltz 1979). These great powers are recognized as such also because of the most traditional scholarly approach to discussing differentiation in global hierarchies, which has, however, not focused on status per se, but on the concept of power. Although this is one of the most frequently encountered concepts in IR, it is elusive, and has been described as one of the most complex and contested ideas in all of the social sciences. There is no overarching theory of social power and no single analytical approach that can provide a definition to the concept (Nye 2011; Hurrell 2013). One common and general definition is that power ‘is the capacity to do things in social situations to affect others to get the outcomes we want’ (Nye 2011, 6). Robert A. Dahl defined power as ‘the measure which is the difference in the probability of an event, given certain action by A, and the probability of the event given no such action by A’ (Dahl 1957, 214). However other studies pointed out that his definition missed a second face of power, the dimension of framing and agenda-setting (Nye 2011). A third dimension of power was later proposed by Steven Lukes, arguing that ideas and beliefs also help shape others’ initial preferences (Lukes 2005). The three faces of power, thus, are summarized by: the use of threats or rewards to change another’s behaviour against this other actor’s initial preferences and strategies; the control of the agenda of actions in a way that limits the actor’s choices of strategy; and the ability to create and shape another actor’s basic beliefs, perceptions and preferences, which is usually equated to the idea of soft power, a concept that has been under very critical scrutiny ever since it was first proposed. It has been criticized as being poorly explained and lacking a coherent theoretical framework, scholarly rigour, and analytic depth, even when compared to the third dimension of power (Layne 2010; Nisbett 2016). The means to measure and compare the power of states is essential to IR, but is also not consensual, so there is a lot of debate on what is the ‘rank’ of a state (Nye 2011; Stolte 2015). A simple compilation of lists of power resources is inadequate because it ignores the way in which power is embodied in political and economic structures, the second and third dimensions of power (Hurrell 2013). Power is not necessarily quantifiable in a material sense but may in fact have more significance as

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a social phenomena that allows a state to accumulate and wield influence in a subtler manner (Hurrell 2013; Burges 2017). Building on this conceptualization, some important lessons in analysing power are that it is contextual, it cannot be separated from motives and values, it is relational, it is structural, and it is, above all, a social phenomenon, and depends on human relationships in different contexts. As it is connected to the ability to influence others, power has to be thought of not in absolute terms, but as part of a relationship (Nye 2011; Organski 1968), so it is closely related to the concept of status, as it will be discussed in the following section. This differentiation between states in a global stratified anarchy and the challenges to measuring the level of power and the standing of states create a gap in traditional IR scholarship, as the location where each state stands in international stratification remains understudied. To fill this gap, research since the early 2000s has started to draw from the notion of status in order to apply this idea to international relations.

3.2

What Is Status?

In a narrow and individual sense, status originated in sociology and refers to one’s standing within a group, as a universal characteristic of social life, a set of rights and obligations which governs the behaviour of people, (Goffman 1951, 294; Weber 1946, 1978; Swedberg and Agevall 2016). It can also be understood in broader terms as a reference to one’s value and importance in the eyes of others (De Botton 2008). The concept of status in sociology gained momentum after being proposed by the German sociologist Max Weber in the 1920s, in the book ‘Economy and Society’, to complement the analysis of class, which he perceived to be incomplete in accounting for all of social stratification (Swedberg and Agevall 2016; Weber 1978). In his work, status is traditionally defined as ‘an effective claim to social esteem in terms of positive or negative privileges’ (Weber 1978, 1:305). Weber differentiates economic class and status, arguing that the latter encompasses ‘every typical component of the life fate of men that is determined by a specific, positive or negative, social estimation of honour’ (Weber 1946, 186–187). This mention of ‘social estimation’ is one of the key characteristics of the approach to status used in the study presented in this book, applying the concept to IR and focusing on how others estimate the status of a state. For Weber, much of international politics was driven by the

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desire of states to have their superior worth recognized, and prestige was described as an instrumentality and an end in its own right. This created a competition for standing among states, which can be seen as introducing an ‘irrational element’ into international relations that exacerbates tensions (Lebow 2017, 21–22). Beyond the sociological approach, status has also been addressed from the point of view of the economy, with evidence of preferences for status as an important driver of economic outcomes and a growing body of work suggests that status influences decisions, affects trust, well-being and happiness (Fiske and Markus 2012; Heffetz and Frank 2011). Status is connected to Thorstein Veblen’s idea of conspicuous consumption, which can also be perceived in the behaviour of states (Gilady 2017; Lebow 2008; Veblen 2007). The concept is important within psychological scholarship, since people seem to have a natural tendency to hierarchize and pursue status as an emotional goal in itself, and status is worth a positive amount of material gain independently of any monetary consequence (Anderson et al. 2015; Barkow 2014; De Botton 2008; Huberman et al. 2004). Social Identity Theory (SIT), on the other hand, provides a link between individual-level psychological theories of emotion and collectives, and became connected to the most prevalent IR approach to status (Larson and Shevchenko 2019; Lebow 2017; H. Tajfel 1982; Henri Tajfel and Turner 2004; Weber 1946). This outreach to other disciplines in order to study status in IR can be enriching, but different understandings of the concept and the synonyms used to refer to it throughout history, and in different cultural contexts, can create semantic confusion which can in turn lead to many challenges in developing a scientific approach to status. From these different theoretical approaches, the idea of status appears often under different related concepts, such as honour, glory, spirit, prestige, respect, recognition, credibility, reputation, pride, legitimacy, recognition for importance and other terms used interchangeably for a similar phenomenon even if they are not necessarily synonymous. It is therefore important to define the concepts and differentiate between terms that are closely related and often used interchangeably, while it is arguably more productive to employ them as analytically distinct concepts (Dafoe et al. 2014; Renshon 2016; Wood 2013). Within the traditional IR approaches, prestige is often defined as reputation for power (Berridge and James 2003; Gilpin 1981). It is accepted as an equivalent to status or standing, as it is a social, hierarchical, and

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positional concept that requires a community and an audience to be meaningful. However, status has the additional connotation of rank order in a hierarchy (Gilady 2017; Lebow 2008; Larson and Shevchenko 2019). Status is also different from reputation; as the latter is not relative, it does not depend on a community’s shared beliefs and does not entail voluntary deference. It is related to a judgment of another state’s character, which is used to predict or explain that state’s future behaviour (Mercer 2017, 137). Reputation and prestige are more often regarded as being somewhat in the control of the actor, while status can be regarded as a function of the community; it needs to be accorded by others (Dafoe et al. 2014). The connection between status and external perceptions puts it close to the concept of image, defined as a synonym for subjective knowledge, personal knowledge, and belief. It is what determines the behaviour of a person or group (Kenneth E. Boulding 1956; K.E. Boulding 1959). Images are a matter of perception and cannot be thought of as synonymous with reality. Just like the intersubjective character of status, they should be understood as the majority of representations of the state in the mind of individuals, including social and historical factors, geographic position, weather, and the media1 (Anholt 2009; Bignami 2002; Go and Govers 2011; Jiménez-Martínez 2017, 2020). Adapting the concept of status from studies that focus on individuals and applying it to IR has created some controversy, however. The scholarship about the status of states is often the target of very serious criticism because of the way it treats states as if they were individuals. Although the criticism is valid, this study still adopts this approach and believes it to be appropriate in the discussion about status in IR. Anthropomorphising states has been justified as a rhetorical means within the IR discourse because states are the main characters of world politics (Organski 1968, 15); it draws on insights from the social psychology of groups (Wendt 1992) and leads to mainstream approaches to IR assuming that some type of human emotion operates at the level of states. States are the dominant

1 Bleiker (2018) is another important reference to broaden this discussion as it proposes

that images shape international events and people’s understanding of them. However, it adopts a different approach to this concept. While this study refers to image as a synonym for subjective knowledge, personal knowledge, and belief, Bleiker’s work is closer to a discussion about actual “visual artefacts”, which is an entirely different concept than the one used in the analysis of country image in terms of status presented here.

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form of political organization; they act, they have goals, plans, and it is their relations with each other that defines these international relations (Organski 1968). Furthermore, treating states as if they were individuals makes sense in the context of this book because it is based on individual’s perceptions about states, and this is an analogy that works in the minds of people, who think and speak of states as if they were individuals. This book is built on the narrative presented by interviewees looking at Brazil from the outside, and they tended to treat the state as a unitary actor, to discuss it as an individual, with motivations, interests, ambitions and behaviours that could be seen as those of individuals.

3.3

Evolution of Status in IR

Apart from a handful of fleeting acknowledgments traditional IR scholarship has given to status while incorporating studies of sociology and psychology, there is also a long history of status being directly and indirectly mentioned within different theoretical frameworks of IR. Because of the evident differentiation of states in a global stratification, status has been of interest since the beginning of modern political science, spanning methodological and theoretical approaches. Some type of status has been mentioned in IR scholarship ever since Thucydides, and the pursuit of reputation and status has even been regarded for a long time as a prominent motive for war (Dafoe et al. 2014; Thucydides 2019). As a lot of IR theory was first developed from an analogy with Thomas Hobbes’ view of men in the state of nature, it is important to remember that it included the assumption that states were driven by competition, the need for safety and the interest to be feared, for glory, gain and reputation (Hobbes 1997; Lebow 2008; Morgenthau 1997). These notions of glory and reputation have brought the scholarship near the study of prestige. However, the focus has often stayed closer to the role of fear and gain than to status itself. This led to a general neglect of status and a narrow focus on security and prosperity (Neumann and Carvalho 2014). Realist scholars such as Hans Morgenthau and Kenneth Waltz argue that reputation and prestige are important as ways to differentiate states according to their level of power, especially the role and importance of great powers (Markey 1999; Morgenthau 1997; Volgy et al. 2011; Waltz 1979). Realists and neorealists see status, however, as a simple function of military and economic power capabilities (Waltz 1979). From this realist

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perspective, prestige is used as a synonym of status, defined as reputation for power. However, it is fundamental not to ignore the importance of the reputation side of this conceptualization. This means that it is important to understand how power is perceived, and not just refer to objective measurements of power capabilities. External perceptions, interpretations and intersubjectivity are important to determine the rise of a state (Narlikar 2013). Prestige has been treated as less significant in a world in which concerns of survival and prosperity reigned paramount. Nevertheless, the importance of status to security has also been thoroughly demonstrated. Research started to associate the search for status with the risk of conflict, and opened the scholarship to a more engaged discussion of status (Barnhart 2016; Dafoe et al. 2014; Edwards and Kravitz 1997; M. K. Murray 2019; Neumann and Carvalho 2014; Renshon 2016). A study about the causes of conflict in global history found that status was responsible (as a primary or secondary motive) for 62 out of 94 wars, including the origins of WWI and WWII, as well as, more recently, the US invasion of Iraq. It was the leading motive for wars in the world (Lebow 2010, 18). The English school, on the other hand, sees status as having the approval of other powerful states and acquiring special rights and duties. And constructivism views status as socially constructed by the interaction of states, and sees hierarchies evolving in the context of what states value. (Larson and Shevchenko 2019; M. K. Murray 2019; Götz 2020). These approaches are much closer to the more recently developed scholarship that focuses specifically on the status of states. However, they give more importance to normative approaches and to human agency in shaping identities and do not focus specifically on the stratification of states, where they stand in the hierarchies and how that affects their behaviour (Onuf 1989; Mitzen 2006). In the 1960s, status was described in an IR study as rank or reputation attributed by others in the same social system. It was argued that the ranking of states had consequences for the pattern of interaction between actors and for the dynamics of the system as a whole (Schwartzman and Mora y Araujo 1966; Singer and Small 1966). Studies developed in the early 1970s described the study of status in IR as a growing field and argued that international behaviour was caused by status rank and disequilibrium (Rummel 1971; Rosecrance et al. 1974; Dore 1975). Since the

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end of the Cold War, research on status in IR grew in importance, motivated in part by the high stakes of a better understanding of deterrence (Dafoe et al. 2014). A new wave of scholarship focusing on status has reinforced its importance to different areas of IR scholarship since the turn of the century. This approach has been adamant in pointing out the limitations of traditional theories that do not include themes related to recognition and prestige in their appraisal of the propensity for war and peace in the international realm (Larson and Shevchenko 2019; Lindemann 2011; Renshon 2016; Paul et al. 2014). In recent decades, the focus on status became more prominent, with contemporary work with varied approaches, such as constructivist, realist, and rationalist, formal and informal theory, statistical and qualitative evidence, experimental (Dafoe et al. 2014). According to this new scholarship, the preference for status is a basic disposition rather than a strategy for attaining other goals. States seek tangibles not just because of the welfare or security they bring but also because of the social status they confer (Wohlforth 2009). Establishing that status-seeking often motivates foreign policy has been one of the most important achievements of the growing literature on status in international politics. With time, IR scholars have recognized that a lot of what is known as international relations can be characterized as a struggle for high status, international roles and the privileges they confer (Lebow 2016). Status is obviously not the only resource that motivates states, but it is a prominent and underappreciated one, holding the potential to help us understand otherwise unintelligible behaviours (S. M. Ward 2017). Although this new scholarship is still relatively recent, status has been growing within IR, and can already be considered part of the mainstream with three main approaches: one rationalist–instrumental approach with a lot of attention to conflict initiation; another using SIT to argue for intrinsic motivations of status seekers and a third looking at ontological security needs of states (MacDonald and Parent 2021). This recent scholarship, however, focuses mostly on possible disputes between powerful states, but status is also a key driver in the policies of smaller states (or emerging powers, like Brazil) in the everyday life of international society (Neumann and Carvalho 2014). For these less powerful states, recognition of status is fundamental and their strategies guide their social dealings with other states in the everyday life of international politics (Wohlforth et al. 2018). The best way to go forward with studies of status

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in IR, however, is to adopt theoretical diversity and fuse insights from the different status perspectives, combining elements of various perspectives (Götz 2020). The study presented here focuses on the importance of intersubjective perceptions of status as a fundamental and understudied aspect of this scholarship, in order to develop a new approach to assessing the standing of states in a global hierarchical system. It refers to status as the rank of a state in the stratified global society that is dependent on external perceptions, beliefs about other’s beliefs and foreign recognition (Casarões 2020; Clunan 2014; Larson and Shevchenko 2019; MacDonald and Parent 2021; Paul et al. 2014). To treat status as being intersubjective means that it is not about quantifiable and is related to beliefs about beliefs about facts. While power is something palpable and that scholars may try to quantify, status is closely related to how capabilities are perceived and understood by other members of a community that tries to organize it into a ranking, comparing different actors. This makes the concept more fluid and harder to measure, as it is a result of a collection of different views and interpretations about an actor. It is not about how much military power a state has, for example, but about how others perceive one’s attributes, such as military capability, what the foreign community believes about it, and how they rank it in comparison to others. This means that a group believes the actor has a quality, or power, or influence, independent of the factual reality. It is a relational concept that describes a subjective reading of an intersubjective evaluation of a potential objective quality (O’Neill 1999; Gilady 2017). Status only exists as long as it is attached to recognition by others, and that is not what a state wants it to be, but what external actors determine it is (Bieler 2001; Carvalho et al. 2020; Clunan 2014; Lake 2014; M. Murray 2010; M. K. Murray 2019; T. V. Paul and Shankar 2014; Paul et al. 2014; Wood 2013). Status is formed of collective beliefs of a community, which determines what (or who) merits admiration, but subjective beliefs can differ from intersubjective ones. It is a relational concept and depends on what a community of observers thinks of an actor (Mercer 2017, 135–136). To understand an intersubjective phenomenon, thus, it is important to pay attention to a systematic analysis of the psychological aspects of international relations (Kelman 1965). This approach puts the importance of belief systems at the forefront of what happens in international relations. Decision-makers thus act not upon a simple and objective reality,

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but rather upon their definition of the situation and their self-image as well as images of other states. These images are in turn dependent upon the decision-maker’s belief system, their perception and misperception, which is composed of past, present, and future images, as well as accumulated, organized knowledge about the world, and (O. R. Holsti 1962; Jervis 2017). This approach puts status close to behavioural international relations, which questions the idea of rationality of states when making decisions and argue that the beliefs of leaders and of stakeholders who make up the foreign policy community of a state influence the decisions taken by such a state (Walker 2011). Applying ideas from behavioural economics to IR leads to thinking about the importance of perceptions and the subjectivity of leaders, the intersubjective character of these relations and of the development of status. Images, perceptions and misperceptions are accepted as examples of concepts that have been used and studied by behavioural scholars. The research presented here follows a similar line of thought, leaving behind the focus on the rationality of decision-makers in states and arguing for the need to understand the perceptions and beliefs of people in other states in order to make sense of the standing of a state in the world hierarchies. The analysis of external perceptions about states has been mostly constrained out of the IR scholarship. Although there have been some efforts to understand the international images of states, their connections to soft power and even to public diplomacy, studies of prestige and reputation have been dominated by marketing researchers, who refer to it as nation branding. This popular line of research in this area focuses on the idea that states have reputations that are like brands, which build on their identity and become their international images (Anholt 1998, 2006, 2007, 2016; Aronczyk 2013; Go and Govers 2011; Kaneva 2011; Cull 2022a). The fundamental importance of perception and intersubjectivity has been understudied in status-focused IR, as scholars have paid more attention to states’ motivations and behaviours, and on methodologies that ignore intersubjectivity as they try to measure status with quantitative approaches. By focusing on the relational, intersubjective and social quality, the sociological approaches can offer a potentially productive means for getting at status and its consequences (Beaumont 2017). In recent studies, scholars have begun to theorize the relational, contextual and socially contingent aspects of status. However, little has been done in an attempt to measure status as intersubjective, depending on

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others’ perceptions. (Beaumont 2017; M. Duque 2016; M. G. Duque 2018; Neumann 2014; Pouliot 2014, 2016).

3.4

Identity, Recognition and Roles

One of the most basic elements of status as an intersubjective phenomenon is the state’s own identity, its own conception of what it is, or self-understanding, developed internally from domestic discourses and historical experiences, which is fundamental to formulate the interests of a state (Berenskoetter 2010; Mesquita 2016). Within IR, this identity becomes ‘collective’, as the state can be thought of as a corporate actor made up of many individuals, and as a structure that constitutes collective intentionality and develops a shared belief among its members, so that they constitute a collective identity or ‘we’, resulting in a ‘group mind’ that enables them to engage in institutionalized collective action (Wendt 2003, 505). The important point, however, is that the self is constructed with or against others. It needs to contrast the internal with the external, the domestic and the foreign and is built on the notions of images of self and other. This notion of national identity is particularly important because it is seen as a fundamental influence on a state’s foreign policy (Berenskoetter 2010; M. Murray 2010). Scholars differentiate the internal identity of a state, which is defined as its cohesion and the way it is manifested, and the external identity, which is what makes one state distinct from others. While national identity refers to distinctive traits of specificity that individualize a people, international identity refers to how a sovereign state came to develop its identity, roles and interests with other states in the global system, which is highly dependent on external perceptions (Mesquita 2016; Wendt 1992; Kowert 1998). While identity is important to a state, status is mostly built on how it is perceived and the level of recognition that a state enjoys. From a traditional approach to IR, close to the scholarship of international law, recognition takes place most visibly when an existing government announces that another political entity has become a sovereign state. It has been described as the main expectation from states that want to participate in the society of states with the independence of outside authority (Bull 2002). Realists use the term type to refer to something akin to a role identity that motivates behaviour, as if it would be defined in an actor’s mind. However, its meaning is related to social order; just like

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status, it is intersubjective and depends not only on what a state wants to be but on how others represent it (Mitzen 2006). Recognition is the means for a state to achieve higher standing according to this intersubjective approach (Larson and Shevchenko 2019; M. K. Murray 2019; Paul et al. 2014; Volgy et al. 2011). This recognition is especially valuable if it comes from someone perceived as having worth and dignity, more specifically, it is more valued when it comes from states that already have higher status (T. V. Paul and Shankar 2014, 165; Wendt 2003). The idea behind this verification is that there is a social recognition of one’s status. ‘For a status to be legitimate, it must be legitimate in both the eyes of the holder and the beholder’ (Clunan 2014, 280). This might exaggerate the importance of self-value since the place of a state in a global rank ends up being defined more by the beholders than by what a state wants to be. It is possible to argue that the ambition of a state is relevant, but it can only be realized if it gets recognition from abroad, from the beholders. Thus, a state that faces an inconsistency between what it wants and the recognition it gets might become frustrated with this and act to change it (maybe even leading to conflict). It could also lead to such a state developing problems understanding its place in the world, in a situation akin to ontological insecurity. However, the status of a state that is not recognized the way it wants is nevertheless legitimate if it is defined as such by the beholders. It is the position determined by others that establishes the status of a state, independently of what it wants its status to be. Unlike wealth or military power capabilities, for instance, status has to be recognized by other actors in order to be experienced as real (Røren and Beaumont 2019; S. Ward 2017). The desire for recognition and the defence of honour and spirit appeared in early works of Western philosophy, has been mentioned since Plato’s Republic, and is also present in the works of authors like Machiavelli, Hobbes, Rousseau, Kant and Nietzsche (Fukuyama 1992; Lebow 2008). Weber discussed the desire of people (and states) to have their superior worth recognized (Lebow 2017). It is with the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, however, that the concept gains centre stage, as his discussion about the struggle for recognition has been described as the ‘motor of history’ (Fukuyama 1992; Hegel 1977; Kain 2005). Self-consciousness, Hegel explains, exists in and for itself when, and by the fact that, it so exists for another. ‘It exists only in being acknowledged’ (Hegel 1977, 111).

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This intersubjectivity in the consolidation of identities, and the need for recognition, is a fundamental part of the study of roles in IR (Harnisch 2011). The concept of role is borrowed from sociology and has become more prominently used in IR scholarship in recent decades. Within IR, role theory argues that states hold a host of national and international roles that constitute their identity, regulate their behaviour, and shape the international social order (Harnisch and Frank 2011; K. J. Holsti 1970). Status is at the centre of the definition of roles and both are constituted by ego and alter expectations regarding the purpose of an actor in an organized group (Elgström and Smith 2006; Thies 2009; Wehner 2015; Harnisch 2011). One difference between role and status is that the first is often described as a collection of rights and duties, as if it was a dynamic aspect of a status (Hindin 2007; Harnisch et al. 2011). Depending on the type of relationship and social context of interactions between actors, status and roles of actors can differ, and individuals are regularly considered to play multiple roles and stand in different places in society (Harnisch et al. 2011; Müller 2011; Thies 2009). When the concept is applied to IR, states can also have multiple roles depending on the context. A state that is a regional leader can be a lesser voice in global security issues—just like Brazil and Turkey, which are important in their continent, but failed to be heard when trying to broker a nuclear deal between Iran and the West (Lampreia 2014). Moreover, a rich state can be considered to have a lower status in military power. China, for example, is one of the strongest economies of the world and is a permanent member of the UNSC, but the state still behaves in ways that show that it is not satisfied with its role and status in global hierarchies (Larson and Shevchenko 2019). Understanding roles in IR is important because it defines the notions of actors about who they are and what they want to be with regard to others, as well as their interactions with others (K. J. Holsti 1970; Harnisch et al. 2011). Foreign policy is constrained by, and partly shaped in response to, others’ expectations and reactions. A role must be expressed in behaviour and that behaviour must be recognized by others as fulfilling the role. Studying outsiders’ perceptions has important practical implications, since a state has to be recognized as having the role it wants by the actors in its negotiation environment (Elgström 2007). Perceptions about material power are more important than material capacity itself. Power will only be relevant if role conceptions incorporate them as such. This means that roles (and status) can change without

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corresponding changes in the material structure, as long as states are able to manipulate cognitive dissonances in other states (Guimarães 2021). One way to think about that would be to return to the discussion about the relationship between status and roles, and how they depend on these intersubjective external evaluations. In an analogy between states and individuals, it is possible to compare this need in the situation of the character of a ‘zelador’ in residential buildings in Brazil, as presented at the start of this chapter. The analogies used to discuss the status of individuals as intersubjective are also valid for collectives. Let us consider football clubs. In 1987, Brazil had a controversial national championship, with legal disputes during and after that year’s tournament. It was divided into two divisions (yellow and green) and it was defined that the national champion would be the victor of a confrontation between the first two of those divisions. By the time this final match came around, Flamengo, which had won the green division, refused to play Sport Recife, the winner of the yellow division, and declared itself Brazil’s champion. However, Sport Recife took home the cup, was declared champion by the National Football Confederation, played the Libertadores Cup of the following year (a prize that recognized internationally who the champion was). Flamengo never accepted Sport Recife as the champion of 1987. Having more money and more followers, it has continued to declare itself champion of that year for almost four decades and lost repeatedly in all instances of sports and national justice systems that still accept Sport Recife as the champion. As one of the biggest Brazilian clubs in terms of money, titles and number of supporters, Flamengo wants to have the status of 1987 champion entirely by its own decisions, and many in Brazil, including powerful people in the media and justice system, believe that it deserves to be recognized the rightful winner of that year. But until it can be officially recognized as such, and accepted by the other teams and their supporters, it will not have this status confirmed. Status is in the beliefs about what others believe. ‘There is no rank if it is not recognized by others as such’ (Carvalho et al. 2020, 3). Similarly, a state will only have the status that other states attribute to it. Considering the need for this external validation of roles and status in IR, it is possible to argue that, to achieve great power status, a state needs to have other states’ acknowledgment of their capability to play a key role in the international society. Thus, to be a great power a state must both choose that special role and have it recognized by others. A state like Brazil may believe in its entitlement to a special role in the international

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society and can consider itself deserving of the prestige of a great power, yet, if the other states in the international society do not acknowledge it as deserving of this special rank, it will not attain it (Hurrell 2006; Stolte 2015).

3.5 Status Inconsistencies and Ontological Security The analysis of the external perceptions about the international status of a given state may lead to the realization of a disconnection between the level of prestige the state wants and what it actually gets in terms of recognition. The lack of correspondence between a state’s self-understanding and the status it has according to the international community can lead to what can be called status inconsistency, anxiety, insecurity and attempts to improve its status and acquire recognition, which can become sources of tension and conflict (Lebow 2016; S. Ward 2017). The concept of status anxiety refers to the idea that the self-conception of an actor is dependent upon what others think about it. It is a permanent worry of not conforming to ideals of success, and the risk of being stripped of dignity and respect, as well as an awareness of the need to convince the world of one’s value (De Botton 2008; Onea 2014). While on the one hand status anxiety can affect states that aspire to be recognized, and seem to fit the case of Brazil, one other approach to the subject argues that it is more closely connected to the states that already have higher status and want to hold on to it. The case of a state like Brazil, which wants to achieve recognition that is still does not have, would be classified not as status anxiety, but as status inconsistency, Tudor A. Onea argues. Anxiety, on the other hand, would be the concept used to understand how dominant actors are also worried about their identities, values, and way of life, which are tied to the conservation of its high status. Thus, they are prone to fear losing their upper rank, and, due to this status anxiety, resist the efforts of emergent powers to match or surpass them (Onea 2014). It is this anxiety that motivates high status states to attempt to impede the emergence of others so that they can conserve superiority in the areas in which they are still ahead, and to recoup possible losses in those in which they may have fallen behind. Along with the stratification of world politics following the emergence of the modern international system, great powers have sought to maintain control over status in IR,

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and decide who could compete for it (Lebow 2010). When this obstruction to the rising states occurs, on the other hand, it unleashes social psychological and domestic political forces within emerging states that push them to reject and challenge the status quo (S. M. Ward 2017). In the context of this book, the analysis focuses on possible status inconsistencies Brazil may have, and on how status anxiety of great powers can maybe explain some of the difficulties the state has had in trying to achieve a higher status. The study does not, however, ignore the possibility that the inconsistencies can also lead to anxiety for Brazil, even if the state is lower than great powers in the global stratification. This is because differences between what the domestic and international FPC see as the prestige of the state can really lead to the very definition of status anxiety as a constant preoccupation with conforming to ideals of success, and the discomfort in seeing the state being stripped of the level of respect it believes it deserves, as well as a permanent awareness of the need to convince the world of Brazil’s worth. Beyond a possible feeling of anxiety and frustration for ambitions not realized, however, the lack of alignment between the status a state wants and the level of recognition it gets from abroad can lead to a problem of ontological security, which can create a situation in which the state is not sure of its own identity, its status or its role in the world. In its original sense, ontological security refers to the need to experience one’s identity as a whole, continuous in time and without constant changes, in order to realize a sense of agency and develop a feeling of identity and self, free from uncertainties that may threaten that identity (Giddens 2003; Laing 2010; Lebow 2008, 2016; Manners 2002; McSweeney 1999; Mitzen 2006; M. K. Murray 2019). As used in IR scholarship, it is a security of social relationship, creating a sense of being in safe cognitive control of the situation. It relates to the self, its social competence, its confidence in the actor’s capacity to manage relations with others (McSweeney 1999). Cull (2022a, 2022b) refers not to ontological but to reputational security, discussing how a reputation or the absence of one can be a critical factor in the history of crises, such that cultivating positive perceptions abroad can be interpreted as an extension of national defence. His approach is not too different to the ontological one, however, as he argues that reputational security implies an awareness that the actor’s own reality and shortcomings, and how they are perceived by others. For him, any strategies to promote the prestige of a nation abroad should start with listening and paying attention to what is beyond one’s own self-perception.

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At the opposite end of the ontological security spectrum, we find ontological insecurity. The need for external recognition for the establishment of one’s identity leads to the risk of misrecognition. This process can occur when a state is represented in ways that differ from how it constructs its own particular identity. With that, it becomes difficult for it to enact its desired social status in the international sphere. This limitation, in turn, creates anxiety and ontological insecurity (M. K. Murray 2019). This is a deep, incapacitating state of not knowing which dangers to confront and which to ignore, leading the actor to not know how to get by in the world or plan for the future. It limits an actor’s ability to realize a sense of agency (Mitzen 2006). Looking at the case of Brazil and the international perceptions held by the P5 about the state, it is possible to argue that if Brazil does not know what the world expects from it, or if the external perceptions about the state do not match what it believes to be its status and role, the state might fall into ontological insecurity, and develop a disconnect between what it sees itself as and what the powerful states see in it. This shows the importance of this research, which focuses on external perceptions about Brazil’s international identity and how they may contrast with what Brazil believes its own identity to be. As presented through the analogy of the building superintendent who does not have enough voice in decisions made by homeowners, it is fundamental to understand what Brazil’s status is. The state may very well see itself as destined for greatness and as an important player in global politics. However, if it is not accepted as such and is perceived as a player without relevance in high-stakes international discussions, it will not be recognized the way it wants to be. Until it is able to convince powerful states or force the rest of the world to recognize its higher status, it might continue to be a less prestigious than it wants to be. To further extrapolate the analogy, if Brazil’s attempts to be a great power are poorly received, over time the state may become attached to its identity as a less significant player in global politics, since this is the identity that its daily routines in international politics actually sustain. Even if the state does not intend to be just a supporting actor, its ontological security needs will be met more by the state accepting this role, which is sustained by its relationships, than by continuing to try to project itself as a powerful state. With time, this need for ontological security may force Brazil to drift away from previous ambitions and to accept an identity that is aligned with what others in the world perceive.

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In an opposite situation, status inconsistencies and ontological insecurity could potentially lead an aspirational state to adopt a more radical international posture in order to advance its interest in higher status. The scholarship of status in IR describes forceful actions of states such as China and Russia, investing in hard power (be it military or economic), as motivated by a search for higher status (Larson and Shevchenko 2019; Paul et al. 2014). Although increasing material capabilities is a clear path to achieving prestige (as reputation for power), these behaviours risk elevating the threat of international conflict (Dafoe et al. 2014; Lebow 2010). Although this does not seem to be Brazil’s path so far, as the state has historically followed its interests in a peaceful manner, it is important to better understand these possible inconsistencies of status in order to develop more efficient strategies to pursue higher status or to accommodate the state within the level of prestige other states perceive it as having.

3.6

Solving Methodological Challenges

One of the main difficulties of this growing IR scholarship is the development of means to measure, evaluate and analyse the status of states in these international hierarchies. Status does not have any universally recognized objective referents and thus is difficult to measure (Götz 2020; Larson and Shevchenko 2019; MacDonald and Parent 2021; M. K. Murray 2019; Paul et al. 2014; Renshon 2017; Rosecrance et al. 1974; Singer and Small 1966; Volgy et al. 2014). While status cannot be attained unilaterally and must be recognized by others, this recognition is difficult to assess. Determining which states occupy a higher position than others is not an environmental attribute independent of perception and observable by all, it is a social construction (Paul et al. 2014, 9). These difficulties have led scholars to paraphrase Wendt’s argument to propose constructivism and argue that ‘status is what states (albeit the most powerful states) make of it’ (Paul et al. 2014, 9). Recently, many studies tried to understand states’ attempts to increase their status, but little has been done in the way of systematic attempts to assess to what extent these status-seeking policies have fulfilled their purpose (Røren and Beaumont 2019; Volgy et al. 2014; Paul et al. 2014; Rosecrance et al. 1974). The challenge of assessing status has led scholars from different areas to propose multiple methods in their research, such as the analysis of diplomatic practices, the distribution of Olympic medals

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(Rhamey and Early 2013), foreign aid commitments (Bezerra et al. 2015) and even the placement of world leaders in ‘family photographs’ at international meetings (Rosecrance et al. 1974; Lundgren 2018). An early study of status in IR attempted to understand the perception of international stratification in Latin America using rank dimensions such as power and economic development, attempting to understand the images of states in the minds of people outside of it, and analysing selected observable data such as a number of embassies (Schwartzman and Mora y Araujo 1966). However, even these approaches seem to ignore the intersubjective character of status, fail to capture voluntary deference, recognition and are just rough proxies for status. The scholarship of status in IR often uses quantitative data to generate cross-national measures of rank (using proxies such as military power or diplomatic connectivity). However, this method is difficult to operationalize and tends to use few selected attributes, such as number of embassies, as their data. Since the 1960s many scholars have attempted to consider the possibility of measuring status through the number of diplomats accredited in different states (M. G. Duque 2018; Beaumont and Røren 2020; Røren and Beaumont 2019), but many of them admit that the procedure has a number of limitations, such as being elusive and ambiguous, and the method seems to capture a state’s military or economic power more than how highly ranked the state is (Rosecrance et al. 1974; Singer and Small 1966; Mercer 2017). Qualitative scholars have studied the policies that states use to pursue prestige, but so far there has been little to examine whether states do acquire the prestige they covet or how states gauge others’ prestige (Mercer 2017, 138). Research focusing on states’ interests may end up becoming too self-referential, and the fact that states use their own sense of pride as evidence of their status can lead to the interpretation that status is a psychological illusion with no strategic or intrinsic value (Mercer 2017). This can be the case of some studies conducted in Brazil during the period of the ‘rise’ of the state, when domestic interviewees would reinforce the idea that Brazil was becoming a powerful international player, without any substantial reference to how this emergence was perceived or recognized from abroad. On the whole, both quantitative and qualitative methods have their value, but neither captures the primary collective manifestation of status as voluntary deference, which is fundamental for the existence of status (MacDonald and Parent 2021). This is exactly what the study presented

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in this book proposes to do. By using a qualitative method to look at the intersubjective perceptions from abroad, it attempts to fill this clear gap in the literature concerned with status in IR and offer a new method of evaluating status. By employing a qualitative methodology, it has gone further than other analyses, which did not consider the importance of intersubjectivity and the relevance of external perceptions to understand the status of a state. The study of status through the analysis of perceptual characteristics of states in a systematic way is complicated, however. The challenge is that perceptions and beliefs are not directly observable, are subject to psychological and strategic biases, are theoretically complex, context-specific and their behavioural implications are subject to substantial selection effects (Dafoe et al. 2014; Renshon 2017). Thus, any systematic measure of the perceptual nature of status must necessarily rely on proxies, and ‘careful qualitative work may be relied on in small-n designs when enough data are available on leaders’ beliefs and actions’ (Dafoe et al. 2014, 384). An early study of status in IR assessed different states’ prestige by applying a questionnaire about different states to senior high school and college students in Japan (Shimbori et al. 1963). Although this is a significant qualitative approach, it seems more akin to nation branding research, since it considers the subjective opinion of a general public that is not participating in the decisions of the state (Anholt 1998, 2007; Aronczyk 2013; Kaneva 2011). Even if it is important to understand the perceptions of states and the fact that images matter for global politics, a study of status in IR should go beyond the general population and focus on the perceptions of the people who define the policy of a state. ‘Insofar as status is equivalent to reputation, it might be measured by obtaining the views of national leaders about their and other states’ standing’ (Rosecrance et al. 1974, 13). As this seems to be almost impossible to do in full, analysing the views of elites in the foreign policy community of some states might be an important approximation to understanding the status of a state. Even admitting that there are still limitations to understanding status through perceptions, to ignore beliefs and subjective interpretations would be equivalent to thinking of the international reality as an environment free of intersubjectivity, subjectivity and instead based on unreal objectivity. The study conducted for this book is based on 94 semi-structured interviews with single respondents representing the FPC of the P5. By

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FPC, this study refers to a universe of individuals involved in foreign policymaking or who significantly contribute to forming opinions regarding foreign relations in the countries analysed here. The group includes politicians, diplomats, members of interest groups, leaders of think tanks and NGOs, academics, journalists and businesspeople involved in the international sphere (Esteves and Herz 2020; Esteves et al. 2020; Souza 2008, 2002). As previously mentioned, the P5 was selected as the reference to assess Brazil’s status because these are all countries with historically recognized great power status and because the UNSC is still symbolically recognized as one of the main international institutions making decisions about security in international relations and as the main symbol of high status in the global stratification (‘The UN Security Council’ n.d.; Berridge and James 2003; Berridge and Young 1988; Buzan 2018; Cesa 2011; Dasgupta 2015). The interviews were conducted between March 2018 and July 2019, and the interviewees were asked to give their own opinions about Brazil’s status and the role of the country in international relations considering the period between the democratization of the country, in 1989, and the end of 2014. The semi-structured interviews followed a systematically designed protocol formed of 8 questions and other possible follow ups used to assess the views about Brazil’s status. These included ‘what is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think about Brazil?’, ‘what is Brazil’s image in your country?’ ‘what kind of part/role do you think Brazil plays in the international system?’, ‘what do you think Brazil wants to achieve in international politics?’, ‘what is your opinion about Brazil’s aspirations?’, and ‘how relevant do you think is the balance between soft and hard power for Brazil’s foreign policy?’. The data was assessed through Reflexive Thematic Analysis (RTA), a method for systematically identifying, organizing and offering insight into patterns of meaning across a data set (Braun and Clarke 2006, 2012; Clarke and Braun 2017; Braun and Clarke 2019a, 2019b). Although most interviewees authorized to be named in the research, codenames were assigned to all informants to offer them anonymity. The files with the transcripts of the interviews were randomly codenamed with initials connected to the country of origin of the interviewees as UK1-UK12 (British interviewees), US1-US12 (American interviewees), CH1-CH12 (Chinese interviewees), FR1-FR12 (French interviewees), and RU1-RU12 (Russian interviewees). The analysis of the interviews was conducted using the NVivo software as an analytical tool when carrying

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out the analysis of the interviews. This allows the researcher to think about codes that are developed in terms of interrelated ideas, which urges the analyst to consider possible connections between codes (Bryman 2012; Joffe 2012). The assessments of respondents from these states are important in revealing the perception of a sample of the people responsible for foreign policy decisions in the five states that are permanent members of the UNSC, and they help in understanding Brazil’s status according to these great powers. It is important, however, not to take these subjective views as Brazil’s ‘real’ standing in the global stratified society, which is subject to a broader intersubjective approach that would be formed of all these leaders’ community not only on the P5, but in other high-status states and even states with less power and status. This approach can help to understand how those who are making decisions and building discourses think about the dynamics of the world. Diplomats, academics, journalists and foreign policy experts can be understood as the repositories of collective memories, practices and representations that structure their interaction and discourse. Even if this community is not homogenous, they share a foreign policy field and its imaginary and are able to mobilize concepts for political change (Esteves and Herz 2020). It is important to recognize that the views are embedded in a dispute for the so-called international pecking order, and they can be biased towards the interests of the states each of them represent (Pouliot 2016). However, the beliefs of the FPC of a state are fundamental to the political decisions taken by its leaders, so subjectivity plays a large role in defining the realpolitik of states (Wohlforth 2014; Paul et al. 2014; Lindemann 2011; M. Murray 2010; M. K. Murray 2019). The focus on beliefs as being a source of status and reputation also leads to challenges because different observers can have different beliefs about any particular characteristic of a state. Thus, just as states can have different roles and statuses, a state can have multiple reputations in reference to the same trait. Although surveys about perceptions of ‘images’ of states are becoming more popular in the world, it is important to think about what foreign view is directed to which state and in what context this is being analysed (Jiménez-Martínez 2017, 2020). However, a state having a particular reputation implies that most observers hold the relevant belief about the state. When the same belief about a state is prevalent, or agreed in all relevant levels, it can be argued that there are ‘common

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beliefs’ or even ‘common knowledge’ about a fact, which can become a social fact (Dafoe et al. 2014). As an intersubjective attribute, then, to understand a state’s status, it is necessary to estimate the collective recognition of such state by relevant other states (Wohlforth 2014). This is one of the means to try to ascertain a state’s status with a qualitative approach, focusing on the intersubjective character of it. To understand Brazil’s status, the research presented in this book is based on a systematic qualitative analysis of interviews to develop themes, and categories identified through the data, that relate to the research focus and builds on codes identified in transcripts. Interviewees were asked about their perception of Brazil, their experience in the country, its images in their own states (their beliefs about other’s beliefs), their perceptions about Brazil’s international agenda and interests in global affairs as well as the role of the state, its status, and what they think Brazil can achieve internationally. The analysis led to the development of the 9 main themes as well as building thematic maps that could offer a graphic visualization of the main ideas proposed by each one of them. These themes reflect the perceptions about the international agenda and Brazil’s status, according to interviewees who are part of the elite group that thinks about global politics in the United Kingdom, the United States, France, China and Russia. As much as there is not one single Brazil (since national identities are multiple), and as there is equally not one single image of Brazil, but different images depending on who is looking at the state, when and through what lens (Jiménez-Martínez 2017), there is also not one single perception about Brazil among the FPC of the P5. As it is possible to see in analysis of identities and images, the perceptions of the groups chosen to be analysed are ambivalent, sometimes even contradictory; one source may say one thing about the state, and another can say the exact opposite. This may be from a simple difference in points of view but may also expose different interests of the interviewees and of the states they represent when looking at Brazil. In general, this is an important point to make in the book, but it does not weaken the analysis presented here, as there are still some codes and themes that are more prevalent and stronger in determining a perception about Brazil’s role and status according to states that are more powerful.

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CHAPTER 4

Brazil’s International Status: A Coveted Pawn

Although Brazil has long had high aspirations in international politics, has pursued prestige and tried to establish itself as an important global player, it has not managed to convince the great powers to recognize it as a peer, as a significant actor of the world. The intersubjective perception of great powers about Brazil’s status is that the country did not achieve the recognition it believes it deserves, which confirms the idea that there is an inconsistency between what the state believes should be its status and the role it thinks it deserves in international politics (a contender to become a great power) and the status states with more power than it recognizes as being its place in global affairs. This is the main result of the systematic analysis of the interviews with the foreign policy community of the P5 about the place where Brazil stands in the international hierarchy of states. From a detailed analysis of the data collected for this study, it was possible to develop nine themes that summarize Brazil’s intersubjective status from the perspective of the P5. These themes reflect Brazil’s status from the point of view of the United Kingdom, the United States, France, China and Russia. They show that a lot of the discussion about the role Brazil wants to play in the world and the limits it has in its international actions are connected to the fact that it is not recognized as a player

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Buarque, Brazil’s International Status and Recognition as an Emerging Power, Governance, Development, and Social Inclusion in Latin America, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47575-7_4

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with enough weight to make a difference in important matters in international relations. While the state attempted to have a significant role in crucial debates, such as in the bid to become a permanent member of the UNSC, it was not seen by the stakeholders in powerful states as having the means to contribute to the debate and appeared to be overstretching its capabilities. From the perspective of the P5, Brazil is not a significant player in world politics, but it has some soft power and is coveted as an ally because it is big and has important capabilities. The potential of the state, however, is seen as hindered by domestic problems that should be addressed so that it can project itself into the world with more chance of gaining recognition. Table 4.1 summarizes the main themes developed in this analysis of Brazil’s status. This chapter addresses the perception powerful states have that Brazil is a coveted pawn in international politics and explains how the state is not seen as particularly significant, but that at the same time is wanted as an ally by the states of the P5. Brazil is not seen as a priority for powerful states. However, even if it is not perceived as being particularly important, these powerful states want to have Brazil aligned with them and are critical of Brazil aligning with other states. This assessment allows the interpretation that the self-perception of the state and what it tries to project as its place in the world is dissonant with what is perceived by the states that run higher in the global hierarchy. While Brazil’s very identity has historically been marked by the aspiration to achieve the status of one of the major players in the world, and even if after the democratization of the state at the end of the 1980s its foreign policy worked hard to project Brazil as a state deserving to be a permanent member of the UNSC, greater powers perceive the state differently. Instead of a global power, the FPC of the P5 sees Brazil as a less than important pawn in international relations, albeit one that they want to have on their side.

4.1

A Coveted Pawn

International politics are often discussed through the analogy of the world as a chessboard, with players and pieces of the game representing states and their actions navigating interests and disputes. As in the hierarchy of the international society, different pieces have different statuses. From the perspective of the most powerful nations in the world, Brazil features within this global chessboard and a mere pawn. However, even if this is

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Table 4.1 General analysis results Theme

Summary

Brazil is a coveted pawn

Brazil is not perceived as an important player, but powerful states want to have it by their side Brazil does not have enough hard power, which is still the main source of global relevance, to have a voice in the ‘big game’ of international security Brazil’s international strength is linked to soft power, which can be relevant but is not enough to give it international significance Brazil is unknown and misunderstood. There is a general ignorance about the country in great powers, even among experts Brazil misperceives itself and believes it is destined to greatness, but it does not have a clear international agenda Brazil has potential and a positive image, but domestic problems hinder its international voice Brazil’s bid to a permanent seat at the UNSC is one of the few consistent agendas of the state and is considered justified but is unlikely to succeed The main path for Brazil to become more internationally significant and acquire more status is through economic development Brazil can pick its fights and focus on where it can add value to international relations in order to become more relevant

Brazil is not significant in security issues

A limited soft player

Behind a wall of clichés

An ambitious state without a plan

Brazil is its own biggest enemy

The impossibility of a permanent seat at the UNSC

Economic path to high status

Alternative paths to increased status

the less valuable of the pieces in the game, these states would prefer to have Brazil’s pawn on their side of geopolitical disputes. The country is perceived as a coveted pawn. The analysis of the interviews with the FPC of the P5 reveals the perception that Brazil is not a priority for powerful states. Brazilian capabilities are perceived as being limited, the state is not a major power, it punches below its political weight, its attempts to have a mediator role have repeatedly been rejected and it is often not taken seriously by great

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powers. According to these perceptions of Brazil, the country is far away from the centres of power, geographically isolated in a region that is not central to global politics. At the same time, it does not attract a lot of attention from the powerful states, and it is not thought about very often. It is not perceived as a serious state in global geopolitics, and it is not seen as being particularly important. However, even if it is not perceived as being very significant, the powerful states want to have Brazil aligned with them and are critical of it aligning with other states. Powerful states want Brazil as an ally and see it as a possible force to help counterbalance with their competitors. These states support Brazil’s quest for status when it is aligned with them, value bilateral relations, see Brazil as a strategic partner and take the country more seriously when it seems to be on their side (Buarque, 2023). This is the central argument of the theme ‘Brazil is a coveted pawn’, developed from the analysis of the interviews with the FPC of the P5. The assessment is not to say that the FPC of the P5 openly referred to the state as being a pawn, but that the one of the most prevalent notions of the respondents was that the state has no significance in international politics and is not perceived as having any real power. This interpretation is similar to the traditional definition of a pawn (‘Pawn’ 2020). At the same time, however, great powers want to have Brazil as their ally and are upset when it aligns itself with its opponents (and therefore, it is coveted). This implies the idea of wanting something that might belong to others. Even if the very idea of a coveted pawn may seem to be a contradiction, pawns can be valuable in games of chess, and they can even get promoted to higher status pieces, just as states may work to improve the amount of prestige they have and try to be recognized as important players in the world. Although the idea that Brazil has the status of a coveted pawn was one of the most prevalent themes developed from the analysis of the interviews, it does not mean that there is a unanimous perception that Brazil is not important, however. Some of the respondents discussed areas in which Brazil can be a significant player, and other themes developed from the analysis of the data do show that the state is perceived to have a lot of potential and could manage to become a more important player in the world. The thematic map below was developed from the analysis of the data and presents the concept of the discussion about Brazil as a coveted pawn. It shows how two of the ideas proposed by the sources of the study

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present the argument that ‘Brazil is not seen as a priority by other countries’ and ‘Brazil is not one of the great powers of the world’. These two ideas were interestingly linked and contrasted to two other perceptions: ‘Great powers want Brazil on their side’ and “Brazil should not support the ‘other side’”. From the contrasts between the two sets of assessments of Brazil, it seems clear that while the state is not seen as particularly important, it is wanted as an ally, and not as a competitor. From that, it could also be proposed that ‘Brazil’s aspirations are supported’ by the powerful states, as long as Brazil is aligned with the state of origin of the interviewee who is assessing Brazil’s status (Fig. 4.1). Pawns are unappreciated as the foot soldiers of the game of chess. Even if some call them complex, they are traditionally seen as the least valuable of the chess pieces (so much so that they are not even called ‘pieces’) (Dunnington 1994; Eade 2005; Ingram 2016; Kmoch 1990; Pelts and Alburt 2001). Although they are not valued, pawns can be fundamental to a good chess player. Pawns alone create attack and defence, and they also

Fig. 4.1 Thematic map ‘Brazil is a coveted pawn’

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bring versatility to the board (Dunnington 1994; Marovi´c 2000; Soltis 2013). This versatility of the pawn has led some players and scholars of the game to call it the ‘soul’ of chess, the life of the game (Eade 2005; Soltis 2013). In a ‘pawn formation’, a group of pawns working together can make a big difference to the way a game plays out (Dunnington 1994; Eade 2005). Pawns also have the ability to transform. Once a pawn reaches the eighth rank, it can immediately be promoted to any piece, based on the player’s preference (Eade 2005; Ingram 2016; Pelts and Alburt 2001). Just as a pawn, Brazil is seen as not having a lot of room for manoeuvre, it is not valued by the big players, its ability to move is limited and is sometimes not even considered as a piece on the chessboard of big global decisions. However, the metaphor also offers hope for a state that has for so long aspired to a more important role in international relations. On one hand, it is possible to argue that pawns are relevant in IR, just as some authors say they can be in chess. They can be relevant for defence and attack and help more powerful pieces find their footing on the board. When together, a formation of pawn states can make a difference in the context of global politics, just like multilateralism can make a pawn state more powerful and relevant. Ultimately, the metaphor of chess can offer hope that a pawn can be promoted. A state that begins the IR chess game with the lowest value, is not particularly respected and appreciated, and has so many limitations to move on the board can bet on its versatility to bring more soul to the game. A humble pawn can work hard through the entire board, and end up on the other side, gaining promotion to a higher status piece. The following sections will discuss the codes and themes developed from the analysis of the data that lead to the interpretation of Brazil as a coveted pawn. They will discuss the opinions of the interviewees and cite some of the most important excerpts of the data.

4.2

Brazil is not perceived as an important player

Despite Brazil’s aspirations for a higher status in international politics and although it projected a narrative of ascension during a period of more than two decades considered herein, it has not been recognized by great powers as an important player in international politics.

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This belief about Brazil’s status was common in the evaluation of interviewees from China, for example: ‘I have never heard anyone say that Brazil is a major player’, argued a journalist at Xinhua.1 ‘Brazil does not have that level of power’, said a Chinese professor.2 Similarly, ‘Russia doesn’t see Brazil like a superpower’, according to a Russian academic.3 The same type of perception is held in France, where Brazil is not treated as a powerful state, and it is not seen as a ‘full power’, argued a professor at Sciences Po.4 At the same time, ‘it is not a military giant, and it is not a political giant either’, according to an academic who worked as a consultant in subjects related to Brazil at the Quay D’Orsay, the French Ministry of Foreign Relations.5 From a British perspective, Brazil is often described as ‘a country that is punching far below its weight’, said a representative of the think tank Canning House,6 and it is not seen as playing at the same level as states with higher status. ‘Who are the big powers? The big powers are the United States, China and Russia, and maybe Europe. Brazil isn’t in the same weight as any of those’, argued an academic from Oxford University.7 ‘Brazil is not an enormous economic power, it is just a middle-sized economic power, it is not a superpower at all (…) a country that punched below its weight in geopolitics’, explained a journalist at the Financial Times.8 As Brazil is not perceived as a powerful and very important state by the P5, it follows that the intersubjective perceptions about the state are that it is not a priority to these powerful nations. This lack of priority of 1 Interviewee identified as CH7 (Journalist at Xinhua), interviewed by the author, June 12, 2019. 2 Interviewee identified as CH8 (Chinese academic), interviewed by the author, July 11, 2019. 3 Interviewee identified as RU8 (Russian academic), interviewed by the author, April 4, 2019. 4 Interviewee identified as FR2 (French academic), interviewed by the author, May 15, 2018. 5 Interviewee identified as FR7 (French think tank researcher), interviewed by the author, January 30, 2019. 6 Interviewee identified as UK9 (British think tank director), interviewed by the author, January 18, 2019. 7 Interviewee identified as UK2 (British academic), interviewed by the author, March 14, 2019. 8 Interviewee identified as UK7 (British journalist), interviewed by the author, December 14, 2018.

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Brazil is true especially for states like China and Russia, which often need to pursue their own recognition as great powers despite being in the P5 (Larson and Shevchenko 2019). According to a Chinese economist, Brazil is ‘not as important as the relations between China and US, EU, Japan, Russia, and India. Except some natural resources, it seems that Brazil is not that important to China’.9 A professor of international relations from Renmin University of China offered a similar account: ‘China traditionally (…) focuses more on the United States and Europe, so the other developing states are not the focuses. Brazil is far away, and there are very few people-to-people exchanges’.10 This perception was also held in Russia, as a political analyst and researcher explained that ‘Brazil is of course an important international player because of the size of its economy. However, when you look at the trade balance or export-import situation, you see that Russia and Brazil are not each other priorities’.11 One interviewee who works as an IR professor at St. Petersburg State University reinforced the idea that Brazil is not a priority for Russia: ‘The priority of Russia within the BRICS framework is China. They think a lot about the triangle Russia, China and India, and they think that Brazil and South Africa are out of the core of the basis of BRICS’.12 The other, Western, states of the P5, hold similar views. In the words of a former political advisor to the White House working for the think tank Brookings: ‘Brazil was always a key player, but mysterious, not as present, not as important, frankly, to US relations in the region compared to other countries’.13 A former British ambassador to Brazil explained that the lack of attention Brazil gets from powerful states of the P5 is related to the fact that it is not engaged in all that happens in the world: ‘Brazil does

9 Interviewee identified as CH1 (Chinese academic), interviewed by the author, July, 2019. 10 Interviewee identified as CH5 (Chinese academic), interviewed by the author, May 26, 2019. 11 Interviewee identified as RU3 (Russian academic), interviewed by the author, May 7, 2019. 12 Interviewee identified as RU4 (Russian academic), interviewed by the author, May 4, 2019. 13 Interviewee identified as US11 (American think tank researcher), interviewed by the author, April 5, 2019.

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not impinge regularly and significantly in the way that China and India impinge on all topics’.14 The French views of Brazil are similar, according to a political analyst and professor at the University Sciences Po: People are not very interested in Brazil because Brazil is complicated. It is complicated and it is not strategically significant. It may even be significant in some points, but it does not have a strategic presence in the world that can influence the direction taken by the world. (…) Brazil is a big country, but it is not significant. Brazil is not significant. It might be a good place to invest, it might be good for music, it might be good for football, and even for bilateral relations, but it is not an important geographic player.15

As seen in the comments cited above, part of the problem of Brazil’s lack of importance is geographic, according to the FPC of the P5. As Latin America and South America are not seen as significant, so Brazil is not either. ‘Brazil is not terribly significant in international politics because Brazil is not in an area where there is much conflict’,16 argued a fellow at the think tank Inter-American Dialogue. ‘Because it is in South America, it is mostly not thought about in the global context’,17 explained a journalist at The Financial Times. ‘There had been, and I think there still is, a feeling of disengagement from Brazil to a degree, a feeling of disengagement of this country from Latin America, but Brazil specifically’,18 said a former British ambassador to Brazil. ‘Latin America is not the top foreign policy priority for Russia’,19 according to a director of the think tank Russian International Affairs Council. ‘And Brazil, obviously for Russia, despite being part of the G20 and the BRICS, it is not that important. America as a whole, with the exception of Venezuela, does

14 Interviewee identified as UK5 (British diplomat), interviewed by the author, April 26, 2018. 15 FR2, interview. 16 Interviewee identified as US10 (American think tank director), interviewed by the

author, March 21, 2019. 17 UK7, interview. 18 UK5, interview. 19 Interviewee identified as RU10 (Russian think tank director), interviewed by the author, June 3, 2019.

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not receive much attention here’,20 explained a journalist at RT, Russian state-controlled television network. One member of the House of Lords summarized the perception held by the British FPC about Brazil not being recognized as important for the United Kingdom: Latin America has not historically been a core part of British commercial strategy. Geopolitically it is not as crucial to us, other than the Falkland Islands -- and I think Argentina is the nearest we get because of our relationship with the Malvinas in the Falklands. Trade, we have very little trade penetration there. So, I don’t think there is much economically, commercially, politically that Brazil is key to us.21

Part of the explanation for that is often based on Brazil not acting as a state that really attempts to have a leadership role, and just wants to have high status for status’s sake, as explained by an American IR analyst and academic at the University of California, San Diego: ‘In the State Department I think that there is more of a sense of Brazil’s not pulling its weight’.22 According to him, the State Department believes that Brazil should be a leader, but it is not because it does not play an active role beyond rhetoric. This perception is aligned with the argument proposed by Sean Burges, who describes Brazil as a state that wants to be a leader without having to lead anything (Burges 2017, 19). It has also been a part of the analysis of the perceptions of the status of Brazil according to former US president Barack Obama, and to British diplomats, both arguing Brazil is often ‘on the fence’, and unwilling to take sides in international politics (Buarque 2020; Obama 2020). Along with the perception that Brazil is not a great power or an important player in international politics, members of the FPC of the P5 argued that Brazil is not perceived as a serious state. ‘Brazil wants to be taken

20 Interviewee identified as RU11 (Journalist at Russian RT group), interviewed by the author, April 4, 2019. 21 Interviewee identified as UK8 (British politician), interviewed by the author, February 11, 2019. 22 Interviewee identified as US4 (American academic), interviewed by the author, March 27, 2019.

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seriously as the key strategic geopolitical economic power on the continent, and they are frustrated that they are not’,23 said a member of the House of Lords. ‘I don’t think it is taken seriously’,24 argued a director of the think tank Chatham House. ‘It is true that Brazil has always had a problem for not being taken seriously’,25 explained a consultant at the Quay D’Orsay. ‘The big power players have the ability to not always take Brazil seriously, because they can do without Brazil’,26 according to a researcher at the think tank Geopolitical Futures. Put together, the two themes show that the state stands low in the P5 perception of the global hierarchies. Brazil is not recognized as an important player and is not a priority for those powerful states, which spend most of their time and attention dealing with other great powers, with regional issues in their own neighbourhood and with specific partners with which they have relations. Brazil appears as a state that is not very well-known, that is difficult to understand and that is far away. Even if it wants to become an important global player, it does not appear as such for the states that would have to recognize it as having more status. This poses an important challenge to Brazil’s ambition for emergence and increased prestige. However, as discussed in the following section, the fact that the state is not seen as important or as a priority does not mean that it is completely negligible, and it can be desired as an ally and manoeuvre in the geopolitical disputes to become more important.

4.3

Not Important, but Still Wanted as an Ally

While there is a very strong and general perception that Brazil is not significant, and is not a priority, interviewees from the P5 say their states want Brazil as an ally. Further to that, the respondents made it clear that their states do not want Brazil to become a competitor or to ally with their adversaries and rivals. It is from this idea we can extract the interpretation that although Brazil might be a ‘pawn’, it is still coveted by the 23 UK8, interview. 24 Interviewee identified as UK11 (British academic and think tank director), inter-

viewed by the author, January 14, 2019. 25 FR7, interview. 26 Interviewee identified as US3 (American think tank director), interviewed by the

author, March 27, 2019.

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powerful states, especially when considering the global disputes between the West (represented here by the United States along with France and the United Kingdom), China and Russia. The Western powers see Brazil as a naturally, while the other two states see Brazil as a possible partner in an attempt to counterbalance the power of the United States in global politics. At some points, it seems to replay the situation of the Cold War when Brazil was seen as a pawn between the two sides in the dispute between the United States and the USSR (J. K. Black 1977; Bonturi 1988; McCann 1981). This interpretation that Brazil is wanted as an ally in a disputed geopolitical context is very clear in the position expressed by the respondents from the US, China, and Russia. According to a journalist who worked at Xinhua, the Chinese state-run press agency, for example, China would like to expand collaboration with Brazil as a counterpoint to American power in Latin America. ‘They see Brazil as that important supplier of commodities, as an important country to balance or at least minimize American influence in an important part of the planet’.27 The geopolitical disputes between the West and China are fundamental to understanding Brazil’s role in the Asian state, and countries such as Brazil are reduced to being seen as the ‘backyard’ disputed by powerful players, according to a Chinese academic specialized in the diplomatic and economic relations of China with Brazil. From his point of view, the United States pursues an aggressive politics of balancing Asia, trying to balance China’s influence in East Asia, and approaching Brazil and Latin America as a way for Beijing to counter that. ‘The US became very aggressive, and China began to develop a strategy in which China thinks that now that the US came to its backyard and challenged it, China can also go to the US backyard and challenge it’.28 It is also evident that any support for Brazil’s increased status would only come depending on this type of alliance and the benefits it could offer the powerful nations, as discussed by a scholar at the think tank Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy who specializes in China’s political-economic relations with emerging economies. Any type of recognition would only come ‘to the extent that Brazil would take a back seat

27 CH7, interview. 28 CH8, interview.

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to China’s original ideas or to work in some multilateral settings’.29 If Brazil wanted to do more in Africa, for example, China would support it only if it was in Beijing’s terms, ‘it would be only in a minimal way, and only in a way that fits within China’s interests’.30 Interviewees from Russia were even more direct in their assessment of the interests of their state in having Brazil as an ally. ‘The general perception was that Brazil, together with Russia, China, India, can stand up against the unipolar world represented by the United States’31 , argued a director of the think tank Russian International Affairs Council. The pragmatic interest of Russia in acquiring advantages in its relation to Brazil was made evident by the commentary of a political analyst and researcher at the Institute for Modern Russia: From the perspective of the Russian government, it is all about ’we can give you that, what can you give us in return?’. There is no charity there, no ’let’s support Brazil because they are such a nice country’. It is not like that. (…) The Russian government is trying to position itself as a sort of a counterweight to the West, and especially to the United States. So, any alliances, any country that is willing to sort of come to its side will be interesting and will be considered important, as long as this country has a weight on the international agenda. So, it is all about very pragmatic interests. (…) Alliances like the BRIC countries, or the G20 and something like that is still an important field for Russia to play. So, in that sense, Brazil as a member of both these organizations would be an important asset.32

At the other end of the geopolitical spectrum, the United States has a similar view of its relations with Brazil, although it has a longer historical root and a more traditional engagement. Still, their perception is that Brazil has a role to play as an ally that follows the lead of the hegemon, and that the state should not drift away to align itself with competitors. According to a former president of the think tank Inter-American Dialogue, in Washington, DC., Brazil can be significant because it is hard

29 Interviewee identified as CH6 (academic based in China), interviewed by the author, June 11, 2019. 30 CH6, interview. 31 RU10, interview. 32 Interviewee identified as RU3 (Russian political analyst), interviewed by the author, May 7, 2019.

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for the United States to carry out its agenda in South America and even in Latin America without Brazil’s support, acquiescence and tolerance. ‘The United States sees Brazil as an important regional power. (...) In other words, Brazil’s opposition makes it very difficult. they want Brazil to support them’.33 A similar interpretation was presented by a professor of social sciences at Arizona State University: The dominant feeling is that we would like Brazil as an ally for economic reasons, as a trading partner, we don’t want it to become part of the China camp. We would like Brazil to be a stabilising force in the region and share the burden (…). Brazil looks like it should be an ally. It should be an important ally. (...). And Brazil is seen as big and rich in natural resources. So, you are wanted as an ally. If Brazil would be a success, it would make it so much easier for all of Latin America to be a success, for the Caribbean to be a success, and then the US would not have to be the only leader in the region.34

The important thing from the American perspective, once again, was that Brazil should not ally with its competitors, as described by a director at the think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who argued that being part of BRICS was not seen very positively in Washington. According to him, the perception in the United States is that the country’s interest in closer relations with Russia and China was seen as connected to its desire to be independent of any major block and to be equally friendly to Russia, China, and the United States. ‘And Washington would feel like ’come on, you are part of the Western hemisphere, and you are a democracy, and you should feel more comfortable in being part of that community’.35 A researcher at the American think tank Geopolitical Futures summarized the idea that Brazil is being coveted by these conflicting global interests and that great powers would only pay attention to and support

33 US10, interview. 34 Interviewee identified as US2 (American academic), interviewed by the author, March

20, 2019. 35 Interviewee identified as US5 (American think tank director), interviewed by the author, March 28, 2019.

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the country’s aspirations to be a relevant player in the world if it is aligned with either of them: A power country such as the US, Russia or China will take Brazil seriously insofar as the role Brazil plays for their interests. For a long time, I don’t think the US took Brazil very seriously, because Brazil did not affect US security, it did not have an impact on the US economic features, nothing that happened in Brazil had strong direct impacts on the United States, so it really didn’t matter what Brazil did for the US. Now, with China, China takes Brazil more seriously because of investment, because of it is a source of natural resources that China needs, so that is a very serious relationship for China. For the US, Brazil is becoming a more serious country, that they are taking more seriously because of this idea of needing to maintain its influence in the Western hemisphere, maintaining good ties and making sure that China does not dominate, and that Russia doesn’t get too influential. The big power players have the ability and the novelty of not always taking Brazil seriously, because they can do without Brazil.36

This interest in an alliance with Brazil could be thought of within the realist scholarship as trying to get Brazil to bandwagon or balance, joining forces either with the main dominant power (the US, with the UK, and France) or its competitors (China and/or Russia) (Cladi 2017; Cladi and Locatelli 2012; Schweller 1994; Walt 2013; Waltz 1979). Although respondents do talk about the idea of Brazil serving to counterbalance international rivalries, in the context of this research these concepts would not fit very well, because the focus here is not on security or profit, but on prestige and enhancing status. Studies of status and perceptions in international relations have already shown that states can be more positively evaluated by other states if they are perceived as being instrumentally valuable to these beholders. Research has also shown that the more powerful states tend to objectify others and see them as a means to an end. The image of a state can thus be motivated by the underlying interests of the actor gazing at it (Herrmann 2013; Larson and Shevchenko 2019; Paul et al. 2014). When discussing the importance of prestige and recognition, scholars have argued that powerful states tend to accept the prestige of allies but reject the status of rivals, so there is a tendency towards wanting to have states that are allies projecting themselves internationally, while adversaries are not accepted 36 US3, interview.

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as important players (Mercer 2017). The proximity and interests dominant powers have with states aspiring to achieve more status, such as the rise of a new enemy or the desire to maintain the balance of power, is an important incentive for it to recognize the importance of those emerging powers (Larson and Shevchenko 2019).

References Black, Jan. 1977. United States Penetration of Brazil. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Bonturi, Orlando. 1988. Brazil and the Vital South Atlantic. Washington DC: National Defense University. Buarque, Daniel. 2020. ‘A Country on the Fence: United Kingdom’s Perceptions of the Status and International Agenda of Brazil’. Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional 63 (1). https://doi.org/10.1590/0034-7329202000112. ———. 2023. ‘What makes a Serious Country? The Status of Brazil’s Seriousness from the Perspective of Great Powers’. Place Branding and Public Diplomacy 19 (3): 359–370. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41254-022-00290-2. Burges, Sean W. 2017. Brazil in the World: The International Relations of a South American Giant. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Cladi, Lorenzo. 2017. ‘Bandwagoning State’. In The SAGE Encyclopedia of Political Behavior, edited by Fathali M. Moghaddam, First edition. Los Angeles, California: SAGE Publications, Inc. Cladi, Lorenzo, and Andrea Locatelli. 2012. Bandwagoning, Not Balancing: Why Europe Confounds Realism. Contemporary Security Policy 33 (2): 264–88. https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2012.693792. Dunnington, Angus. 1994. Pawn Power. 1st American ed. Batsford Chess Library. New York: Henry Holt. Eade, James. 2005. Chess for Dummies. 2nd ed., rev. Updated. --For Dummies. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Herrmann, Richard K. 2013. ‘Perceptions and Image Theory in International Relations.’ In The Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology, edited by Leonie Huddy, David O. Sears, and Jack S. Levy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ingram, Henry. 2016. Chess: The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Playing Chess: Chess Openings. Endgame and Important Strategies: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. Kmoch, Hans. 1990. Pawn Power in Chess. Macon, Georgia, USA: American Chess Promotions. Larson, Deborah Welch, and Alexei Shevchenko. 2019. Quest for Status: Chinese and Russian Foreign Policy. Connecticut: Yale University Press. Marovi´c, Dražen. 2000. Understanding Pawn Play in Chess. London: Gambit.

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McCann, Frank D. 1981. ‘Brazilian Foreign Relations in the Twentieth Century’. In Brazil in the International System, 1–23. New York: Routledge. Mercer, Jonathan. 2017. The Illusion of International Prestige. International Security 41 (4): 133–68. https://doi.org/10.1162/ISEC_a_00276. Obama, Barack. 2020. A Promised Land. New York: Crown. Paul, Thazha, Deborah Welch Larson, and William C. Wohlforth. 2014. Status in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ‘Pawn’. 2020. In Cambridge English Dictionary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/pawn. Pelts, Roman, and GM Lev Alburt. 2001. The Comprehensive Program of Chess Training. Vol. 2. Chess Information and Research Center. Schweller, Randall L. 1994. Bandwagoning for Profit: Bringing the Revisionist State Back In. International Security 19 (1): 72. https://doi.org/10.2307/ 2539149. Soltis, Andrew. 2013. Pawn Structure Chess. London: Batsford. Walt, Stephen M. 2013. The Origins of Alliances. NY: Cornell University Press. Waltz, Kenneth N. 1979. Theory of International Politics Addison-Wesley Series in Political Science. Boston: Addison-Wesley.

CHAPTER 5

Out of War and Peace: Brazil’s Insignificance in Global Security

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Brazil has tried to have a seat at the table of great powers negotiating an end to the conflict and proposed to be a mediator and a facilitator of a dialogue between the two countries at war. Brazil proposed to lead the creation of a so-called ‘Peace Club’ including the participation not only of global powers, but also of countries from different continents to deal with the conflict. These attempts to have a significant role in a major international dispute echoes Brazil’s attempt to broker a nuclear deal between the West in Iran in 2010. In both cases, the country’s actions were motivated by its ambition to have an important role in global politics, to have a voice in international matters and to increase its status (Tabosa 2023; Vasconcellos De Carvalho Motta and Succi Junior 2023; Ribeiro 2022; Lampreia 2014). In both cases the Brazilian efforts were not able to make a difference, as the perception from the powerful nations is that the country is not consequential enough to influence in the most important international matters, especially when they involve discussions about security, war and peace (Buarque and Ribeiro, 2023). Great powers see Brazil as not being a significant player in international politics, not having the level of status of a great power and do not recognize it as a legitimate mediator in major issues of war and peace of the world. Brazil is seen as a peaceful state located far away from major © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Buarque, Brazil’s International Status and Recognition as an Emerging Power, Governance, Development, and Social Inclusion in Latin America, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47575-7_5

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threats and disputes and so it does not need hard power and does not seek hard power. It is perceived as not having enough hard power, and even if it does have some power capabilities, they are not seen as sufficient to matter on a global scale. This makes it so that the state’s voice in international politics is limited, as hard power is still considered by many of the foreign policy community of powerful states as one of the main attributes a country can use to increase its status. These are just some of the results of the analysis of the interviews with the FPC of the P5 about Brazil. It reinforces the idea discussed in the previous chapter that the country was not able to achieve the level of prestige that it had aspired for. This chapter presents the findings of four of the main themes developed from the analysis of the data. It focuses primarily on the intersubjective status of the country as a state that is not significant in security issues and discusses how the perception of great powers is that Brazil cannot make a difference in matters of global war and peace. It addresses matters linked to the hard power amassed by Brazil and discusses the limits of the emergence of a state like Brazil using only soft power. The section also briefly comments on a third theme, ‘Behind a wall of clichés’, which shows that although Brazil is generally associated with positive images, its soft power is linked to superficial stereotypes, and would not develop into an actual ability to shape the preferences of other states. Lastly, the section focuses on a theme that reflects Brazil’s lack of recognition as an important player as the state’s candidacy to a permanent seat at the UNSC did not result in recognition. The main point of this section is that for these powerful states that hold permanent seats at the UNSC, Brazil is not a significant state in international security issues, as presented in the following thematic map developed from the analysis of the interviews collected in this study (Fig. 5.1). This perception about Brazil’s lack of importance was clear in what many of the sources in this study said: ‘Brazil has no effect in security issues from the US perspective’,1 said a professor at the American University. ‘As far as from a British point of view, the Brazilian security role is very, very small’,2 argued a member of the House of Lords. Respondents 1 Interviewee identified as US11 (American think tank researcher), interviewed by the author, April 5, 2019. 2 Interviewee identified as UK8 (British politician), interviewed by the author, February 11, 2019.

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Fig. 5.1 Thematic map ‘Brazil is not relevant in security issues’

from France and Russia were also very direct in this assessment: ‘Brazil’s military power is not entirely negligible, but it is almost zero’,3 according to a political geographer who served at the French Ministry of Foreign Relations. As a professor at the university Sciences Po put it: Brazil ‘does not have any capability of really exerting influence in war and peace’.4 Moreover, according to a professor at the World Politics Department at St. Petersburg State University, in Russia: ‘Russia doesn’t see Brazil like a superpower (…). Our government does not see Brazil as a great partner in this field. Unfortunately, Brazil doesn’t have instruments, tools of influence on international affairs’.5 3 Interviewee identified as FR9 (French academic), interviewed by the author, February 19, 2019. 4 Interviewee identified as FR2 (French academic), interviewed by the author, May 15, 2018. 5 Interviewee identified as RU4 (Russian academic), interviewed by the author, May 4, 2019.

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Just like in the discussion about Brazil’s lack of importance for the P5, one reason for the assessment about Brazil’s perceived insignificance in security issues is geographic. While Brazil stands far from zones of conflict, it is not thought of as an important player in those conflicts, as explained by a former president of the think tank Inter-American Dialogue, in Washington, DC.: Brazil is not terribly relevant in international politics because Brazil is not in an area where there is much conflict. In other words, while the US reached a huge agreement with India on nuclear matters, on defence matters, in a whole range of things that were negotiated with India. India borders China, borders Russia, borders the Middle East etc, and it is not surprising that this is very important globally. Brazil is in a peaceful area. Yes, you have Venezuela and the FARC in Colombia, but there is no real threat.6

Still, the main point of this interpretation about Brazil’s role in the world is that without hard power, a state cannot make its voice heard in a systematic and independent way. A state aspiring for status would need to show that it is strong, and make the world listen to it, which is not what Brazil has done, according to interviewees from the P5. As explained by a former scholar with the Latin American Initiative at Brookings: Big powers don’t like sharing power. If you have a new big power, that means that you have to share power with new powers. So, you only open space when that new big power is banging on the door and saying: ‘I need to be here, and if I am not here, things are going to be disrupted’. If you have soft power, it is not a threat that you are going to disrupt it. It is a threat that because you have soft power, all of these countries that believe in Brazil’s leadership are also going to feel marginalised in the international system if Brazil, their leader, is not at the table.7

A similar perspective was presented by a political scientist and professor at Sciences Po, in France. In his perspective, a state that tries to adopt an offensive stand and offer solutions to the great problems of peace and war in the world needs to prove that it has the weight to do so. ‘And 6 Interviewee identified as US10 (American think tank director), interviewed by the author, March 21, 2019. 7 Interviewee identified as US4 (American academic), interviewed by the author, March 27, 2019.

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everyone knows that Brazil does not have it. Brazil thought that just with speeches it would work. But it doesn’t work. When it comes time to see, Brazil has no power’.8 His argument is that Brazil’s problem in the area of peace and war is its lack of ability to use force. ‘Hard power. You must have the minimum and be willing to use it. Or else you must be willing to support, if necessary, the use of hard power by others’.9 One American respondent of an American think tank offered a similar account: ‘Brazil’s lack of hard power makes it harder for the people to understand consequences. They say, “ok, and so what?”. “What are the consequences?” Following through on things is important’.10 The perspective from Russia was similar, according to a director of the think tank Russian International Affairs Council, reinforcing the idea that hard power is still the main attribute for international relations status. ‘Brazil is not considered by Russia as a kind of formidable military power which is capable or willing to project its influence with the instruments of hard power in the global scale’.11 A professor at a Russian University further discussed this intersubjective perspective about Brazil in his state: I never heard about any military potential of Brazil. (...) The paradox is that today a country that doesn’t have any hard power potential would be able to become a great power. This is a paradox. We still live, and especially now with Trump and Putin, in a global world, but a realpolitik world. That is why it is still very important to have hard power potential. If you look at the hierarchy of countries, the United States are a great power because of hard power, not soft power. Russia is still a great power not because of soft power, which is very weak, but thanks to our army and military potential.12

While this is also the perspective of the United Kingdom and the United States, British and American respondents argued that this does not need to be a problem for Brazil. The lack of hard power is seen as associated

8 FR2, interview. 9 FR2, interview. 10 Interviewee identified as US3 (American think tank director), interviewed by the author, March 27, 2019. 11 Interviewee identified as RU10 (Russian think tank director), interviewed by the author, June 3, 2019. 12 RU4, interview.

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with the very international identity of the country, which has focused on soft power and on creating consensual hegemony in its approach to foreign relations, not really supporting an escalation of military capabilities (Burges 2017). Brazil’s traditional pacifism is important in this perspective, according to a director of the British think tank Chatham House: Brazil is inherently a pacific country, a peaceful country. And the minute you accept that, which I think is exactly the right thing to do, you are limited in what you can bring to the table, because if you are not bringing military force, then you are relying on diplomatic skill; and diplomatic skill is not something that Brazilians have a monopoly of. They are good at it, but obviously they do not have a monopoly of it. And so, the problems are incredibly difficult, and not to say intractable.13

From the American perspective, not focusing on military capabilities is part of Brazil’s international profile, as explained by a former fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Council on Foreign Relations, one of the things that make Brazil unique is that ‘it doesn’t really seek hard power and it doesn’t try to use hard power, but the paradox there is that because it doesn’t, sometimes it’s soft power is less effective than it might otherwise be’.14 A former foreign policy advisor in the US government reinforced this idea that hard power is not aligned with the Brazilian foreign policy tradition: Look at China. China is investing billions of dollars into modernizing its military, and moving into space, and doing all kinds of things in the technology front, and I don’t see Brazil keeping up with that kind of pace. And maybe it doesn’t want to, and shouldn’t, and want to present itself as more of a soft power argument, and if that is enough is an open question.15

In fact, it is also significant that Brazil has a history of being a peaceful state and not getting fully involved in many international conflicts, which

13 Interviewee identified as UK11 (British academic and think tank director), interviewed by the author, January 14, 2019. 14 Interviewee identified as US1 (American academic and think tank researcher), interviewed by the author, March 20, 2019. 15 US11, interview.

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was another important sub-theme in this analysis, as described by a columnist of the British newspaper ‘Financial Times’: ‘I feel that actually Brazil is a remarkably quiet nation, a pacific nation in the non-geographical sense, in its own region too. So, in international relations terms, I would say it is not very significant’.16 Brazil’s peaceful profile was also present in the assessment of a Russian professor at MGIMO, a university directly linked to Russia’s chancellery: ‘Pacifism, a structural principle of Brazilian foreign policy. Brazil has no specific external enemies. All ten countries that are neighbours of Brazil, Brazil has a relationship of peace and friendship with them’.17 In general, respondents questioned the possibility of a state increasing its international status without resorting to hard power. The point for many of the interviewees is that hard power is still what matters in international relations and, as will be discussed later in this chapter, soft power is not enough to make a state significant in important global issues. ‘You definitely need hard power first. It is hard power that leads to soft power’,18 according to a Chinese professor. ‘Russia relies primarily in its hard power, so I think that there is a natural inclination in Russia to put special emphasis on hard power’,19 said a director of the think tank Russian International Affairs Council. ‘The idea is that you can either contribute or not contribute. You have power or you don’t have power. You have resources or you don’t have resources’,20 argued a director of analysis at Geopolitical Futures. This interpretation could be seen as a rejection of the importance of status in IR since the view of interviewees can be read as very much aligned with the realist school of IR, which posits that the main motivation of states is to accumulate power to guarantee its own safety and survival, and that the relation between states is permeated by a constant tension in search of a balance of power (Gilpin 1981; Morgenthau 1997; Waltz 1979, 2001). Through that lens, power is what matters, and 16 Interviewee identified as UK7 (British journalist), interviewed by the author, December 14, 2018. 17 Interviewee identified as RU7 (Russian academic), interviewed by the author, May 21, 2019. 18 Interviewee identified as CH8 (Chinese academic), interviewed by the author, July 11, 2019. 19 RU10, interview. 20 US3, interview.

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states would not be motivated to gain status. However, as discussed in Chapter 3, power is not something that can simply be measured, and, like status, it is not related only to quantifiable attributes and is highly dependent on perceptions, reputations and on how external parties obtain information about the amount of power states have and develop their interpretation about the power. Although the narrative of the respondents is that power is what matters, their comments are not necessarily focused on the size of the military and of the economy, but on the interpretation that states built about that power, or what realists describe as reputation for power, used as a definition of prestige. This is important when assessing Brazil’s status because, as discussed in the following section, the country does have a significant amount of hard power capabilities and would not necessarily be considered insignificant in matters of war and peace in the world. In fact, one could even argue that Brazil has more hard power capabilities than the soft power resources it is better known for (Gadelha 2022a, 2022b). The point is that the view of the ‘beholders’ of the P5 is that Brazil does not have an important role in deciding matters of global security and that their belief is that the state does not have enough power to matter in these important issues. It is a question of status, therefore, and when respondents talk about Brazil’s power, they are actually talking about the prestige of the state, its reputation for power, or what is perceived as being the level of power Brazil has. This external interpretation of Brazil’s international significance does not mean that it is without any hard power resources. In practical terms, and in comparison to other states of the world, Brazil’s hard power capabilities are not negligible. Different international indexes evaluate through time the variables of military, demographic, geographic and economic capacity that combine to form the state’s capabilities. Brazil is listed in the top tier of states in a power ranking based on economic and military power in the National Material Capabilities of the Correlates of War project (COW) (Amorim Neto 2014; Beckley 2018; Volgy et al. 2011). In the period analysed in this study, Brazil even appears above P5 states like the United Kingdom and France (Singer et al. 1972 V 5.0). The state is in 11th place21 among the ranking of the 15 states with the largest defence budgets in the world, according to the 2014 data of IISS 21 The US comes first (581bn), China second (129.4bn), Russia fourth (70bn), the UK fifth (61.8bn) and France sixth (53.1bn).

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(‘Chapter Two’ 2015). This may be far from the five great powers in the P5 but is also far from completely insignificant. Many of the interviewees in this study addressed this and recognized Brazil’s strengths. ‘Brazil has research in the nuclear field, it has invested to have a nuclear submarine, so it has military power as well’,22 said a professor at MGIMO. Even if Brazil is not seen as having a lot of military power, a consultant at the Quay D’Orsay explained that the state has a lot of potential: ‘Brazil has one of the largest populations in the world, the territory, and even if you do not have a military power, you have a lot of territory’.23 The contrast between the amount of power the state has and the external perception that it is insignificant reinforces the idea that status is not directly related to power, and that hard power capabilities are not enough to protect the status of a state. With the amount of power it has, Brazil would be able to sustain its security against many threats (although not one from a great power), so the pursuit of status is clearly motivated not just by a simple need to have more power and can only be understood as an acceptance that status is one of the motivations of its foreign policy. It is clear evidence that traditional IR scholarship is not enough to explain the actions of a state like Brazil, which has the ambition to be recognized because it wants status, not because it is focusing solely on security or wealth—even if the scholarship and status show that the higher an actor stands, more respect and wealth it may acquire.

5.1

Soft Power Is Not Enough

Although Brazil has hard power capabilities, it is traditionally accepted that most of Brazil’s international strength in the world is the result of its projection of soft power. This discussion about Brazil’s soft power and its limits for the attempts of the state to increase its status are the focus of one of the themes developed from the analysis of the interviews in this study. This theme argues that the perception of the P5 is that Brazil is only ‘a limited soft player’ and reveals a noticeable ambivalence in the way soft power is thought about within IR and its connection to status.

22 RU7, interview. 23 Interviewee identified as FR7 (French think tank researcher), interviewed by the

author, January 30, 2019.

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The interviews show that Brazil’s soft power tends to be recognized as important for the country’s projection. However, many of the interviewees questioned the idea that Brazil has a lot of soft power and argued that although it has potential, the soft power is underused and applied without consistency, which limits Brazil’s ability to use it even more. Another limitation is that a lot of the soft power of the state is linked to stereotypes, such as football, Carnival and soap operas, which does not contribute positively to offering the state a strong international voice. The respondents in this research admit they see soft power as a significant tool for the state, but the general interpretation is that it is not enough to give Brazil the international significance it aspires to have. The limitations of soft power in leading to the emergence of any state, as well as the difficulties in measuring this kind of capability and even problems with the concept itself have been thoroughly addressed by the IR scholarship of the past decades. The rise of new powers is still seen in the mainstream IR literature as dependent on traditional hard power capabilities. Emerging to higher status via soft power should have the advantage of generating less resistance from states with higher status, which do not see a threat or a competitor. The specific case of Brazil has been approached as an interesting analysis to discuss this possibility of achieving high status through soft power. It is traditionally accepted that Brazil was able to increase its soft power at the turn of the century, even if it was not able to achieve recognition to have a stronger international role (Mares and Trinkunas 2016; Buarque 2013a, 2018, 2019; Diaz and Almeida 2008; Chatin 2013; Narlikar 2013). As explained at the beginning of this section, the interpretation of the FPC holds some tensions and contradictions. Depending on the respondent, Brazil is seen either as having soft power or not having a lot of it. There is, however, a near consensus that Brazil’s soft power is linked to superficial stereotypes, which breaks away from the actual concept of soft power as the ability to shape the preferences of others (Nye 2004). At the same time, soft power is perceived as being important for status in IR, however, it is not accepted as enough to guarantee the emergence of a state. The thematic map below shows how the ideas related to this theme connect to one another in the perception of the FPC of the P5 (Fig. 5.2). The most prevalent of the sub-themes pointed to the perception that ‘Brazil has soft power’. It focuses on the positive aspects of soft power and how it can help to protect the state in the world. Respondents offered

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Fig. 5.2 Thematic map ‘A limited soft player’

different perspectives about what this soft power means and where it comes from. ‘Brazil has a considerable amount of soft power’,24 argued a former French ambassador to Brazil. ‘Brazil’s soft power is in the leading position of the BRICS countries and is also highlighted among developing countries’,25 said a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. ‘In the case of Brazil, soft power is very important, and a lot of the prestige of the country comes from its culture’,26 explained a director of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Many respondents described Brazil’s image and the multicultural appeal of the state, but others talk about Brazil’s peaceful nature. Soft

24 Interviewee identified as FR4 (French diplomat), interviewed by the author, April 11, 2019. 25 Interviewee identified as CH2 (Chinese academic), interviewed by the author, July, 2019. 26 Interviewee identified as RU2 (Russian academic), interviewed by the author, May, 2019.

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power, explained a former United States Ambassador to Brazil, is what helps the state to be known in the rest of the world: Think about Brazil’s soft power. Culture, music, appeal, movies, I am thinking of those things that are on the soft power side that had some kind of international attention or importance. So, I am thinking of the cultural part of it. Carnival, that kind of impressions you have. Even if someone has never been there, they heard of Carnival and seen pictures of it. The favelas and the life, books being written about it. Around the world, Brazilian telenovelas are shown in other countries by big companies. Those all leave an impression.27

This can also be connected to a limitation of the use of soft power as a strategy to promote Brazil internationally, however, since the perception is generally so attached to superficial clichés. ‘Brazilian soft power comes from stereotypes’ was a sub-theme developed from in many of the interviews analysed. The most popular stereotypes from the perception of powerful states were football, carnival and samba, nature and the Amazon, beaches, corruption, violence and crime, music, large country, friendliness, happiness, tourist destination, distance, culture, soap operas, exoticism, Rio, fun people, coffee, women and sensuality. This was discussed by a French sociologist interviewed for this research: What is Brazil’s soft power? They are touristic images. Football, of course. The music. There is a little bit of soft power, and it is a country that has a positive perception in France, as being a nice, pleasant country, with great figures, everyone knows Pelé. Furthermore, it is a country that people know they have problems with, like corruption, crime. Yet it is a country that has positive images.28

A similar interpretation was put forward by a journalist at Xinhua, the Chinese news agency: ‘It may be that foreigners from other countries also talk about Carnival or the beach, but the thing that is most present in the

27 Interviewee identified as US8 (American diplomat), interviewed by the author, April 9, 2019. 28 Interviewee identified as FR3 (French academic), interviewed by the author, May 11, 2018.

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minds of the Chinese in relation to Brazil, of image, is football’.29 Superficial stereotypes were also the main connection to Brazil’s soft power from the point of view of an interviewee associated with the Institute for Modern Russia: ‘When you say Brazil, probably the first thing that comes to mind is the soap operas. I am sorry, but that is how things are in Russia. A lot of TV shows coming from Brazil’.30 According to this assessment, Brazil’s status is ‘behind a wall of clichés’, a theme that was developed from codes in all of the interviews analysed and that proposes that Brazil is largely unknown and misunderstood. There is a general ignorance about Brazil in the powerful states, according to the respondents in this study, even among politicians and experts, and a lot of what people think about the state is linked to superficial stereotypes. Stereotypes were used to describe Brazil and to discuss what both the general population, politicians and experts in those powerful states thought about Brazil. These clichés reinforce the idea that Brazil can be described as ‘decorative’, and as a state that is perceived as not being serious, since they are either linked to Brazil’s image of a place for fun and games, or to negative images linked to serious matters (Anholt 2016; Buarque 2013a, 2013b, 2019). Even if this employment of soft power as the main tool to build international prestige has limitations, some respondents saw it as a positive strategy, that could have advantages over other approaches. That could be the case of comparison with Russia’s focus on hard power, as it is evident in the commentary of the director of the think tank Russian International Affairs Council, who said that Brazil is often referred to as the kind of alternative model of regional and continental leadership path. ‘Many liberals in Moscow would say that Russia should look at Brazil and how Brazil was able to establish its leadership in the region without deferring to hard power’.31 From his perspective, even though this may lead some to say that Brazil’s leadership is softer than Russia’s, Brazil manages to have better relations with its neighbours than Russia.

29 Interviewee identified as CH11 (Journalist at Xinhua), interviewed by the author, June 7, 2019. 30 Interviewee identified as RU3 (Russian academic), interviewed by the author, May 7, 2019. 31 RU10, interview.

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Although there is a strong body of opinion confirming the general idea that Brazil has soft power and can use it to pursue more international status, many of the interviewees reinforced a point that has been the focus of scholarly debate, arguing that ‘soft power is not enough’ for a state to gain international recognition as an important player or as a great power, as described in one of the sub-themes presented here. ‘Pure soft power on the global stage doesn’t get you very far. That is the reality’,32 according to a senior vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The example of the emergence of China helps reinforce the idea that soft power is not what helps a state gain status. From the perspective of a Chinese academic: If the United States were not an economic superpower, nobody was going to follow it because of its values. Why today the Chinese language is being studied by millions of people in the world? Because they have a strong sensibility of capital. The spirit is that something is happening with the Chinese economic development, and people are grasping the opportunities. Chinese economic development began to spread Chinese values and norms, Chinese policies, etc. It is not soft power.33

One interviewee from a Russian think tank addressed the limits of soft power and the need for other capabilities in order to increase the status of a state: ‘Soft power is a good cherry on top, but to make it useful and efficient you have to have either your economy or hard power and hard political status to sell as well’.34 According to a Russian academic, the example of other states reinforces the realist idea that hard power is the means through which a state can increase its status: ‘Our world is not ready for soft power countries. It is a weak feature, not a strong feature. Even France, who tries to be recognized as a great power with its environmental approach, is not being successful’.35 Other respondents argued that it can be a part of a combination of strategies used to improve the status of a state, as argued by a former British ambassador to Brazil: ‘Part of becoming a major power is touching 32 Interviewee identified as US5 (American think tank director), interviewed by the author, March 28, 2019. 33 CH8, interview. 34 RU3, interview. 35 RU4, interview.

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all those buttons. You need the military force to be credible to defend the country, you have the economic strength that underlines that, and you can become a major trading partner around the world’.36 A similar interpretation was raised by a former British Consul General in São Paulo, ‘Soft power can’t be enough, and you have got to have the hard power to go with it. (…) I think there is a need to do both if you want to be a prominent global player’.37 Interviewees discussed examples of situations upon which Brazil tried to use soft power, when it could develop a broader approach not depending only on this power of attraction. An American academic who worked with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Council on Foreign Relations shared an anecdote that exemplifies that perception: I remember being in Washington and talking to Brazilian diplomats when Dilma [Rousseff] was cutting the budget, and they were complaining that they didn’t have any more money to buy flowers. And I asked how much money they had to buy flowers, and it was about half a million dollars. It is kind of a silly anecdote, but it goes to the question of soft versus hard power. I don’t know what buying flowers get you. It gets you goodwill, probably. But it is not a goodwill that is backed by any kind of hammer.(...) Soft power is really most effective when it is backed by hard power.38

As mentioned earlier, there is still controversy and ambivalence in the interpretation of Brazil’s soft power, and there is no consensus about the idea that Brazil has soft power or a lot of it. One of the sub-themes developed from the analysis of the interviews is exactly that ‘Brazil does not have a lot of soft power’. According to respondents from China and Russia, for example, ‘it has soft power, but not much’.39 ‘I think the Brazilian potential of soft power is underused; the country can offer

36 Interviewee identified as UK3 (British diplomat), interviewed by the author, December 12, 2018. 37 Interviewee identified as UK6 (British diplomat), interviewed by the author, February 5, 2019. 38 US1, interview. 39 Interviewee identified as CH5 (Chinese academic), interviewed by the author, May

26, 2019.

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many options to promote its positive image’,40 argued a professor at the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia. ‘If you can criticize Brazil, it is not for its lack of willingness to use hard power, it is much more that it has not been very successful in marketing its use of soft power’,41 said a former director of Chatham House. Brazil’s soft power is unable to help the projection of the state and is even eclipsed by that of other, smaller, states, as explained by a French historian: ‘Brazilian soft power is not very strong, beyond football. It is those who have connections with Brazil that will have this contact (…). It is difficult to export Brazilian culture’42 This perception is shared by another French interviewee, a sociologist and professor at the Université de Paris 7, who argued that ‘Brazilian cultural policy abroad is terrible. There is nothing. Many countries have cultural centres in France, but Brazil does not’.43

5.2 The Impossibility of a Permanent Seat at the UNSC The perception that Brazil has no significance in security issues can be seen as affecting one of the country’s key attempts at being accepted into the high-status group of states that have long been considered great powers—its campaign to become a permanent member of the UNSC. This ambition has been present in its foreign policy since the end of World War II and symbolizes both its drive for prestige and its failure in achieving global recognition (Lima and Hirst 2006; Mares and Trinkunas 2016; Stolte 2015; Lebow 2016). The UNSC is often considered the most important United Nations organ and has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. Since the formation of the UN, Brazil has tried to gain a permanent seat at its Security Council, and it came close to achieving that when the UNSC was first created in 1945 (Mares and Trinkunas 2016; Stolte 2015; Garcia 2011). Fifty years later, in 1994,

40 Interviewee identified as RU1 (Russian academic), interviewed by the author, April/ May, 2019. 41 UK11, interview. 42 Interviewee identified as FR1 (French academic), interviewed by the author, May 9,

2018. 43 FR3, interview.

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with Celso Amorim and Itamar Franco, Brazil officially became a candidate for a permanent seat on the UNSC. However, it was only with Lula da Silva, from 2003 to 2010, that the flow of requests to expand the UNSC increased. Consequently, in 2006, Brazil gained the support of the United Kingdom and, in 2007, of France, two permanent memberss of the UNSC who publicly declared they were in favour of reform and would accept Brazil as a permanent member (Andrade 2012; Almeida 2007; Stolte 2015; Amorim Neto 2014). This candidacy is perceived by great powers as one of the few consistent international agendas of Brazil in the period analysed in this study. The states that hold the keys to the ‘club’ of great powers on the UNSC know about Brazil’s ambition and may even accept that the Brazilian bid is justified. However, they argue that the aspiring state is unlikely to ever succeed both due to its perceived limitations and for conjunctural reasons that block any kind of reform of the council. The thematic map below details the main ideas related to the perceptions about Brazil’s candidacy to become a permanent member of the UNSC (Fig. 5.3).

Fig. 5.3 Thematic map ‘The impossibility of a permanent seat at the UNSC’

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According to a former British Consul General in Sao Paulo, for example, ‘Brazil sees itself as having the weight of a permanent member of the Security Council, but it doesn’t. It is in a different division’.44 For many of the interviewees, the limitation of the Brazilian candidacy is clearly based on the fact that there has not been a real chance of reform of the UNSC, as explained by an American scholar who worked with different think tanks, ‘From Washington’s perspective, Brazil’s desire for a seat at the Security Council looks unrealistic until there are other changes’.45 Many of the interviewees argued that being a permanent member of the UNSC has high costs and that it seems like something that would not necessarily benefit Brazil’s international agenda. ‘You can’t just ask for a membership of the Security Council and expect it to be given, without demonstrating that you are prepared to take on the obligations that it entails’,46 argued a former British ambassador to Brazil. One problem often mentioned is the fact that Brazil was not able to convince its neighbours and other states in the Global South that it would represent them as a permanent member of the council, thus it would be unlikely for a state without this support to achieve this ambition. ‘The UN reform aims at enhancing the voice from developing world, but Brazil should get firstly a consensus of its neighbouring countries’,47 said a director of the Center for Brazilian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Apart from regional problems, another important limitation for potential reform of the UNSC is that other states also have an interest in gaining a permanent seat, and it creates a series of geopolitical pressures for the P5, which must decide on possible support for some states to the detriment of others. This is clear in the case of China, for example, which does not want Japan, seen as a rival, as a permanent member of the UNSC. ‘This is complicated because it is not only Brazil who is trying to become a permanent member, but also Japan, and China has a Japan issue. If you

44 UK6, interview. 45 US1, interview. 46 UK3, interview. 47 Interviewee identified as CH4 (Chinese academic), interviewed by the author, May,

2019.

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join, Japan joins, and that is not acceptable to China’,48 said a professor at Renmin University of China. The lack of will to reform the council was also mentioned by a former French ambassador to Brazil: ‘There was no reform. Nobody wants reform. The Chinese do not want the Japanese to have a seat. The French do not want the Germans, however much the Germans want the seat of France. So, everything is blocked’.49 One other clear reason for the lack of reform in the UNSC is the interest of the P5 in maintaining the status quo (something that will be discussed in detail in the following chapters). ‘A Security Council in which five members have vetoes is about as big as it can, and it is paralytic on its own’,50 argued a fellow in politics at Oxford University. This interpretation was also presented by a Russian interviewee who is a member of the Scientific Council of the National Committee for Research on BRICS: ‘Russia is focused on keeping its place in the Security Council. (…) If Russia would not support Brazil, it would not have anything to do with Brazil, but with Russian feeling of security in the way that things exist now’.51 The intention of powerful states to maintain their status quo was also mentioned by a former British ambassador to Brazil: ‘The main reason why the Security Council hasn’t been enlarged is simply because there are permanent members who want the status quo’.52 Although the respondents in this research clearly see no chance of a reform of the UNSC to accommodate Brazil’s bid to become a permanent member, many of the interviewees argued that they thought Brazil had a claim to such a position. Part of this interpretation is aligned with another prevalent idea developed in the analysis of the data. For many among the FPC of the P5, the ‘UNSC is anachronistic and should be reformed’. ‘Everyone agrees that the Security Council needs to better reflect the diversity of the world’,53 according to a researcher at The French Institute 48 CH5, interview. 49 FR4, interview. 50 Interviewee identified as UK2 (British academic), interviewed by the author, March 14, 2019. 51 Interviewee identified as RU5 (Russian think tank researcher), interviewed by the author, April 24, 2019. 52 Interviewee identified as UK4 (British diplomat), interviewed by the author, April 25, 2018. 53 Interviewee identified as FR12 (French think tank researcher), interviewed by the author, February 13, 2019.

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for International and Strategic Affairs. ‘The fact is that it is a totally obsolete heritage, which reflects the 1945 position’,54 said a French political geographer. According to a researcher at the Institute of Modern Russia, ‘this is an outdated breakdown, with these countries that have permanent seats since World War II, and the situation has changed now’.55 Furthermore, ‘the Security Council desperately needs to be reformed. It should have a Latin American permanent member, and various things’,56 said a vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. One interesting aspect of the perception that the UNSC needs to be reformed and that Brazil has a claim to a permanent seat, is a contrast between the fact that some of the states of the P5 have publicly supported the Brazilian candidacy, while at the same time, almost everyone sees it as not having a chance of succeeding. According to the respondents, the support Brazil received was meaningless to the states offering it, especially France and the United Kingdom. This was clear in the commentary of interviewees from France, for example: ‘Nobody believed that. That was a game by [former French president Nicolas] Sarkozy to please Brazil. That’s it. Especially since it didn’t cost anything to do that. For a simple reason, that everyone knew it couldn’t work’,57 said a professor at Sciences Po. ‘Sarkozy wanted to do business. If Brazil’s entry into the Security Council helps business, it would do so. It is not clear whether this is a real objective of French foreign policy’,58 argued a sociologist at Université de Paris 7. According to a French respondent from the think tank Political Observatory of Latin America and the Caribbean: ‘In the reform of the Security Council, France has always supported Brazil’s candidacy. We can always say that there was also a bit of hypocrisy in that. Because it’s easy to give support when you know it won’t happen’.59 Similar views are also clear in the responses of respondents from the United Kingdom. According to a former British ambassador to Brazil,

54 FR9, interview. 55 RU3, interview. 56 US5, interview. 57 FR2, interview. 58 FR3, interview. 59 FR7, interview.

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‘I have to be honest and say that there was very little sign during that time that it would ever lead to anything’.60

References Almeida, Paulo Roberto de. 2007. ‘Brazil as a Regional Player and an Emerging Global Power’. FES Briefing Paper 8. Amorim Neto, Octavio. 2014. De Dutra A Lula: La Conducción y Los Determinantes de La Política Exterior Brasileña. EUDEBA. Andrade, Letícia Cunha. 2012. ‘O Brasil Em Busca de Um Assento Permanente No Conselho de Segurança: Análise Construtivista Da Política Externa de 1945 a 2011’. Anholt, Simon. 2016. Places: Identity, Image and Reputation. Cham : Springer. Beckley, Michael. 2018. The Power of Nations: Measuring What Matters. International Security 43 (2): 7–44. Buarque, Daniel. 2013a. Brazil Um País Do Presente: A Imagem Internacional Do “País Do Futuro”. São Paulo: Alameda Casa Editorial. ———. 2013b. ‘Vigésimo País Mais Conhecido Do Mundo, Brasil é Visto Como “Decorativo, Mas Não Útil”, Segundo Pesquisa Global’. Terra, 7 January 2013, sec. Brazil no Radar. http://noticias.terra.com.br/mundo/bra zil-no-radar/blog/2013/01/07/vigesimo-pais-mais-conhecido-do-mundobrasil-e-‘decorativo-mas-nao-util’-segundo-pesquisa-global/. ———. 2018. ‘The Tainted Spotlight—How Crisis Overshadowed Brazil’s Public Diplomacy Bet in Hosting Sports Events and Led to a Downgrade of the Country’s Reputation’. Revista Trama 8 (3). https://doi.org/10.5935/ 2177-5672/trama.v8n3p71-92. ———. 2019. ‘Brazil Is Not (Perceived as) a Serious Country: Exposing Gaps between the External Images and the International Ambitions of the Nation’. Brasiliana-Journal for Brazilian Studies 8 (1–2): 285–314. Buarque, Daniel, and Miguel Mikelli Ribeiro. 2023. ‘Status and Brazil’s Role as a Peace Mediator—Lessons of the Foreign Perceptions of the Failed Tehran Deal’. Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional 66 (1). https://doi.org/ 10.1590/0034-7329202300114. Burges, Sean W. 2017. Brazil in the World: The International Relations of a South American Giant. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ‘Chapter Two: Comparative Defence Statistics’. 2015. The Military Balance 115 (1): 21–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/04597222.2015.996338. Chatin, Mathilde. 2013. ‘Brazil: A New Powerhouse without Military Strength?’ BRICS Policy Center—Working Paper, 1–25.

60 UK3, interview.

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Diaz, Miguel, and Paulo Roberto Almeida. 2008. ‘Brazil’s Candidacy for Major Power Status’. Stanley Foundation. Gadelha, Hayle Melim. 2022a. ‘Era Uma Vez o País Do Futuro’. Revista Problemas Brasileiros, 2022. https://revistapb.com.br/artigos/era-uma-vezo-pais-do-futuro/. ———. 2022b. ‘Hayle Gadelha: Não há evidências que o Brasil seja uma potência de soft power’. Revista Interesse Nacional, 21 April 2022. https://interessenacional.com.br/edicoes-posts/hayle-gadelha-nao-haevidencias-que-o-brasil-seja-uma-potencia-de-soft-power/. Garcia, Eugênio V. 2011. ‘De Como o Brasil Quase Se Tornou Membro Permanente Do Conselho de Segurança Da ONU Em 1945’. Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional 54 (1). Gilpin, Robert. 1981. War and Change in World Politics. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. Lampreia, Luiz Felipe. 2014. Aposta Em Teerã: O Acordo Nuclear Entre Brasil, Turquia e Irã. Objetiva. Lebow, Richard Ned. 2016. National Identities and International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lima, Maria Regina Soares dee, and Mônica Hirst. 2006. ‘Brazil as an Intermediate State and Regional Power: Action, Choice and Responsibilities’. International Affairs 82 (1): 21–40. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2346. 2006.00513.x. Mares, David R., and Harold A. Trinkunas. 2016. Aspirational Power: Brazil on the Long Road to Global Influence. Geopolitics in the 21st Century. Washington, D.C: Brookings Institution Press. Morgenthau, Hans J. 1997. Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace. Beijing: Peking University Press. Narlikar, Amrita. 2013. ‘Introduction: Negotiating the Rise of New Powers’. International Affairs, 561–76. Nye, Joseph S. 2004. Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics, 1st ed. New York: Public Affairs. Ribeiro, Mikelli Marzzini Lucas Alves. 2022. ‘O Brasil pode ser um mediador na guerra entre Rússia e Ucrânia?’ Revista Interesse Nacional, 20 April 2022. https://interessenacional.com.br/edicoes-posts/o-brasil-pode-ser-ummediador-na-guerra-entre-russia-e-ucrania/. Singer, J. David., Stuart Bremer, and John Stuckey. 1972. Capability Distribution, Uncertainty, and Major Power War, 1820–1965. Peace, War, and Numbers 19 (48): 9. Stolte, Christina. 2015. Brazil’s Africa Strategy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137499578.

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Tabosa, Clarissa. 2023. Brazil between Global Recognition and Neutrality over the Russian War against Ukraine. Journal of Regional Security, 00: 12–12. https://doi.org/10.5937/jrs18-41792. Vasconcellos De Carvalho Motta, Bárbara, and David Paulo Succi Junior. 2023. ‘Brazilian Foreign Policy for the War in Ukraine: Changing Non-Alignment, Counterfactual, and Future Perspectives’. Globalizations, June, 1–14. https:// doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2023.2224626. Volgy, Thomas J., Renato Corbetta, Keith A. Grant, and Ryan G. Baird, eds. 2011. ‘Major Power Status in International Politics’. In Major Powers and the Quest for Status in International Politics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230119314. Waltz, Kenneth N. 1979. Theory of International Politics Addison-Wesley Series in Political Science. Boston: Addison-Wesley. ———. 2001. Man, the State, and War: A Theoretical Analysis. New York: Columbia University Press.

CHAPTER 6

Brazil Is Its Own Biggest Enemy

In its pursuit of international status, Brazil has based a lot of its aspirations on the belief that it is destined for greatness and is thus entitled to a lot of prestige due to its territorial size, its multicultural history, soft power, economic importance and the example it sets in a proactive and peaceful foreign policy (Diaz and Almeida 2008; Mares and Trinkunas 2016; Stolte 2015; Zanini 2017; Røren and Beaumont 2019). While it believes it should be recognized as an important player, however, Brazil seems to expect recognition to proactively come from abroad, as if it should be a given. The state feels uneasy with the hierarchy of the world order in the hands of traditional great powers and is uncomfortable with its perception that it remains at the receiving end of an unequal and discriminatory international system. Brazil is often preoccupied by the idea that it feels treated as inferior by great powers, and there has been consistent frustration as Brazil perceives a lack of understanding among foreigners about the complexity of the domestic political and economic situation (Hurrell, 2005, 96), which leads to what can maybe be described as status inconsistency and anxiety. While the state looks abroad in expectation of praise and recognition, external actors seem to put the burden of Brazil’s emergence not on its foreign policy and rhetoric but on what they see happening domestically.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Buarque, Brazil’s International Status and Recognition as an Emerging Power, Governance, Development, and Social Inclusion in Latin America, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47575-7_6

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Based on the intersubjective perspective of the P5, Brazil is its own biggest enemy in its pursuit of prestige. The perception is that although Brazil really does have a lot of potential and a generally positive international image, it has not achieved high status because of its own domestic problems, which hinder its development and emergence. Moreover, for many of the respondents in this research, Brazil has not been able to demonstrate to great powers that it has a clear and consistent agenda and strategy to project itself internationally, it was not able to explain to other states why it should become a major player, what it would do if it had a strong international voice and has lacked proper means to pursue its ambitions. As discussed in Chapter 3, this does not mean that Brazil has no agenda or a clear vision for the world, but that the perception from abroad is that it does not. And status is intersubjective and depends a lot more on perception than on reality. This creates a problem, as many external observers are unsure about what Brazil’s role in the world is, which could create confusion about its status and lead to inconsistency and ontological insecurity. The interpretation of the interviewees about the impacts of domestic problems on the international status is similar to what can be found in the scholarship about status in international relations and specifically about Brazil’s standing and its attempts to achieve recognition as a great power, making it clear that the domestic situation of a state influences its international status. ‘A theory of foreign policy must not ignore domestic politics, national culture, and individual decision-makers’ (Zakaria 1999, 31). Throughout history, Lebow argues, when states have managed to change their international roles, this has often been a reflection of broader changes in domestic societies (Lebow 2016, 102). Moreover, it is possible to say that focusing on domestic development has traditionally been seen as one of the main objectives of the Brazilian foreign policy agenda (Doctor 2015; Lafer 2000; Ricupero 2017). Brazil’s domestic situation, its social reality, economics and politics really do play a key role in developing Brazil’s hard and soft power, as in its perceived status. When the domestic situation of the state is one of internal disarray, this fundamentally undermines Brazil’s international influence (Mares and Trinkunas 2016, 16). Looking at Brazil in recent decades, there is strong evidence of the importance of the domestic situation to its prestige. The stabilization and growth of the economy, the expansion of the middle class, the fact that the country became self-sufficient in energy production, the booming

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commodity markets and the consolidation of democracy in Brazil in the late 1990s and early 2000s led to a narrative about the increased status of the state. This happened because Brazil had success in domestic politics, which made it be perceived as a model for the developing world (Jumbert and Leira 2020; Hurrell 2010; Mares and Trinkunas 2016; Mônica Hirst and Hurrell 2005; de Carvalho et al. 2020; Doctor 2015; Malamud 2017). As discussed in previous chapters, however, this emergence was not enough to give the state the international weight it aspired to have. Furthermore, after 2013, a series of social, political and economic crises as well as corruption scandals, violence and human rights violations changed this situation, putting its soft power at risk, making it harder for Brazil to reach its aspired status (Beaumont and Røren 2020; Cervo and Lessa 2014; Hurrell 2008; Malamud 2017; Mares and Trinkunas 2016). This failure to project Brazil in the early twenty-first century was a repetition of what Mares and Trinkunas call a historical pattern. From time to time, the authors argue, Brazil faces favourable international and domestic conditions that can allow it to have hope of attaining great power status. However, domestic problems lead to crises that reduce any chance of achieving recognition for higher status. ‘Turbulent domestic politics and major economic crises have periodically undermined Brazil’s credibility and capabilities, halting its emergence’ (Mares and Trinkunas 2016, 24). Internal factors have traditionally been a major restraint on Brazil’s international ambitions (Burges 2017). ‘Brazil’s domestic political order (or disorder) was a persistent obstacle to its claims to major power status’ (Mares and Trinkunas 2016, 53). A lot of this is because, as discussed in the previous chapter, Brazil based a lot of its bid to become a significant player in world politics on soft power, which is based on the attraction of a state’s domestic model. Hence, Brazil needs to achieve a stable, attractive, model for its domestic political, economic and social order so that it can increase its international status. As Brazil does not engage in the pursuit of more hard power, it depends on soft power to achieve higher status, and thus it needs to address the structural, political and economic shortcomings of its model, so that it can stop falling into crisis and establish itself as an attractive model for other states, increasing its soft power (Mares and Trinkunas 2016).

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6.1

Brasil vs. Brazil

Great powers do perceive Brazil as having a lot of potential, generally very positive images, and many argue that everybody loves the country. However, the analysis of the interviews with the FPC of the P5 shows that potential goes unfulfilled as Brazil is annulled by its own domestic problems, political instabilities, lack of consistent politics and internal disputes over the national interests. In summary, the state gets in its own way in the attempt to have a stronger international voice. The thematic map below shows how the ideas of Brazil being its own enemy connect, from the perspective of the interviewees (Fig. 6.1). The perception from the powerful states is that Brazil is loved, has positive image and has lived through a lot of optimism, especially under Cardoso’s and Lula da Silva’s administrations. The domestic situation improved since the democratization and the stabilization of the economy,

Fig. 6.1 Thematic map ‘Brazil is its own biggest enemy’

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which brought increased influence for Brazil. Along with this positive image, it is perceived as having a huge potential to become more important and achieve status and a stronger voice. However, all these positive perceptions are wasted, and the potential goes unfulfilled because of Brazil itself and its domestic problems. The focus of the interviewees’ analyses was mostly connected to political and economic problems within Brazil, as well as corruption, inequality and commercial barriers. Many respondents reinforced the idea that because of domestic problems, Brazil does not appear to them to be a serious country (Buarque 2019, 2022). Another important subject was the perception that Brazil does not seem to know exactly what it wants from its relations with the rest of the world. Together, these problems that are mostly domestic are perceived to stand in the way of the international projection of the state. ‘Brazil’s real potential ended up being undone by the internal crisis, both in the economy and in politics’,1 argued a former French ambassador to Brazil. This limitation was also mentioned by a Chinese interviewee, director of research at Sun Yat-Sen University: It’s unlikely that the Chinese government will seriously consider Brazil as a leading state among developing countries globally. (...) Especially, given the vast domestic problems, (...) it’s hard to convince the outsider that Brazil has the commitment and resources to keep active involvement in international issues.2

According to a French interviewee who works as a political consultant and is the director of a company acting in Brazil, the state has problems that work against its development and increased status: I always say that this country does not need external enemies because it has so many internal enemies that they do the job. (...) The great difficulty here is that you are permanently—both the population and the business world, the government, public institutions—marked by short-term challenges. There are a lot of problems that have not been solved or tackled since the re-democratization, and the country is constantly encountering the difficulties, especially economic ones, that this creates. (...) Because the 1 Interviewee identified as FR11 (French diplomat), interviewed by the author, March 8, 2019. 2 Interviewee identified as CH1 (Chinese academic), interviewed by the author, July, 2019.

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country is paralyzed by successive crises that are caused by the difficulty of solving problems that should have been solved a long time ago.3

From the perspective of the interviewees, thus, Brazil should focus on solving domestic problems in order to achieve international status. ‘Brazil can achieve a lot in world politics, especially if it solves problems with economic development, with corruption problems inside the country’,4 said a professor at the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia. ‘Brazil is mostly distracted by its immediate development needs, and they don’t hear that much from Brazil on the global agenda’,5 argued a director of the think tank Russian International Affairs Council. ‘I think there will always be scepticism because until Brazil manages to resolve its own developmental issues there is going to be scepticism on economic development issues and then scepticism also on democratic issues’,6 explained a professor at the American University. ‘This idea of the country gets in its way, I see that as a constraint, so it is an obstacle that Brazil needs to figure out how to work around’,7 according to a researcher at Geopolitical Futures. One of the most common comments from interviewees was that the means for Brazil to project itself to the rest of the world is to focus on ‘fixing the problems at home’ before trying to have a more significant role internationally. ‘Brazil needs to think about economic hard power and tidying up the house, tidying up its goals more’,8 defended a French political geographer. ‘It would have to get its own house in order’,9 said a fellow at Brookings Institute. This idea was repeated in the United 3 Interviewee identified as FR10 (French think tank director), interviewed by the author, February 5, 2019. 4 Interviewee identified as RU1 (Russian academic), interviewed by the author, April/ May, 2019. 5 Interviewee identified as RU10 (Russian think tank director), interviewed by the author, June 3, 2019. 6 Interviewee identified as US1 (American academic and think tank researcher), interviewed by the author, March 20, 2019. 7 Interviewee identified as US3 (American think tank director), interviewed by the author, March 27, 2019. 8 Interviewee identified as FR9 (French academic), interviewed by the author, February 19, 2019. 9 Interviewee identified as US11 (American think tank researcher), interviewed by the author, April 5, 2019.

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Kingdom. ‘The first thing is that it would have to clean up its domestic act. It has to become strong economically and it has to demonstrate that it is pulling away from these internal problems and issues that it’,10 argued a former British ambassador to Brazil. A Russian scholar who worked at the Moscow State University offered a similar analysis: ‘Any foreign policy has domestic roots. It begins at home. The resolution of many social problems of Brazil, it would be akin to the resolution of many problems for the foreign policy of the country’.11 This was also the view of a Russian respondent, a political analyst and researcher at the Institute for Modern Russia: I think the more urgent priorities to fix your domestic situation, and then you can go on and become a stronger international player. Because if in your home things are not well, you are trying to push other players, other countries and tell them what to do, recommend things, they can always point to your own backyard and say ‘look, your country is a mess, what are you trying to do, why don’t you focus on that first?’.12

Among Brazil’s problems mentioned by respondents, one sub-theme that deserved a more detailed analysis was the idea that ‘Brazil faces disputes over what it wants in the world’. Although it has been established earlier in this book that it is clear that the search for status and recognition is one of the international priorities of the state, the domestic political and economic instabilities create a perception that there is a lot that is not well-established in terms of goals for Brazil in its relations with the rest of the world, as explained by a French political geographer: I don’t think Brazil knows exactly what it wants. (…) It depends on who is speaking. If you take Itamaraty, they have a reasonably tidy position, but Vale may have another, Petrobras another, the Army another. No country has a single voice. In the case of Brazil’s external position, which

10 Interviewee identified as UK3 (British diplomat), interviewed by the author, December 12, 2018. 11 Interviewee identified as RU8 (Russian academic), interviewed by the author, April 4, 2019. 12 Interviewee identified as RU3 (Russian academic), interviewed by the author, May 7, 2019.

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in principle should be defined by the Itamaraty, I think it is ambiguous, indeed.13

The opinions of the interviewees that focused on criticisms of Brazil’s internal problems are even more relevant when compared to three other very important sub-themes developed within this analysis of the perceptions of Brazil’s status. The state, the FPC of the P5 argued, is generally well-perceived in the world and has a positive image in general. It is seen as having a lot of potential to become a significant player in global politics, but its full potential is not fulfilled. ‘The image of Brazil is of a sympathetic country’,14 said a former French ambassador. ‘Brazil has a very positive image in France and in Europe’,15 argued a French sociologist. ‘The image is excellent. (…) Everybody likes Brazil’,16 according to a political geographer from France. ‘In general, both ordinary people and the Chinese government, businessmen and researchers have a very friendly attitude towards Brazil. The two countries are really friends, and there has never been any friction’,17 said a journalist at Xinhua. ‘The image of Brazil in Russia has always been very positive’,18 argued a researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences. ‘Many people in Britain have a positive view of Brazil’,19 said a British diplomat. ‘The image from the outside is probably more positive than the image from inside the country’,20 according to a former British ambassador to Brazil. ‘There are very few countries so far away that ordinary British people have such contact with and affinity for than Brazil. Culturally, sport, the sense of it being a wonderful place

13 FR9, interview. 14 Interviewee identified as FR4 (French diplomat), interviewed by the author, April

11, 2019. 15 Interviewee identified as FR6 (French academic), interviewed by the author, January

16, 2019. 16 FR9, interview. 17 Interviewee identified as CH11 (Journalist at Xinhua), interviewed by the author,

June 7, 2019. 18 Interviewee identified as RU2 (Russian academic), interviewed by the author, May, 2019. 19 Interviewee identified as UK1 (British politician), interviewed by the author, March 1, 2019. 20 Interviewee identified as UK4 (British diplomat), interviewed by the author, April 25, 2018.

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to be. It has a presence’,21 said a member of the House of Lords. ‘My impression is that people like Brazil. People like to like Brazil. They want to like Brazil, want to see Brazil well’,22 explained a journalist at ‘The New York Times’. This positive image is linked to the fact that the respondents see Brazil as having a lot of potential, even if it is not fulfilled. ‘Brazil is a giant that has never reached its full economic potential’,23 said a researcher at Canning House. According to a British diplomat, Brazil has everything in terms of natural resources and a great deal of unrealized potential ‘The enormity of the natural resources that Brazil has and the basis that it provides and ought to provide for a wealthy, prosperous, successful, outward-looking country’.24 The potential was also mentioned by a professor at the School of International Studies at Renmin University of China: Brazil has the potential to be more than a regional leader. You have abundant territory; you have a lot of natural resources, and you have a big population. Brazil has every element that a superpower can have. I see a lot of potential. You have abundant resources. China is very jealous of that. You need to focus on how to use that.25

6.2

Appearance Over Substance

Brazil’s ambitions to achieve higher status have been noticed by states with more power and prestige. The discussion about this ambition is marked by two very prevalent views about Brazil, namely that this ambition is based on the fact that Brazil has a misperception of itself; at the same time the state appears to have been unable to develop a clear strategy to attempt to reach the status it desires. From the perspective of the P5, 21 Interviewee identified as UK8 (British politician), interviewed by the author, February 11, 2019. 22 Interviewee identified as US12 (American journalist), interviewed by the author, March 26, 2019. 23 Interviewee identified as UK10 (British think tank researcher), interviewed by the author, January 18, 2019. 24 UK3, interview. 25 Interviewee identified as CH5 (Chinese academic), interviewed by the author, May

26, 2019.

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all the different attempts to project the state and increase Brazil’s status discussed earlier in this book show a lack of ability to focus on creating a clear plan for the state. Brazil, they claim, appears to be shooting in every direction possible, and thus ends up without a clear and possible path to improve its standing. This perception is aligned with part of the scholarship on Brazilian foreign policy which points to the fact that Brazil never developed a clear plan to guide its actions in the world, and that it lacks a coherent national strategy—a reference to how a state can best secure its interests (Brands 2010; Spektor 2016; Degaut and Kalout 2017; Hitchcock 2016). This criticism focuses on the idea that a strategy should be more than a path or series of steps towards an objective and more a dynamic process accounting for constant changes in a dynamic system, as well as the unpredictable consequences created by that very strategy (Hitchcock 2016). This is an important caveat of the Brazilian pursuit of international status, since scholars argue that a state that wants to assume a global role or exercise leadership needs a strategic state project, focused on the long term and capable of giving coherence and cohesion to current projects (Degaut and Kalout 2017). Even if it is true that Brazil clearly focused on development, autonomy, insertion and other goals, it never developed a clear-cut grand strategy and successive governments shied away from offering an explicit and comprehensive vision of the reformed global order they claim to want to create. Brazilian leaders have only developed vague notions of global order and never articulated their own coherent vision of that order based on domestic politics, ideology and the state’s relative position in the international political and economic system (Spektor 2016). Not only that, Brazilian foreign policy did not help to shape an effective global strategy that captures and reflects genuine national interests and transcends the perspectives of an isolated administration or a governing party (Degaut and Kalout 2017). Without a clear national strategy, studies about Brazilian foreign policy show that the state pursued many different paths in order to achieve higher status in an attempt to reformulate international institutions and achieve a more important role in global politics. This can be interpreted as part of what is perceived by the FPC of the P5 as inconsistency in its international agenda. This analysis is reflected in the theme ‘An ambitious state without a plan’, developed from the empirical study of this research. The main idea is that the FPC of the P5 sees Brazil as thinking it is destined to be one of

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the great powers of the world, and this ambition for international status and recognition has driven a lot of what the state has done internationally. However, this is viewed as being based on a misperception of its own role in the world, it is not clear what the state wants an international voice for, and a lot of this drive for status is more connected to rhetoric than to the reality of the actions of the state. The thematic map below shows how the different ideas around this subject are connected in the assessment of the respondents of this research (Fig. 6.2). The interviewees commented that Brazil has a lot of international ambition, wants to be recognized as more than a regional power and has been looking to achieve the status of one of the major powers of the world, a state with a strong voice in international politics. They argue, however, that this is based on a lack of understanding inside the state about its real global role and significance. The FPC of the P5 argues that this ambition is marked by a lot of rhetoric, and it is not clear why the country wants status and what it would do if it achieved this recognition. This leads to a perception that Brazil does not really know what it wants, apart from recognition, and the state ends up seen as not having a clear role in the world, as discussed by a former British ambassador to Brazil:

Fig. 6.2 Thematic map ‘An ambitious state without a plan’

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There is something on the... I was going to say in the Brazilian psyche, and there is something there, but I think that is something certainly in the perceptions of the Brazilian elite of their country, and certainly something in the foreign policy traditions and the sort of ethos of the Itamaraty that is always there. ‘We want to be out there in the world, we have played a very significant role and very many ways, and we want to build on it’.26

A very common argument among the interviewees from the P5 is that while Brazil has a long history of ambition for international recognition, its international behaviour is perceived as erratic, not based on the real capabilities of the state, and full of rhetoric, as mentioned by a diplomat and former US chargé d’affaires in Brazil. In his view, Brazil has always had this self-image of a great power, but it never managed to step up to the place. ‘They are often more concerned about appearance than about reality. (…) Instead of acting and participating, they go for the showing. (…) And there always seems to be a substitution of appearance over substance’.27 In his opinion, the country wants the recognition, but it does not want to have to do the things that would substantiate the recognition. ‘They always want to talk the talk but they don’t walk the walk’.28 While the general perception among the FPC of the P5 is that Brazil does not have a clear agenda and strategy other than the ambition to have more status, there was a sense of some points that are more consistent in the way Brazil deals with the rest of the world. These were the affirmation of the sovereignty of the state and the defence of non-interventionist policies. But some other points were also mentioned as consistent, such as support for ‘peace, multilateralism, development’,29 as explained by an academic at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies. ‘In general, Brazilian foreign policy is very careful, very measured and also has this traditional instinct of non-intervention and not speaking ill of anybody’,30

26 Interviewee identified as UK5 (British diplomat), interviewed by the author, April 26, 2018. 27 Interviewee identified as US9 (American diplomat), interviewed by the author, April 29, 2019. 28 US9, interview. 29 Interviewee identified as CH3 (Chinese think tank researcher), interviewed by the

author, May/June, 2019. 30 UK4, interview.

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said a former British ambassador to Brazil. According to an American scholar who worked with the US think tanks, there is a recognition in Washington, DC, that Brazil has been very consistent over the decades in preserving a belief in sovereignty and non-intervention in Latin America, particularly in South America, and that it may be a stabilizing factor in the region. ‘Brazil is seen as consistent and predictable in that regard’.31 For most interviewees, however, Brazil does not appear to have a consistent agenda to achieve the status it wants and ends up without a clear role, or even a definitive status in the world. ‘I can’t say exactly what Brazil wants’,32 said a French researcher at the Observatoire Politique de l’Amérique latine et des Caraïbes. A Chinese scholar assessed that one of Brazil’s weaknesses is that it does not have a policy consistency, which is demonstrated by the political system of the country. He went on to criticize democracy itself and the alternation of parties in power as being responsible for this lack of consistency and contrasted it with China, where there is only one voice, the communist party. ‘Democracy itself has nothing to do with economic development (…). I can predict China’s politics in ten years. I cannot predict Brazilian politics for two years’.33 According to an American scholar of politics and international relations, there is a lot of frustration among policymakers in Washington, DC, that Brazil has not played a robust enough international role and is being an uncertain partner. ‘Some of that is a consequence of democracy. But there is also the fact that even when Brazil is seen as a reliable and good faith partner, it has did not take a strong role as the United States would want’.34 The perceived lack of a consistent agenda is so strong that some respondents argued it was not possible to clearly see what Brazil’s status and role in the world are. This was the perception of a British diplomat who served as Deputy Head of Mission in the British Embassy in Brazil: I don’t think that Brazil has a role. I think that as a nation it is too worried about playing a role, and taking sides, which means it doesn’t really have a role (...) Brazil has a lot of potential, power and strength, but it is too 31 US1, interview. 32 FR6, interview. 33 Interviewee identified as CH8 (Chinese academic), interviewed by the author, July 11, 2019. 34 US1, interview.

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scared, too frightened, to upset people, take sides. It should be a bigger player than it is, but because of its reluctance to get involved, it ends up weak. (...) I can give you other examples of where Brazil’s behaviour like that, because they don’t want to take sides, means that they end up doing more harm than good.35

One very important point related to this is that the interviewees argued that with international power and status comes a high price in responsibilities. Brazil seems contradictory, as it does not appear to want to bear the costs of being influential in the world. It is a perception that may hinder Brazil’s ambitions, since the states with more prestige see it as wanting to have a stronger role than it has capacity for, while focusing more on the appearances than on substance and actions, as exemplified by the discussion put forward by a former French ambassador to Brazil: The fact of acquiring a new power poses the problem of worldwide responsibility. This means that Brazil needs to take risks, accept having enemies, or at least have disagreements and be less consensual. From this point of view, Brazil was faced with a number of contradictions. It is a country of the north and a country of the south, and when you are a country of both at the same time it creates problems of coherence, and it is very difficult to balance the two. It is a country that poses itself as not belligerent, but that at the same time participates in governance that forces it to assume responsibilities and therefore it means very complicated things.36

Apart from the debate about Brazil being its own biggest enemy, the perception that the state does not have a clear international strategy can also be understood as a way for higher-status states not to recognize the status Brazil wants and not to concede to it in multilateral venues. The fact that Brazil is not perceived as having long-term, consistent foreign policy strategies does not indicate, however, that states that are recognized as great powers do so and have that status because of this. Each state has its own interests and motivations and has achieved high status in different situations, mostly for its hard power capabilities. What the data shows is that great powers do not perceive Brazil as projecting a clear sense of what it wants and how it wants to achieve it. The only thing that 35 Interviewee identified as UK12 (British diplomat), interviewed by the author, December 5, 2018. 36 FR11, interview.

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appears to be clear is that the state wants prestige but has not laid out to the P5 why these powerful states should recognize it, why it wants to have higher status and what would it do in the event that it was able to become one of the major players in the world. One problem the FPC of the P5 observes in the lack of a consistent agenda to increase Brazil’s status is that they see that it has long been trying to insert itself internationally in a chaotic and disorganized way. Instead of what is seen as an attempt to have relevance everywhere in international relations, analysis of the interviews with the respondents of the P5 shows that they believe Brazil should ‘pick its fights’ and ‘play to its strengths’ in order to advance its interests. From this, these external observers propose a series of paths that Brazil could take in order to improve its global status and achieve recognition. This assessment of the means by which Brazil could achieve higher status has led to the development of two different but connected themes from the analysis of the interviews collected in this research. The first one focuses on the economy, by far the most frequently cited way the respondents believe Brazil can improve its status. The second one is more varied and shows a series of different areas that could become the ‘fights’ Brazil could pick and the strengths it could use to try to achieve recognition and become a more important international player. The economy and domestic development are seen as the main paths for Brazil to increase its status in international politics. Since the state is perceived as not having a lot of hard power, and it does not pursue an increase in its military power, Brazil’s role in general depends on its economic weight in the world. It is important to note, however, that economic power can be understood as a category of hard power and that increasing Brazil’s economic weight can be understood as a means to improve its hard power without resorting to investments in military force. While it is possible to argue that economic development is the goal and interest of every state in the contemporary world, it is not something that can be done just by will and it is a difficult process. From the perspective of the interviewees, however, it could be a good path for Brazil because it already has the capabilities to improve its economic standing and is already putting a lot of effort into that, as mentioned by a professor of public management at Fudan University in China: In the modern world, economic power is more important than nuclear weapons. In the global world, it is more important. Nuclear weapons are a

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potential threat, and everyone knows that they will probably not be used, actually. The UN is important for countries to cooperate, exchange ideas and do a lot of international global exchanges. So, I think that economic power and culture are even more important than nuclear weapons.37

Even if the economy is the main path for Brazil to seek higher status, according to the perceptions of the FPC of the P5, the state can still try to use different strategies to pursue its ambitions for recognition as an important international player. The paths suggested are linked to a discussion about the role Brazil plays and can play in international relations. Some of the cited paths for more status are regional leadership, multilateralism, diplomatic professionalism, participations in PKOs, environmental politics, participation in BRICs, promotion of democracy, mediation of conflicts, food and agriculture, popular political leadership (such as Lula da Silva and Cardoso) and non-proliferation politics. It is interesting to note, however, that apart from the focus on the economy, there seems not to be a clear consensus among the FPC of the P5 about the means for Brazil to build more status. So many different paths are cited that at some points, they seem to be as absent in focus as Brazil’s perceived lack of strategy itself. It seems that, depending on the state the interviewee is from, and on the beliefs they have about international relations, different perspectives are proposed as valid for Brazil. These contradictions, as well as a meritocratic view that Brazil does not have higher status because of its own domestic problems, show that the perception elites in powerful states have about Brazil are influenced by the way they think about their own states and their prestige in IR. As discussed in this chapter, these critical views about Brazil’s ambitions can be justified by a certain immobility of the global status quo, and the difficulties in accepting the rise of a new power (unless it is able to force its acceptance through force). It is clear in the analysis of the data that there is an inconsistency between what Brazil wants its status to be and that which is recognized by great powers, and that it is perceived as a pawn, a state without relevance in the big decisions of global politics. Understanding these inconsistencies, as well as the views of beholders in powerful states, can help the 37 Interviewee identified as CH9 (Chinese academic), interviewed by the author, June 5, 2019.

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state better understand its place and role in the world, and develop more efficient strategies to pursue its interests in the international stratified society.

References Beaumont, Paul, and Pål Røren. 2020. ‘Brazil’s Status Struggles: Why Nice Guys Finish Last’. In Status and the Rise of Brazil, 31–48. Cham: Springer. Brands, Hal. 2010. Dilemmas of Brazilian Grand Strategy. Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College. Buarque, Daniel. 2019. ‘Brazil Is Not (Perceived as) a Serious Country: Exposing Gaps between the External Images and the International Ambitions of the Nation’. Brasiliana-Journal for Brazilian Studies 8 (1–2): 285–314. https:// doi.org/10.25160/bjbs.v8i1-2.112957. ———. 2022. ‘What Makes a Serious Country? The Status of Brazil’s Seriousness from the Perspective of Great Powers’. Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, December. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41254-022-00290-2. Burges, Sean W. 2017. Brazil in the World: The International Relations of a South American Giant. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Carvalho, Benjamin de, Maria Gabrielsen Jumbert, and Paulo Esteves. 2020. ‘Conclusion’. In Status and the Rise of Brazil, 215–26. Springer. Cervo, Amado Luiz, and Antônio Carlos. Lessa. 2014. O declínio: Inserção internacional do Brasil (2011–2014). Revista Brasileira De Política Internacional 57 (2): 133–151. https://doi.org/10.1590/0034-7329201400308. Degaut, Marcos, and Hussein Kalout. 2017. ‘Brasil: Um País em Busca de uma Grande Estratégia’. Relatório de Conjuntura 1: 1–32. https://doi.org/10. 13140/RG.2.2.33907.32801. Diaz, Miguel, and Paulo Roberto Almeida. 2008. ‘Brazil’s Candidacy for Major Power Status’. Stanley Foundation. Doctor, Mahrukh. 2015. Brazil’s Role in Institutions of Global Economic Governance: The WTO and G20. Global Society 29 (3): 286–300. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/13600826.2015.1025041. Hirst, Mônica, and Andrew Hurrell. 2005. The United States and Brazil: A Long Road of Unmet Expectations. Contemporary Inter-American Relations. New York: Routledge. Hitchcock, William I. 2016. ‘Introduction: Making National Strategy in the Twenty-First Century’. In Shaper Nations: Strategies for a Changing World. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Hurrell, Andrew. 2005. ‘The United States and Brazil: Comparative Reflections’. In The United States and Brazil: A Long Road of Unmet Expectations. New York: Routledge.

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———. 2008. ‘Lula’s Brazil: A Rising Power, but Going Where?’ Current History 107 (706): 51–57. https://doi.org/10.1525/curh.2008.107.706.51. ———. 2010. ‘Brazil and the New Global Order’. Current History 109 (724): 60–66. Jumbert, Maria Gabrielsen, and Torkjell Leira. 2020. ‘A Brief Moment in History or the Beginning of a New Trend? Brazil’s Emerging Humanitarian Engagement in a Broader Context’. In Status and the Rise of Brazil, 177–94. Springer. Lafer, Celso. 2000. Brazilian International Identity and Foreign Policy: Past, Present, and Future. Daedalus 129 (2): 207–238. Lebow, Richard Ned. 2016. National Identities and International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Malamud, Andrés. 2017. Foreign Policy Retreat: Domestic and Systemic Causes of Brazil’s International Rollback. Rising Powers Quarterly 2 (2): 149–168. Mares, David R., and Harold A. Trinkunas. 2016. Aspirational Power: Brazil on the Long Road to Global Influence. Geopolitics in the 21st Century. Washington, D.C: Brookings Institution Press. Ricupero, Rubens. 2017. A Diplomacia Na Construção Do Brasil 1750–2016. Rio de Janeiro: Versal. Røren, Pål., and Paul Beaumont. 2019. Grading Greatness: Evaluating the Status Performance of the BRICS. Third World Quarterly 40 (3): 429–450. https:// doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2018.1535892. Spektor, Matias. 2016. ‘Brazil: Shadows of the Past and Contested Ambitions’. In Shaper Nations: Strategies for a Changing World, 17–35. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Stolte, Christina. 2015. Brazil’s Africa Strategy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137499578. Zakaria, Fareed. 1999. From Wealth to Power: The Unusual Origins of America’s World Role. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Zanini, Fabio. 2017. Euforia e Fracasso Do Brasil Grande: Política Externa e Multinacionais Brasileiras Da Era Lula. Editora Contexto.

CHAPTER 7

Reaching New Heights: Towards a Theory of Recognition of New Powers

Brazil was not able to achieve recognition for the level of prestige it aspired to have. While this analysis exposes what could be interpreted as a failure to increase the status of one state, it may also offer clues about the immobility of the status quo, the difficulties faced by other states aspiring to increase their prestige and strategies they could adopt in their pursuit of higher status. This chapter builds on the case study of Brazil’s intersubjective status to set out a theory-building element in order to develop hypotheses to understand how states that aspire to achieve the level of prestige of great power can act to shift status and graduate to be recognized as a part of the group of states that are established as the most powerful in the world. The voluntary conferral of prestige is traditionally seen as one of the main points differentiating the concepts of status and power. If other states do not defer and recognize one’s attempt to have a high level of prestige, then the pursuit of status itself may be a useless delusion. So far, however, the scholarship still has not developed a sense of if, when or how often states defer to those increasing their status, how to differentiate it from coercion or how to translate the behaviour of states into voluntary deference (Anderson et al. 2015; MacDonald and Parent 2021; Mercer 2017; Paul et al. 2014). Although the concept of status mentions recognition as being voluntary, it is clearly not something that is akin to © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Buarque, Brazil’s International Status and Recognition as an Emerging Power, Governance, Development, and Social Inclusion in Latin America, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47575-7_7

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a welcoming acquiescence to including another member in the most elite club. Recognition only happens when the established great powers either have no option but to accept the emergence of a new power that imposes itself as a peer or when it becomes advantageous for them to have a new member in their high-status club. Although it is fundamental for high status to be realized, Jonathan Mercer argues that political incentives make it unlikely that any given state may obtain voluntary deference. Part of this is due to the fact that status is relational and can be zero-sum; that is, a state’s prestige increases when another state’s prestige decreases. This situation allows one to expect status assessments to be political and functional, since the consequences of attributing prestige influence the attribution of prestige (Mercer 2017). Other scholars have argued that the international status hierarchy includes structural advantages to some actors that favour the reproduction of the status quo (Beaumont and Røren 2020). This is explained by the fact that states that have high status want to continue to do so. If other states start to increase their status, it might risk the level of prestige of the ones at the top, because if every state has high status, no one state will really have status anymore (Pu and Schweller 2014; Schweller 1999; Wohlforth 2009). High-status actors are also prone to fear of losing their upper rank and resisting the efforts of emergent states due to this type of status anxiety (De Botton 2008; Onea 2014; S. Ward 2017). Powerful states, the literature argues, worry about their identities, values and way of life, which are tied to the conservation of their high status. The closer the rising power gets to recognition of having high status, the more intense the status anxiety it generates and the greater the likelihood of recognition being denied by others in order to impede new arrivals’ advancement, conserve superiority and recoup possible losses (Onea 2014). Without this recognition of emergence of new great powers, the global hierarchy may be stuck in a situation of immobility, which maintains the status quo and limits the rise of new powers, frustrating emergent states and endangering international stability. If great powers do not willingly grant equal status, how can a state make them do so? Brazil’s failure in this endeavour, viewed through the interviews, helps us to understand this and allows for the development of a ‘model’ of becoming ‘great’. This is particularly important for smaller and emerging states that do not have the same amount of power capability as the states that are already recognized as great powers. If these incumbent states want to have more status, their strategies to achieve it normally include methods

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other than increasing hard power, instead focusing on soft attributes and other types of strategies (Larson and Shevchenko 2019; Neumann and Carvalho 2014). While the contemporary P5 inherited status from the post-war period, states that aspire to achieve more status and attain membership in groups like the UNSC are seen as social climbers and their efforts often backfire. The strategies of climbing are seen as violating accepted rules for the acquisition and use of social and cultural capital (McNamee and Miller 2004). This reinforces the challenges faced by the states that want to have higher status and makes it even more difficult to convince the elite club to accept them as a peer. It is possible to see that the intersubjective perception of status is also linked to each state’s own interests. This assessment disagrees with John Mearsheimer’s argument that states are always trying to increase their power and that there is no status quo (Mearsheimer 2001). From the analysis of the case of Brazil within a framework of status in IR, it would be possible to say that even if states with the highest levels of prestige continue to compete with one another, they are also interested in maintaining the status quo, avoiding new actors’ rise to share the benefits and privileges of their high status. Any change in the composition of the highstatus club would be seen by them as bringing uncertainty and risks to the balance established, while the status quo allows for minimizing risks while dealing with competition the states are already familiar with. The concept of status quo has long been popular within realist theories. It is derived from status quo ante bellum, a diplomatic term referring to peace treaties and the restoration of pre-war sovereignty. It aims at the maintenance of the distribution of power which exists at a particular moment in history. This does not mean that the policy of the status quo is opposed to all types of change, but just that it rejects changes in the power and status relations that configure the balance of power as legitimate (Gilpin 1981; Morgenthau 1997). Leaving the realist approach aside and focusing more directly on status, established powers can have different reasons to deny recognition to aspiring states. Studies have argued that status may operate based on the deterrence model. This means that the rejection of status demands would dissuade states from seeking to overturn the status quo (Dafoe et al. 2014; Dore 1975; Jervis 2017; MacDonald and Parent 2021; Singer and Small 1966).

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Scholars have argued that high-status states can be willing to accommodate status demands if they can exchange recognition for political, economic or institutional gains (Larson and Shevchenko 2019; MacDonald and Parent 2021). Status is only ‘voluntarily’ conferred as part of a process of social exchange in which a state may defer to the status of another with the goal of receiving help in accomplishing their own goals (Anderson et al. 2015). It is important to consider the behaviour of those states with high status and the possible incentives they might have to recognize, or not, any other state as an important global player. Understanding the difficulties in having voluntarism of high-status states in recognizing emerging ones and the apparent immobility of the international hierarchy as well as the interest of great powers in keeping the status quo may be frustrating, as seen in the case of Brazil. However, understanding this case and the intersubjective perceptions of the FPC of the P5 also shows that there are means to develop strategies that can allow for a state to gain recognition as a great power, a state able to shape and manage the international system.

7.1

How to Achieve Higher Status

It may be difficult for any given state to convince great powers to voluntarily recognize it as a peer, as having high international status, and sharing their level of prestige. Nevertheless, the global hierarchy is not completely stable, and through time, there has been clear cases of states that were able to transition and graduate to higher status. Even considering the period since WWII, which established the P5 as the main great powers, other states were able to increase their level of power and prestige and share some of the responsibilities of shaping and managing the international system. Germany and Japan, for example, are two states that have requested permanent seats at the UNSC, and although they were not able to achieve that, it is clear their status is not much lower than the ones of established great powers such as the United Kingdom and France, for example. Japan is considered a fundamental player in the Pacific, while Germany features as one of the most important players in the European Union, being included in the group P5+1 in situations such as the nuclear deal between the West and Iran. Different rising powers, such as Brazil, India, South Africa, and even the established P5 states of China and Russia,

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have faced different prospects in their attempt to achieve full recognition as great powers. Table 7.1 summarizes the main ideas developed from the analysis of the data of the interviews concerning the means a state can use to increase its status. Generally speaking, these strategies do not rank in terms of importance—apart from ‘Slowly Building Influence’, which can be a way of accumulating prestige but may prove more difficult to be enough for a state to become a great power. Furthermore, the strategies are not mutually exclusive and should probably be pursued in combination with one another—as the advance in one of them can imply that others advance as well. The following sub-sections will address each of the strategies presented based on the analysis of the interviews. 7.1.1

With Great Power Comes Great Costs

One general idea that stands out from all different strategies and that can also help understanding how ‘voluntary’ recognition from great powers is, is the interpretation that a state that is really significant to world politics is invited to participate and does not have to spend a lot of time knocking on doors asking to be accepted. A state with a status high enough to shape the international order will be included in the discussions about it without having to continually claim it is supposed to be recognized. As one interviewee explained, being an active player internationally is not a means to be a great power, it is a recognition that a given state already is a great power.1 A respondent from France offered a similar view, arguing that when a state is ready to be a great power, as to become a permanent member of the UNSC, it is the other states who come to look for it.2 There is no use in asking for status; a state needs to make itself indispensable and ready to take a stand on any security issues that arise. ‘You can’t just ask for a membership of the Security Council and expect it to be given, without demonstrating that you

1 Interviewee identified as US4 (American academic), interviewed by the author, March 27, 2019. 2 Interviewee identified as FR2 (French academic), interviewed by the author, May 15, 2018.

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Table 7.1 Strategies to attempt to achieve great power status Strategy

Summary

Paying the price

Being a great power has high costs and obligations. A state aspiring to higher status would need to act as one that really attempts to have a leadership role. With international power and status comes a high price in responsibilities, in taking risks. This includes accepting the consequences of taking sides in international disputes and making hard decisions about global politics while accepting that one will create enemies, or at least have disagreements The foreign policy community of established great powers has a clear perception that soft power is not enough to lead a state to a higher status. It is necessary to build hard power capabilities. There is, however, a divergence about the type of hard power. While some interviewees believe military power is essential, most of the respondents tended to focus more on economic power as a source of international influence. The international identity and the status of a state is a reflection not only of its ambitions but of its domestic reality. For many interviewees, a state that wants to be a great power needs to focus on having a developed internal situation to become a model to the world. Thus, fixing the domestic situation is a means to increase international status Taking sides in international disputes and forming alliances with already established great powers is perceived as a means to increase the status of an aspiring state—even if it may create friction with other great powers that are competitors. States tend to be more positively evaluated by others if they are perceived as being instrumentally valuable to their powerful beholders. And states that avoid taking sides tend to face difficulties when trying to increase their status A slower strategy is to build a track record of international importance by focusing ‘on the low-hanging fruit’, establishing the state as an important payer in helping resolve issues on the international scene and working on regional and multilateral issues that can benefit from the participation of lesser powers in order to gradually increase the status of a state

Building hard power capabilities

Fixing the domestic scene

Bandwagoning for status

Slowly building influence

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are prepared to take on the obligations that that entails’,3 argued a British respondent. To be a great power, states need to go beyond rhetoric and accept the costs that are associated with this status. A state aspiring to higher status would need to act as one that really attempts to have a leadership role and not as one that just wants to have high status for status’s sake. Many states, such as Brazil, it is argued, have a clear discourse about wanting to have high status, while their actions do not align with that. As one of them explained, an aspiring state ‘needs to not only talk the talk, but to walk the walk’,4 be prepared to act as a great power and deal with the risks and costs that may come with it. The costs of being a great power may begin with the natural realist approach of investing in military spending. As discussed in earlier chapters, this has traditionally been one of the key methods of analysing the international status of a nation, and it is clear that many states invest a lot in it in order to gain prestige (Gilady 2017). This is evidenced by the roles that not only the P5 have but also other states have relevant global roles, such as India and Israel. It might not be enough to make a state a permanent member of the UNSC, but it is surely something that creates a reputation as a relevant player. It is also through this military spending that we can see the costs of fighting wars, which are traditionally seen by realists as the main path through which states can change their status. Within the hard power costs of being a great power, there is also the price of working globally to ensure the stability of the international monetary system, as within the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Although there has been a shift in the IMF in recent decades, with the growing participation of emerging economies such as Brazil and India, the Fund is still mostly controlled by great powers, especially the P5 (with the United States contributing about $117 billion in IMF quota and $44 billion in supplemental funds), as well as Germany (the fourth largest member of the IMF) and Italy (‘The International Monetary Fund’ 2022; ‘IMF—International Monetary Annual Report 2016’ 2016). But there are also many other costs to states that manage the international order, without prioritizing the realist vein. There is, of course, the cost of funding the world’s main organization for deliberating matters 3 Interviewee identified as UK3 (British diplomat), interviewed by the author, December 12, 2018. 4 Interviewee identified as US9 (American diplomat), interviewed by the author, April 29, 2019.

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of peace and security, the UN. Although all members of the UN are required to make payments to certain parts of the organization, great powers tend to cover most of the donations for its functioning. The United States, for example, has been a major funder of the organization for more than seventy years. In 2020, it contributed more than $11 billion, which accounted for just under one-fifth of funding for the UN budget. Although it is the most powerful and richest states in the world, the United States is not alone in paying for the UN and using this as part of a drive for more international prestige among great powers. Especially in recent decades, China boosted its commitments to the UN, funding as much as 14% of the peacekeeping budget in 2020 (‘How Much Does the U.S. Contribute to the UN?’ n.d.). Apart from the P5, other states that appear at the top of the list of donors to the UN are Germany, Japan, Sweden, Canada, Norway and Italy. All states have strong international voices, even if they are not great powers themselves (‘Revenue by Government Donor|United Nations—CEB’ n.d.). There are also the costs of international aid, formally known as Official Development Assistance (ODA), which helps boost the status of a state and enables recognition. Great powers such as the P5 spend a lot annually in foreign aid. ODA is defined as government aid that promotes and specifically targets the economic development and welfare of developing countries (which does not include military support or commercial transactions). According to the OECD, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan and France are the five states that contribute the most to ODA, with combined total donations of over $120 billion in 2020 (‘WHAT IS ODA?’ 2021). There are also other forms of international development investment, such as the Belt and Road Initiative, which reportedly costs China $85 billion annually (Bagchi 2021). Political and moral costs connected to increasing the status of a state are important as well. On the one hand, there is the expectation that great powers take sides when working in managing the international order. It is expected that they make decisions, and this may create friction with nations that do not benefit from those decisions. In 2022, for example, when Russia invaded Ukraine, the West aligned in criticism of the Russian government, while China avoided taking a stand against its BRICS ally. States that avoided taking sides, such as Brazil, were criticized for not having a clear position (Heine 2023; Tabosa 2023; Marins 2023). It is expected that great powers assume clear stands in international disputes, even if this may create problems for those states.

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With international power and status comes a high price in responsibilities, taking risks and accepting that enemies will be made, or at least that there will be disagreements, as explained by a former French ambassador to Brazil.5 Instead of inflating the rhetoric of its foreign policy and pretending to be a major power with stakes in every big global debate, an aspiring state should focus on stabilizing domestic issues and developing its economy, leaving an expansion of its international role to be a consequence of this development. Instead of asking for recognition, a state should try to achieve it by making it impossible for great powers to deny this higher status. An aspiring state needs to demonstrate that it is prepared to take on the obligations that that entails, argued a British diplomat.6 The state has to ‘pay for it’,7 according to a French historian. As Richard Ned Lebow explains, high-status roles ‘require the holders of these roles to fulfil responsibilities and conform to a higher standard in their behaviour than other states’ (Lebow 2016, 105). States willing to achieve the status of great power must be concerned not only with the appearances but also with the reality of power disputes in the world, connected to practical ways of acting and exercising this level of prestige. The state willing to be recognized needs to be ready not only to be called a leader but to actually lead. This includes participating in international discussions, trying to have a place in the decision tables, participating in a constructive way and not only trying to abstain from taking sides. ‘With greater involvement comes greater responsibility and accountability’,8 argued one respondent. As an American interviewee explained, power only exists if the state that has it is willing to use it, so great powers must be prepared to exercise it. ‘Power is only good if you use it. It is kind of like money. You can save all you want, but if you don’t spend it you are not going to get anything from it’.9 The argument is that a state can be big, it can trade and it can have relationships with 5 Interviewee identified as FR11 (French diplomat), interviewed by the author, March 8, 2019. 6 UK3, interview. 7 Interviewee identified as FR1 (French academic), interviewed by the author, May 9,

2018. 8 Interviewee identified as UK12 (British diplomat), interviewed by the author, December 5, 2018. 9 Interviewee identified as US3 (American think tank director), interviewed by the author, March 27, 2019.

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other states, but it will only achieve recognition if it is willing to throw that weight around to get what it wants. A state that aspires to high status must be ready to explain how it would use this recognition. It needs to demonstrate that it has a clear and consistent agenda and strategy to project itself internationally and explain to other states why it should become a major player, what it would do if it had a strong international voice. Acquiring power status poses the problem of world responsibility, a French interviewee explained.10 This means that a state that wants status needs to take risks, accept having enemies, or be less consensual. 7.1.2

The Hard Power Path

As discussed earlier, established great powers believe that it is necessary for aspiring states to have some form of hard power—be it economic or military—in order to achieve recognition as their peer. In fact, throughout history, power transitions usually depended on hard power capabilities. And the United States’ rise to the top of the global hierarchy at the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth century has been described as the most relevant peaceful transition, but it still depended on the state’s participation in the two World Wars and economic leadership in the period following. More recently, states that have been willing to achieve recognition have still mostly used hard power. This is cited as the case of Russia, which felt marginalized from the leadership positions after the collapse of the Soviet Union, even though it still remained in the P5. Yet it has managed to push itself back into those debates on the basis of its military power (although this could change after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when the initial efforts of the aggression appeared not to be able to take hold of the state). This shows the possible limits of this military might since Russia was excluded and marginalized economically, condemned at the UN and became isolated and criticized by most of the world. China, on the other hand, invested in military power, but focused mostly on its economic might to become a more important player and has been recognized as such. Other cases showed that sometimes even having hard power it is not possible to shift the status quo. Japan, for example, used its economic development to try to be a great power in the 1980s, but it

10 FR11, interview.

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was not able to sustain that economy, which limited its role in the world. India has been trying to achieve high status, and it has nuclear weapons but has not been able to project itself beyond its region—where it is also pressured by the might of China and its rivalry with Pakistan (Larson and Shevchenko 2014, 2019). As a British respondent explained, to become a major power a state needs to be strong in all possible areas. Having soft power might help, but it needs the military force to be credible to defend the state. It also needs the economic strength to underline military power and to allow it to become a major trading partner around the world. And from all of that comes the international political influence.11 This interpretation was repeated by interviewees from all states of the P5. ‘If the United States were not an economic superpower, nobody was going to follow it because of its values’,12 argued a Chinese respondent. Similarly, ‘Chinese economic development began to spread Chinese values and norms, Chinese policies, etc. It is not soft power’.13 A state willing to find a high position in international politics needs to go beyond the story they try to sell, a Russian interviewee argued: ‘You are either selling your economy or your political power. Because in international affairs it is all that rigid pragmatism’.14 The world is still ruled by realpolitik, another Russian respondent explained.15 That is why it is still very important to have hard power potential. Ultimately, an American interviewee argued, a state needs to be able to take hard power action, or at least to show that it is able to do so and ability to follow through on its international positions when negotiating and imposing conditions. ‘The idea is that you can either contribute or not contribute. You have power or you don’t have power. You have resources or you don’t have resources’.16 Hard power is often used to refer only to military power, but it also encompasses economic might. Economic development has been described 11 UK3, interview. 12 Interviewee identified as CH8 (Chinese academic), interviewed by the author, July

11, 2019. 13 CH8, interview. 14 Interviewee identified as RU3 (Russian academic), interviewed by the author, May

7, 2019. 15 Interviewee identified as RU4 (Russian academic), interviewed by the author, May 4, 2019. 16 US3, interview.

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by the interviewees in this research as the main path a state could follow to achieve higher status. It was suggested as the preferable path for Brazil’s attempt to rise, and it was also associated with the rise of China as a rival to the American hegemony in the twenty-first century. According to one Chinese respondent, economic power has become more important than nuclear weapons for international projection.17 The argument is that even if nuclear weapons are a potential threat, ‘everyone knows that they will probably not be used’.18 According to an American interviewee, the importance of the economy can be true especially because it can also be used as a device to lever another state into a position.19 A British respondent followed a similar argument: ‘Power influence in the world still depends a lot on economic success. You can’t expect to exert lasting influence and impact in the world globally as a Western society unless you have got the economic wealth to back it up’.20 The idea is that it is a state’s economic strength that underpins foreign policy success. Part of growing up in the international system, interviewees explained, part of being taken seriously as an agent of influence depends on the ability to stand up and to be heard. And strong economies have their opinions globally respected. Through economic development, a state can make itself indispensable in world politics, which puts it closer to the status of great power. According to a British respondent, a state whose economic fortunes have an impact internationally, whose markets are so big that there would be a clamour for investors to go over there, is closer to having its status recognized.21 The economy is a central piece to any effort to project power in the sense that ‘you can’t be a global power if you can’t trade and if you can’t invest in other countries, or if you can’t buy products from other countries, so the economy is’,22 argued an American interviewee. 17 Interviewee identified as CH9 (Chinese academic), interviewed by the author, June 5, 2019. 18 CH9, interview. 19 Interviewee identified as US8 (American diplomat), interviewed by the author, April

9, 2019. 20 UK3, interview. 21 Interviewee identified as UK8 (British politician), interviewed by the author,

February 11, 2019. 22 Interviewee identified as US7 (American diplomat), interviewed by the author, April 5, 2019.

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The economy is seen as an important source of prestige for many other states—even if they are not great powers. A French respondent argued other states were able to increase their prestige via economic development, such as South Korea and Taiwan—even if they did not become great powers.23 In case of states that want to increase their status, a British interviewee argued, ‘if the economy could fulfil its potential this would both improve domestic living standards and generate new respect amongst other nations’.24 Similarly, even states that are closer to middlepower status can have international influence due to economic power. ‘Countries like Finland, better yet Norway and Sweden, have international influence of considerable extent because they have a certain moral ethical basis in the way they deal with international issues, they have successful economies, they look like somewhat models’,25 an American respondent explained. The economy is also an important argument to explain why the United States has recognized a higher status for Germany and Japan, which the Americans support in their bid to become permanent members of the UNSC—even if they do not have nuclear weapons. According to an American interviewee, these two states were accepted, and Brazil was not, because of their economic power. ‘Japan is a key country in terms of our relations in East Asia, with China. Germany has been a leader both economically within the EU and in NATO’.26 Nevertheless, military power is still considered by many of the interviewees as one of the main attributes it can use to pursue prestige. For the great powers’ elites, without military power, a state cannot make its voice heard in a systematic and independent way. A state aspiring for status would need to show that it is strong and make the world listen to it. Considering that great powers refuse to share power, an aspiring state needs to forcibly convince the status quo that it needs to be at the decision table, otherwise, there can be disruption. Hard power makes others

23 Interviewee identified as FR4 (French diplomat), interviewed by the author, April 11, 2019. 24 Interviewee identified as UK1 (British politician), interviewed by the author, March 1, 2019. 25 Interviewee identified as US10 (American think tank director), interviewed by the author, March 21, 2019. 26 US8, interview.

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understand consequences and be willing to ‘voluntarily’ offer recognition (Larson and Shevchenko 2019; Lebow 2010; Onea 2014; Renshon 2017; S. Ward 2017). As discussed in previous chapters, many respondents in this research questioned the possibility of a state increasing its international status without resorting to military power. The point for some of the interviewees is that hard power is still what matters in international relations. According to a French respondent, the world is progressively moving towards ‘a wilder form of international relations based on questions of force’, and this minimizes the role of other types of power.27 7.1.3

Fixing Domestic Problems

As described in the analysis of Brazil’s status, great powers tend to think that international status reflects the perceptions others have about the domestic reality of a state. A successful situation of domestic reality can thus be a basis for building status. This approach reveals that the P5 applies a meritocratic view of the stratification of the global system. They believe that other states do not deserve to be recognized because of their domestic problems (as if powerful states did not have domestic problems) and that they should ‘do their homework’ and ‘fix things internally’ before being accepted as a high-status state. ‘Getting one’s house in order’ is seen as a prerequisite for global power, influence and prestige. Even if it can be argued that powerful states such as the United States, China or any other of the P5 have always had many domestic problems, they manage to continue as the most prestigious states in the international society because any disorder that might affect them does not disrupt their power fundamentals such as economic capacity, social stability and the ability to mobilize military might. When this is not the case, the lack of domestic ‘order’ can be a weakness that can be exploited by other, competitor and states and hinder the development and rise of its status. This interpretation of international prestige as a reflection of domestic realities has many problems, however, as the concept of merit-determined status has often been used to simply maintain the status quo (Bell 1972; Kim and Choi 2017; Littler 2017; Scully 2015). Contrary to the idea 27 Interviewee identified as FR12 (French think tank researcher), interviewed by the author, February 13, 2019.

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of meritocracy, however, all societies, including the international society of states, have a pronounced lack of social mobility and place continual importance on inherited wealth and power, which maintains the top of the hierarchy at the top. This apparent contradiction is not a coincidence, and the idea of meritocracy has become a key means through which plutocracy perpetuates, reproduces and extends itself (Littler 2013). Instead of a meritocracy the most important determinant of where actors such as states end up in the hierarchical pecking order is where they started in the first place (Littler 2013, 2017; McNamee and Miller 2004). Besides the possible criticism of the meritocratic interpretations of the global hierarchy, fixing domestic problems is still perceived as one means to increase the international status of a state. Getting the economic house in order was cited by an American respondent as an important step for acquiring status.28 In a similar line, a British interviewee discussed the importance of focusing on fixing itself in order to gain influence in the world,29 ‘Foreign policy is a continuation of domestic policy. They are very connected. And we cannot separate one from the other’,30 said a Chinese respondent. Interviewees from France and the United Kingdom mentioned South Korea as an example of a state that was able to improve its international standing by focusing on domestic issues. ‘The priority is to really focus on internal problems’.31 ‘When you see where South Korea was at the end of the Korean war and you see where it is now, the very well organized government used funds and has made Korea into a powerhouse’.32 Even if the example is not of a state that was able to become a great power, it is clear that it shows a path that can help a state project itself internationally as it tries to achieve recognition. As one American respondent explained, global influence comes from its ability to build a state’s domestic strength, the strength of its institutions, its economy, and its 28 US9, interview. 29 Interviewee identified as UK7 (British journalist), interviewed by the author,

December 14, 2018. 30 Interviewee identified as CH10 (Chinese diplomat), interviewed by the author, June 11, 2019. 31 Interviewee identified as FR10 (French think tank director), interviewed by the author, February 5, 2019. 32 Interviewee identified as UK6 (British diplomat), interviewed by the author, February 5, 2019.

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ability to provide good, strong public services. This was cited as ‘much more important than anything it brings to the international scene’.33 7.1.4

Bandwagoning for Status

Taking sides in global disputes and aligning with established great powers can be an important means for aspiring states to achieve more prestige, as states tend to be more positively evaluated by other states if they are perceived as being instrumentally valuable to them and that great powers tend to accept the bid for status of allies and reject those of rivals (Herrmann 2013; Larson 2019; Mercer 2017; Paul et al. 2014). Thus, the powerful states would support the actions of emerging powers within the Global South in order to diminish the costs of those powers to act in that area. States that aspire to be recognized as relevant but do not have that much power can ‘achieve status through making themselves useful to greater powers’ (Neumann and Carvalho 2014, 2). This potential alignment would not be the same as the traditional IR concepts of bandwagoning or balancing, since these are connected to the interest in joining sides of international disputes with a focus on security or on economic profit, which are not necessarily related to status (Cladi 2017; Cladi and Locatelli 2012; Schweller 1994; Walt 2013; Waltz 1979). In the context of this book, the alignment would be closer to an idea of ‘bandwagoning for status’, which would not deal with security, but with how this alignment could enhance the prestige of a given state. It could be thought of as a new concept within status scholarship. This is different from forming or leading a coalition of states in order to force status recognition, as it implies the need for a great power in the alliance, diminishing the relevance of a group of less prestigious states. Although the idea of coalitions seems intuitive as a means to gain status, has been pursued by states such as Brazil in the past, when it tried to gain support from African states, for example (Stolte 2015), and has helped to reinforce the prestige of China, it would fit better in the strategy of ‘Slowly building influence’, as it will be discussed later in this chapter. The intersubjective perception among the established great powers is that so far coalition of lesser powers has not proven to be enough to lead a state to achieve great power status, and it would be necessary to clearly

33 US10, interview.

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choose sides and align with states that already have higher status in order to do so. A country willing to be a world power needs to be prepared to take sides, a British interviewee said. ‘Given that states operate their foreign policy and international affairs on the basis of self-interest, if it wants to get the political respect, it should be prepared to take sides’.34 As an American interviewee explained, when a state starts trying to play power politics, it is going to upset people, because it needs to choose sides, to deal with the consequences of its actions that it needs to be willing to assume.35 ‘A state that wants to be friends with everybody will hardly get the political respect of a great power’,36 another British respondent argued. Similar examples were mentioned about the way that the Americans have sponsored states in other continents as their prime ally, like Israel in the Middle East, South Korea and Japan in Asia. Even though these are not great powers, they have a high degree of international prestige.37 It is true that any such alignment can be a dangerous strategy, since some international conflicts are zero-sum, such as the one perceived in the growing tensions between the United States and China or Russia and the United States. A country willing to follow this path would need to develop a strategy to strengthen the relation with the state it is aligning with without necessarily making an enemy of the states it moves away from. While choosing sides can help a state receive recognition and support from some great powers, it seriously risks alienating others, which makes it almost impossible to get unanimous support in a high-status club such as the UNSC. One interesting point, however, is that apart from the UNSC, where decisions need to be unanimous because of the veto power of the P5, great powers do not always act entirely on the basis of agreements among themselves (Lebow 2016). Although states do not want to share their status, they may have incentives to do so, such as the rise of a new enemy or the desire to maintain a balance of power. These can convince a dominant state to recognize

34 Interviewee identified as UK4 (British diplomat), interviewed by the author, April 25, 2018. 35 US3, interview. 36 UK6, interview. 37 UK8, interview.

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the status of a rising power (Larson and Shevchenko 2019). And even without recognition from all of the P5, a rising state can achieve higher status by being recognized as a peer by established great powers they align with. Although the concept of status requires aspiring states to be recognized by great powers, maybe there is not a need for a consensual decision among states in the P5, and an incumbent could be able to be recognized by some of those great powers and thus achieve the desired status. This could be interpreted as a reason to support the option of taking sides in international disputes, gaining the support of states in disputes, enhancing the status and start to project itself as a great power recognized as such. 7.1.5

Slowly Building Influence

Focusing on the strengths of a state can be another way to slowly build international prestige. Even if this may not be enough to catapult a state to high status, it can help establish an important presence as a global player, developing influence that, along with other sources of prestige, can help increase the status. Following what can be learned from the perception of the FPC of great powers about Brazil, it could be suggested that an aspiring state should focus less on trying to gain status and that a higher level of prestige could come from actions that gradually put the state in the centre of important matters of international politics. Apart from great powers, the world has space for states that want to show that they can ‘get things done’,38 a British respondent explained, and be helpful in the management of the international order. This can bring a state closer to the status of the greats. One way to build a reputation for helping resolve issues on the international scene would be to build a track record by focusing ‘on the low hanging fruit’,39 as a British interviewee argued, and working on regional and multilateral issues that can benefit from the participation of lesser powers. This can allow for an increased say in international affairs and an increased presence in the international community. So, it makes sense to pay attention particularly to areas where the state can add value.

38 Interviewee identified as UK11 (British academic and think tank director), interviewed by the author, January 14, 2019. 39 Interviewee identified as UK10 (British think tank researcher), interviewed by the author, January 18, 2019.

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One way to learn from this external perspective would be to build international status through the development of coalitions of states, such as in the case of a strong regional leadership. Even if the IR scholarship questions the need for regional leadership in order for a state to become a global power (Hurrell 2007; Malamud 2011), the perspective of the P5 is that a state could become a representative of its region, which would make its voice stronger in the global system. Going beyond the region, it would be possible to increase the prestige of a state by leading a group of like-minded states that can be presented as a stronger force than any of them would be by themselves. For a Chinese interviewee, a state aspiring to gain status can focus on becoming a regional leader or on forming a block of states with similar interests and try to increase its international influence this way.40

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CHAPTER 8

Brazil’s Status Inconsistency and the Barriers of the International Status Quo

The research presented in this book provides evidence that there are differences between what Brazil aspires for its international status to be and the actual level of recognition it gets from the established great powers. These inconsistencies can become a problem for the state’s foreign policy and even for its international identity. Having aspirations rejected and being put in a lower position by a more powerful actor, such as this research shows to be the case of Brazil, can become something akin to humiliation (Larson and Shevchenko 2019). Status expectations that outpace accommodation result in the condition described by the literature as status inconsistency or status dissatisfaction. It refers to the situation when states diverge on a number of status dimensions which are considered salient for decision-makers in other states. It may rank relatively high on hard power capabilities and still be accorded little ascribed status by the international community, for example. This situation is politically and psychologically uncomfortable for the state and its political elites and may lead to a push for a claim for recognition (Onea 2014; Ward 2017; Volgy and Mayhall 1995). When this type of claim for prestige is persistently denied, it can be said that the situation is one of status immobility (Ward 2017). One problem created by the difficulties a state can have in achieving recognition for the prestige rank it wants is that obstructed status ambitions © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Buarque, Brazil’s International Status and Recognition as an Emerging Power, Governance, Development, and Social Inclusion in Latin America, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47575-7_8

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can unleash social psychological and domestic political forces that push states to reject and challenge the status quo order. This can be disaggregated between distributive dissatisfaction (and the ambition to have more status) and normative dissatisfaction (and the desire to overthrow the status quo order) (Ward 2017). The case of Brazil seems closer to the former. Although the state is dissatisfied with the lack of recognition it gets for the status it wants, it does not seem engaged in any kind of attack on the status quo and seeks reform without trying to undo its structures. This inability to have its high status recognized leaves Brazil in a category of status inconsistency as an underachiever. This means the state appears to have at least some of the capabilities and desire to act as a major power, yet does not receive the full attribution of major power status by other states (Volgy et al. 2011). The ways a state like Brazil interprets this condition of immobility and the obstacles its status may face are important for the state’s foreign policy. On the one hand, from a traditional realist point of view, scholars argue that obstructed status claims lead states to abandon peaceful status-seeking strategies in favour of geopolitically competitive or violent ones (Ward 2017; Onea 2014). However, fundamentally in the case of Brazil, a state’s belief about the permeability of the stratification and the possibility of achieving higher status determines the type of strategy the state can use or a variety of strategies (Larson and Shevchenko 2019). When the boundaries of higher-status groups are permeable, aspiring states may conform to the values, norms, and practices of an elite group to gain acceptance, in what they call a strategy of social mobility. This seems to be what happened when Brazil believed it could be accepted as a permanent member of the UNSC, for example. If elite group boundaries are impermeable to new members, however, aspiring states may strive for equal or superior status through social competition (which can be manifested in arms races, rivalry over spheres of influence with powerful states) or social creativity (trying to gain status in areas that are not considered the most important for powerful states). These strategies can be changed, alternated and interchangeable, and continuing refusal by the higherstatus group to acknowledge social creativity efforts by the lower-status group is likely to provoke a hostile reaction, possibly leading to offensive action against the dominant group (Larson and Shevchenko 2019). Social creativity is often referred to in the literature as a proper strategy for

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Brazil, since it could lead to its becoming stronger internationally in areas like trade and environmental politics (Larson and Shevchenko 2014).

8.1 Breaking Through to the Other Side: How Brazil Can Increase Its Status Although learning about the lack of recognition for the level of prestige it wants may be disappointing for Brazil, its failed attempts to achieve high-status offer clues to what it could do to improve its standing. The findings of this research and the discussion about the external perception of Brazil’s status provide a very important point of reference that can help guide policy decisions by the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Relations in its search for higher status. However, the search for external recognition does not mean that Brazil should blindly and unquestionably follow the suggestions and paths the external observers see as the means for the state to achieve a more important voice in global politics. This is important because the first step towards pursuing prestige and achieving ontological (and reputational) security may be to pay attention to what is perceived from abroad and is beyond one’s own biases and limited self-perception (Cull 2022). As discussed earlier, any attempts to increase status are poised to face opposition from states that want to keep the status quo. But it means that understanding how Brazil is perceived by these elites that are part of the decision-making groups in the P5 is fundamental to developing the strategies adopted by Brazil’s foreign policy. One reason why it is important to understand the expectations great powers have about Brazil’s status and role in the world is to develop policies to avoid ontological insecurity (Giddens 2003; Klose 2020; Mitzen 2006; Murray 2019; Steele 2008; Cull 2022). Learning about expectations from abroad may serve an aspiring state like Brazil, in order to understand the other actors’ interpretations of its identity and help it develop policies that align with its own view of itself in order to avoid this type of insecurity. The country has to understand what the external parties think about it in order to develop its own status conception and aspirations and its international agenda. The state is free to define its priorities and objectives without the need to reflect upon what the rest of the world expects from it but should take these foreign perceptions into account when deciding which strategies it will adopt. The way Brazil has been pursuing status seems from the outside not to be effective, and

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a more consistent and clear agenda taking this into account could help the state pursue its interests with more chances of making them become real. The main point in this search for ontological security is that Brazil needs to decide what it wants. Brazil could double down on the attempt to become a major power and focus on strategies to do that. Alternatively, it could tailor its ambitions to the status that is attributed to it. It could focus on paths that powerful states recognize as being within their reach, such as regional leadership, an important role in environmental politics, or a focus on multilateral policy. This would mean Brazil could resign itself to the status of middle power, and work to take advantage of a position that would offer it recognition from abroad and ontological security. Brazil has a long history of wanting to become a great power, but it has never been completely clear for observers why it wants to have this type of influence in the world. This is particularly important when powerful states see Brazil as often avoiding decisions in critical moments of global politics and appear to just want to mediate tensions and remain on the fence (Buarque 2020; Burges 2017; Obama 2020). The first step Brazilian foreign policy should take is to think about this identity of an aspirational power (Mares and Trinkunas 2016) and determine what type of role it wants to have in the world and what it would do if it achieved the level of status it strives for. This would allow for the state to break away from the strong perception that Brazil does not have a clear and consistent international agenda apart from wanting status for status’ sake and instead have a clear proposal for how it would help global governance. Itamaraty and scholars of Brazilian foreign policy may argue that this is something that already exists, but the empirical research presented here shows that this is something that is not perceived from abroad, which could serve to increase Brazil’s status inconsistency and ontological insecurity. From a status perspective, being perceived as consistent is as important as actually having a consistent agenda. Following what can be learned from the perception of the FPC of great powers, it could be suggested that Brazil should focus less on trying to gain status and that a higher level of prestige could come from actions that gradually put the state at the centre of important matters of international politics. Instead of inflating the rhetoric of its foreign policy and pretending to be a major power with stakes in every big global debate, Brazil should focus on stabilizing domestic issues and developing its economy, leaving an expansion of its international role to be

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a consequence of this development. Brazil did exactly the opposite in its participation at the G20 and the WTO, prioritizing status concerns in lieu of its own material interests (Doctor 2015). From what is understood from the perception of great powers, it would be more effective in terms of increasing the prestige of the state to focus on defending material interests, which would improve its situation and maybe develop it into a state that can actually bear the costs of making a difference in world politics, thus increasing its status. This idea of bearing costs is also a fundamental lesson that can be learned from this study about the foreign intersubjective perceptions of Brazil’s status. The state seems to avoid accepting that becoming a great power in international politics assumes accepting the costs of having a decisive voice in global matters. So far, the perception of both scholars and the FPC of the P5 is that Brazil does not want that (Burges 2017; Doctor 2015). This creates a serious conundrum because bearing the costs is seen as a condition for a great power, so Brazil would have to decide either to pay this high price (both in economic and political terms) or to give up this aspiration to be a major power and accept the status of a middle power. This last option may seem like the most feasible for Brazil in the short term. Especially considering the difficulties it started to go through at the end of the period analysed in this book, the ability it would need to have to achieve a strong voice in international matters and to pay the costs of becoming a great power appear to be far from its reality. An easier option would be to give up this long-held ambition and consolidate the state as a middle power with a similar role to that states like Canada and Australia can have. These are states that are seen as serious and important in the world, that can have important voices in specific international questions, but that are not pushing to be great powers. Brazil could follow this path, work both domestically and internationally to reinforce its role as a peaceful mediator, as an environmental leader and as a responsible player in global politics, with the ability to contribute to some agenda-setting and rule creation, but without trying to be among the states that already have the most important voice in these decision tables. With time, and a consolidation of such a role and development of its own domestic situation, maybe Brazil could begin to aspire to a higher status and be ready to assume the costs that would come associated with it (Doctor 2017; Milani et al. 2017). If Brazil’s decision is to continue to pursue recognition as a major player in world politics, however, it is possible to suggest four different

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paths that seem more suitable for the search for status, based on the perceptions of great powers: (1) It could focus on economic growth as a means to accumulate wealth as a form of hard power that would increase its status in the eyes of the P5; (2) it could pursue prestige by focusing on ‘fixing’ its domestic situation, and expect recognition to come from the success of domestic politics (and economics); (3) it could choose to align with one or more great powers and avoid been seen as a state that wants to be friends with everyone and does not take sides. These pathways are not mutually exclusive and could be pursued simultaneously, which would probably provide a stronger possibility of increasing Brazil’s status in the eyes of the powerful states and (4) it could focus on the ‘low-hanging fruit’ and try to gain status gradually, by becoming a leader within its region and in areas where it can offer important contributions to global governance, such as environmental policies. As mentioned earlier, learning about the great powers’ expectations does not mean Brazil has to follow their advice when establishing its foreign policy. Brazil may very well decide that it wants to continue to focus on soft power instead of using hard power. It should understand, however, the limitations it had in the intersubjective perspective of great powers, and the fact that no state was ever able to achieve high status solely using soft power (Mares and Trinkunas 2016). Still, soft power is seen with positive eyes by most external observers and even if Brazil does not become a great power by amassing soft power, the sympathy it entails can help the state project itself as a good model in the world, a middle power, which could make it more relevant in international politics and, with the support of other capabilities, help in the search for status. However, the perception of great powers revealed in this study is that soft power is not enough to make a state to be recognized as having high status. Although this book does not follow the realist theoretical approach that power and security are all that matters in the world, the analysis of interviews shows that the belief of foreign policy stakeholders in some of the most powerful states on the planet matters, and they are still attached to realist presumptions about the prominence of hard power in determining status. Even if they question and criticize this, they appear to see it as the reality. This attachment of respondents to realist perspectives shows that the state may have misunderstood the priorities and structures of the global stratified society, which is still attached to a realist prerogative focusing on hard power. Brazil needs to understand this if it wants to become a

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great power. It needs to shape its strategies by understanding the external context. On the one hand, the most traditional way to enhance its status would be to simply increase its hard power capabilities. Focusing on military power would be an obvious path but could be a problematic and risky one since this could lead to international suspicions towards Brazil or tensions and possible conflicts (Dafoe et al., 2014; Gilpin, 1981; Lebow, 2010; Morgenthau, 1997; Thucydides, 2019; Kenneth Neal Waltz 2001). At the same time, focusing on hard power would not be advisable because it would break away from a long history of pacifism in Brazil’s foreign policy and radically change its international identity. Still, this has been the strategy used by many states throughout history and could be associated with the way Russia managed to continue to be recognized by many as a major power and keep its permanent seat at the UNSC, even if the Western powers view this development with distrust (Renshon 2017; Lebow 2010; Ward 2017; Onea 2014; Larson and Shevchenko 2019). The other way to think about power capabilities, one that could prove to be a better option for Brazil, would be economic development. This has been described by the interviewees in this research as the main path Brazil could follow to achieve higher status. It is also associated with the period in which Brazil was described as being on the rise. It was the economic stability and growth in the late 1990s and 2000s that helped raise Brazil’s international profile. The state was one of the least affected by the global financial crisis of 2008, and the apparent success of its economy attracted a lot of attention and led to the external perception that it was taking off in the world (Buarque 2013; Esteves et al. 2020; Gardini 2016; Grina 2014; Prideaux 2009; Rohter 2012; Saraiva 2016). It is true that in the case of Brazil’s rise the subsequent economic crisis arrested this development and limited the impacts early success had on its status. But the experience of that period and the perceptions of the FPC of the P5 seem to show that the economy is the way to increase Brazil’s status. Similarly, it was economic development that helped China increase its international status in the world in the twenty-first century and become the main major power competing with the United States. Although China holds a permanent seat in the UNSC, it still feels that it has not achieved full international recognition as a great power and has increased its status more based on its economic might than on military or soft power (although it also pursued these other two). Even if this is

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not an easy solution, it could be the focus of policymakers in Brazil interested in increasing the status of the state—one that could help achieve recognition and create less tension with other powerful states. Another very important finding that can help Brazil design its strategies is that the country is perceived as being hindered by internal problems. This interpretation can offer a path for a stronger role of the state that focuses not only on diplomacy and an attempt to project a stronger voice in the world, but on internal stabilization and development. This shows that Brazil’s foreign policy seems at times to be disconnected from its reality and interests (Burges 2012), and changing this, using the Brazilian reality as a basis for foreign policy, can help the state have a more consistent foreign policy agenda and more realistic ambitions from their perspective. Thus, one interesting idea that could guide policy in Brazil would be to focus the policy of the state (both domestic and foreign) on helping the stabilization and development of the domestic economy before pursuing the growth of status that should come from the positive results of this change. Itamaraty officials may say that is what Brazil is already doing, but from the perspective of the foreign policy elites of the P5, it is not. The FPC of the P5 sees a state that is chasing a status that is not commensurate with its reality and instead of chasing recognition. Brazil should make itself indispensable at the decision table both as one of the strongest economies and as a provider of solutions to international problems. A state that is really relevant to world politics is invited to participate and does not have to knock on doors asking to be, interviewees argued. With the emergence of the state mentioned earlier, there has been a moment in which Brazil appeared to achieve some success in doing this, projecting itself as a leader in the fight against inequality and in the discussions on environmental policy, for example. This was aligned with one very prominent idea among the FPC of the P5, that Brazil should pick its fights and focus on areas where it can actually make a difference. One way to learn from this external perspective would be to build international status through the development of a strong regional leadership in South America. Many of the interviewees of the P5 described Brazil’s role in South America (at first) and then the whole of Latin America as the easiest way for Brazil to become a more significant player in global politics. Even if the IR scholarship questions the need for regional leadership in order for a state to become a global power (Hurrell 2007; Malamud 2011), the perspective of the P5 is that Brazil could become a

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representative of South America, which would make its voice stronger in the global system. One important lesson Brazilian foreign policymakers could learn from this research is that Brazil is perceived as a pawn by great powers, and they are willing to appease Brazil’s aspirations in case of an alignment with them. This plays well into the earlier discussion about it deciding about its own identity. Taking sides and deciding to align with the Western powers or to reject this and work more closely with China and/or Russia would change the traditional non-alignment of the state but would probably help to gain the support of at least part of the P5 for the aspiration to have more status. It would lead Brazil away from the image of being on the fence and help establish a clearer path for its future. Although this could be the end of the chances of gathering unanimous support for a permanent seat at the UNSC, the empirical study presented here shows that this already seems unattainable. This book would not advise the state to choose either of the parties among the powerful states, and foreign policy leadership would need to assess which types of partnership would be more relevant for Brazil’s goals and ambitions. At the same time, this alignment should not mean creating animosity with the competitors, and it would be important to maintain healthy diplomatic and trade ties with all the major powers, even if some would be closer than others (It is worth considering that even while there is increased tensions between the United States and China, the two states are still important trade partners and keep diplomatic ties mostly in a civilized manner). The important direction this book points to is the need for Brazil to be clear and assertive about what it wants and who it wants to be aligned with. Being friends with everyone, as some of the respondents in the research presented here see Brazil, can be a good strategy to develop a multilateral agenda and to consolidate the state as a middle power, but could also be perceived as a hindrance if the state wants to have the status of great power. As discussed in the previous chapter, this potential alignment could be defined as bandwagoning for status. Any such alignment can be a dangerous strategy for Brazil, however, since some international conflicts are zero-sum, such as the one perceived in the growing tensions between the United States and China. Although it is out of the scope of this book, between 2019 and 2021, Jair Bolsonaro proceeded to change Brazil’s position by aligning clearly and unambiguously with the Trump administration in the United States and creating a less than amicable relation with China. The strategy did not appear to

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work to improve Brazil’s status, however, since it deteriorated the relations of the state with the Chinese, Brazil’s biggest trade partner, which in turn weakened Brazil’s economy. This manoeuvre did not work well, and Brazil was not able to use the alliance with Trump to improve its standing. And it is clear that the only way Brazil can ‘choose a side’ in its relations with great powers would only work as a strategy if it was accompanied by some type of overarching strategy that would allow it to strengthen the relation with the state it is aligning with (and not only with a president, as was evident in the case of Trump) and become less dependent on the state it would move away from. Based on the perspective of great powers, thus, Brazil is faced with several options of paths to try to increase its status. As discussed here, however, the first step Brazil needs to take is to define what are its goals and priorities. Settling for a lower standing as a middle power, for example, would fit better both with the external expectations and with its traditions of being a peaceful actor that does not want to take sides or bear the costs of international leadership. On the other hand, in order to continue the historic search of great power status would require a focus on domestic stability, economic growth, focus on areas where the state can offer contributions to the world and defining who are Brazil’s most important international allies. This would all have high costs, as discussed, but could help it develop a more consistent international agenda in the eyes of the beholders and help it get closer to achieving the recognition it wants.

8.2

Final Remarks and Future Research

The main finding presented in this book is that Brazil has not fulfilled its long-held ambition to be recognized as a great power and has a much lower status than it aspired to achieve. From the point of view of the beholders considered in this assessment, Brazil has the status of a ‘coveted pawn’. This means that the P5 states believe Brazil does not have the weight to make a difference in the most important discussions of the world. However, even if it is not perceived as being particularly important, the powerful states want to have Brazil aligned with them and are critical of Brazil aligning with other states that could rival them. Great powers want Brazil as an ally and see it as a possible force to counterbalance with their competitors. This confirms that there are indeed discrepancies between internal and external perceptions of Brazil’s international

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agenda and its role in the international system that could be considered as status inconsistency. While the domestic foreign policy community believed that it was destined for greatness and should have a stronger voice in international politics (Herz 2011; Ricupero 2017; Røren and Beaumont 2019; Souza 2002, 2008), the foreign perception provides a different interpretation. Brazil’s pursuit of status is something that the FPC knows about, but the respondents voiced a lot of criticism of the strategies (or perceived lack thereof) used by the state to attempt to increase its prestige. There is a strong sense that Brazil does not have a clear and consistent international agenda. For many interviewees, Brazil wants status for status’ sake, and when the state is included in international discussions, it remains on the fence, avoids taking sides and seems afraid to alienate other states. Thus, their perception is that Brazil does not really contribute to international governance in a meaningful way. These findings offer a contribution to the scholarship of status in IR by focusing on a qualitative assessment of status based on its intersubjective character and on the idea of recognition, drawing from the work of philosophers such as Weber and Hegel up until the latest developments of the use of status in IR. The book fills this gap in the scholarship of status in IR by developing a study focusing on the perceptions of others. By centring on the importance of intersubjectivity and recognition of the idea of status in international politics, this book proposed a discussion about stratification and standings among states and contributes to the scholarship in the area. The research drew from sociology, psychology and behavioural sciences to propose that it is important to analyse how a state is perceived by other states in order to truly understand its status in the global hierarchy. This qualitative approach proved to be a valuable method to develop a better understanding of the level of prestige of states. Moreover, the qualitative assessment of Brazil’s status fills a gap in the scholarship on the prestige and international identity of the country. It allows for a more detailed understanding of the ambivalent reactions great powers had when dealing with Brazil’s behaviour as it tried to project itself as an important player in international politics. This book has gone beyond studies about Brazil’s aspirations for higher status and the selfreferencing point of view of Brazilian decision-makers and provides an understanding of where the state stands from the ‘eyes of beholders’. This

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develops an interpretation based on the intersubjective character of status, which depends on recognition from external parties. Finally, the book contributes to the scholarship of status in IR by generalizing the case study of Brazil’s status from an intersubjective perspective to propose a framework of what states can do to achieve higher status. It presents hypotheses and sets out a theory-building element to understand how states that aspire to achieve the status of a great power can act to shift status and graduate to be recognized as a part of the group of states that are established as great powers. As discussed throughout this book, taking status into account could change our perception of many important issues in international relations, explaining the behaviour of states in ways that cannot be fully understood by other theoretical approaches and leading to a better comprehension of competition between states and the very structure of the international society. Status is an important attribute to understand the interactions between states in international politics. It is the language used to discuss power position in global relations and thus it influences most exchanges between states, as it defines notions of super- and subordination in a stratified global society and leads to competition that can ultimately engender escalating tensions, conflict and war. As a key source of authority in world politics, status is fundamental to the consolidation of legitimacy for the right to command, and thus involves high stakes for the study of IR (Clunan 2014; Larson and Shevchenko 2019; Lebow 2010; MacDonald and Parent 2021; Paul et al. 2014). The theoretical approach and the research design adopted in this book both offer contributions to the study of status in IR and open space for further research in order to consolidate the proposal of understanding the intersubjective character of status. More studies following this approach could help reinforce the need to consider the subjective perceptions that, together, build the intersubjective understanding of the status of states. Theoretical studies would be important in order to further compare qualitative analysis such as the one presented in this book with other approaches, including quantitative, to assess the validity of different studies and the combination of different approaches and methods to the full understanding of status in IR. At the same time, the theoretical and methodological approaches used here could also be applied in order to understand the intersubjective status of other states in the world. The literature about prestige in international relations is full of case studies of states that want to have more status

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in the world, and there are research analysing tactics and results from attempts to achieve this. However, there is still a gap in studies trying to gauge the perception about the status of other states. States such as Japan and India which are also pursuing status and trying to become permanent members of the UNSC, could probably offer cases of interest to replicate the method presented here. Other states could also benefit from such a research design. It would be interesting, for example, to understand how Brexit may change perceptions about the status of the United Kingdom, both in Europe and the rest of the world. The presidency of Donald Trump could also be of interest for an analysis of changes in the perception of status. Future research would help consolidate theoretical and methodological models to analyse status in international relations, with a focus on its intersubjective character. The idea would be to understand how interviews and other qualitative data analysis can be used as means to measure and understand the international status of different states. This development would allow the models to be replicated in case studies looking at different states. Even Brazil can offer a different case study if a different timeframe is adopted in the analysis. Future research should be conducted concerning the changes Brazilian foreign policy went through just after the end of the period analysed in this book. After more than a century with a strong focus on a search for international prestige, Brazilian foreign policy was overhauled in 2018. The election of Jair Bolsonaro for the presidency changed Brazilian politics, put pressure on the state’s democracy and led to a transformation of Brazil’s priorities in international politics, leaving behind the attempt to accumulate soft power and build a reputation for peaceful negotiation and creating consensus in international disputes (Casarões and Flemes 2019; Fogel 2018; Koonings 2019; Spektor and Fasolin 2018). Brazil’s ‘new foreign policy’ proposed by Bolsonaro and his first minister of Foreign Relations Ernesto Araújo focused on a rejection of so-called globalism, a total alignment with the United States under Donald Trump, a rejection of any international criticism for its domestic policies (particularly in terms of environmental policies) and a bellicose rhetoric that former minister Celso Lafer dubbed a ‘diplomacy of confrontation’ (Araújo 2020; Buarque 2021; Casarões and Flemes 2019; Spektor and Fasolin 2018). Araújo even argued that if this change were to lead Brazil to become an international pariah, the state should embrace being such pariah (Della Coletta 2020). Meanwhile, the President went so far as to declare in 2020 that if the United States under Joe Biden would

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create barriers for Brazilian products, the state would retaliate and that ‘when the saliva is over, there has to be gunpowder’ (Saxena and Costa 2020; Chaib 2020). Even though Bolsonaro lost the election in 2022 and Lula da Silva turned the country’s diplomacy back on its traditional paths, future research should try to understand the potential impacts of this recent transformation of Brazilian diplomacy under Bolsonaro on Brazil’s international status.

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MacDonald, Paul K., and Joseph M. Parent. 2021. The Status of Status in World Politics. World Politics 73 (2): 358–391. https://doi.org/10.1017/S00438 87120000301. Malamud, Andrés. 2011. A Leader Without Followers? The Growing Divergence Between the Regional and Global Performance of Brazilian Foreign Policy. Latin American Politics and Society 53 (03): 1–24. https://doi.org/ 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2011.00123.x. Mares, David R., and Harold A. Trinkunas. 2016. Aspirational Power: Brazil on the Long Road to Global Influence. Geopolitics in the 21st Century. Washington, D.C: Brookings Institution Press. Milani, Carlos R. S., Leticia Pinheiro, and Maria Regina Soares De Lima. 2017. ‘Brazil’s Foreign Policy and the “Graduation Dilemma”’. International Affairs 93 (3): 585–605. https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iix078. Mitzen, Jennifer. 2006. Ontological Security in World Politics: State Identity and the Security Dilemma. European Journal of International Relations 12 (3): 341–370. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066106067346. Morgenthau, Hans J. 1997. Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace. Beijing: Peking University Press. Murray, Michelle K. 2019. The Struggle for Recognition in International Relations: Status, Revisionism, and Rising Powers. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Obama, Barack. 2020. A Promised Land. Crown. Onea, Tudor A. 2014. Between Dominance and Decline: Status Anxiety and Great Power Rivalry. Review of International Studies 40 (1): 125–152. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210512000563. Paul, Thazha V., Deborah Welch Larson, and William C. Wohlforth. 2014. Status in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Prideaux, John. 2009. ‘Brazil Takes Off’. The Economist, 12 November. Renshon, Jonathan. 2017. Fighting for Status: Hierarchy and Conflict in World Politics. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Ricupero, Rubens. 2017. A Diplomacia Na Construção Do Brasil 1750–2016. Rio de Janeiro: Versal. Rohter, Larry. 2012. Brazil on the Rise: The Story of a Country Transformed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Røren, Pål, and Paul Beaumont. 2019. Grading Greatness: Evaluating the Status Performance of the BRICS. Third World Quarterly 40 (3): 429–450. https:// doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2018.1535892. Saraiva, Miriam Gomes. 2016. ‘Brazil’s Rise and Its Soft Power Strategy in South America’. In Foreign Policy Responses to the Rise of Brazil, 46–61. Springer. Saxena, Shobhan, and Florencia Costa. 2020. ‘Gunpowder Diplomacy: Losing on All Fronts, Bolsonaro Takes Brazil Down a Slippery Slope’. The Wire, 2 December 2020, sec. Analysis—World. https://thewire.in/world/gunpow der-diplomacy-losing-on-all-fronts-bolsonaro-takes-brazil-down-a-slipperyslope.

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de Souza, Amaury. 2002. A Agenda Internacional do Brasil: Um Estudo sobre a Comunidade Brasileira de Política Externa. Rio de Janeiro: CEBRI. ———. 2008. Brazil’s International Agenda Revisited: Perceptions of the Brazilian Foreign Policy Community. Rio de Janeiro: CEBRI. Spektor, Matias, and Guilherme Fasolin. 2018. ‘Brazil and the United States: Will President Bolsonaro Bandwagon’. E-International Relations. Steele, Brent J. 2008. Ontological Security in International Relations. 0 ed. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203018200. Thucydides. 2019. How to Think about War: An Ancient Guide to Foreign Policy: Speeches from The History of the Pelopennesian War. Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Volgy, Thomas J., Renato Corbetta, Keith A. Grant, and Ryan G. Baird, eds. 2011. ‘Major Power Status in International Politics’. In Major Powers and the Quest for Status in International Politics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230119314. Volgy, Thomas J., and Stacey Mayhall. 1995. Status Inconsistency and International War: Exploring the Effects of Systemic Change. International Studies Quarterly 39 (1): 67. https://doi.org/10.2307/2600724. Waltz, Kenneth N. 2001. Man, the State, and War: A Theoretical Analysis. Columbia University Press. Ward, Steven. 2017. Status and the Challenge of Rising Powers. 1st ed. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316856444.

Index

A Amazon, 126 Amorim, Celso, 131 anarchy, 63, 65 autonomy, 7, 20, 24–26, 148 B bandwagon, 111 bandwagoning, 172, 187 Baron of Rio Branco, 6, 22 behavioural international relations, 72 Bolsonaro, Jair, 39, 187, 191 Brexit, 191 BRICS, 4, 28, 31, 104, 105, 110, 125, 133, 164 C Cardoso, Fernando Henrique, 37 chess, 100–102 clichés, 99, 116, 126, 127 Cold War, 27, 38, 70, 108 collective beliefs, 3, 8, 9, 62, 71

Condoleezza Rice, 21 consensual hegemony, 20, 25, 27, 120 conspicuous consumption, 20, 66 corruption, 39, 126, 141, 143, 144

D da Silva, Luiz Inácio Lula, 1, 4, 37, 131, 142, 154, 192 democracy, 110, 141, 151, 154, 191 deterrence, 70, 159 development, 7, 20–22, 24, 28, 29, 33, 35, 72, 80, 81, 85, 99, 128, 140, 143, 144, 148, 150, 151, 153, 158, 164–170, 175, 183, 185, 186, 191 dictatorship, 6, 27, 36, 37, 39 Doha Round, 5, 33 domestic problems, 12, 29, 98, 99, 140–144, 154, 170, 171

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Buarque, Brazil’s International Status and Recognition as an Emerging Power, Governance, Development, and Social Inclusion in Latin America, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47575-7

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198

INDEX

E economic power, 9, 24, 39, 41, 68, 81, 103, 107, 153, 162, 168, 169 emerging powers, 4, 70, 112, 172 environmental leadership, 32 eyes of beholders, 189

F favelas, 126 fence, 106, 182, 187, 189 Franco, Itamar, 131

G G20, 21, 28, 43, 105, 109, 183 geopolitical disputes, 99, 107, 108 global hierarchy, 35, 62, 98, 158, 160, 166, 171, 189 globalization, 27 global power, 21, 35, 42, 98, 115, 168, 170, 175, 186 Global South, 26, 28, 38, 132, 172 greatness, 5, 23, 25, 36, 79, 99, 139, 189 great power, 1–5, 7, 10–12, 22, 24, 25, 28, 30, 35, 36, 38–43, 63, 64, 68, 76–79, 83, 84, 97, 99–102, 104, 106, 107, 115, 116, 119, 123, 128, 130, 131, 139–141, 149, 150, 152, 154, 157, 158, 160–166, 168–174, 179, 181–185, 187–190

H hard power, 1, 7, 12, 39, 40, 42, 80, 83, 99, 116, 118–124, 127–130, 141, 144, 152, 153, 159, 162, 163, 166, 167, 170, 179, 184 hegemony, 27, 168 human rights, 141

I IBSA, 28, 29, 31 ignorance, 99, 127 images, 20, 30, 72, 73, 81, 82, 84, 85, 116, 126, 127, 142 inequality, 143, 186 influence, 5, 7, 11, 27, 30, 37, 39, 40, 42, 61, 63, 65, 71–73, 105, 108, 111, 115, 117, 119, 140, 143, 158, 162, 167–172, 174, 175, 180, 182 insertion, 20, 25, 26, 31, 38, 39, 148 interdependence, 25 international aid, 164 international identity, 4, 11, 22, 73, 79, 120, 162, 179, 185, 189 international image, 7, 22, 30, 72, 140 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 163 international society, 20, 63, 70, 76, 98, 170, 171, 190 international stratification, 8, 22, 25, 35, 65, 81 intersubjective perceptions, 71, 82, 103, 160, 183 intersubjectivity, 3, 4, 9, 43, 69, 72, 75, 82, 189 Iran, 4, 28, 30, 75, 115, 160 Itamaraty, 20, 22, 24, 31, 145, 150, 182, 186

L Latin America, 25, 41, 43, 81, 105, 106, 108, 110, 118, 134, 151, 186 leadership, 27, 28, 31, 33, 41, 43, 106, 118, 127, 148, 154, 162, 163, 166, 175, 182, 186–188 League of Nations, 6, 36

INDEX

M mediator, 30, 99, 115, 183 meritocracy, 171 meritocratic, 154, 170, 171 middle power, 24, 35, 43, 169, 182–184, 187, 188 military power, 9, 11, 39, 40, 71, 74, 75, 81, 117, 119, 122, 123, 153, 162, 166, 167, 169, 185 Minustah, 28, 31 misperception, 72, 147, 149 multilateralism, 7, 28, 29, 102, 150, 154 multipolarity, 41

N national identity, 73 national strategy, 148 nation branding, 20, 30, 72, 82 nuclear deal, 4, 30, 35, 75, 115, 160

O Obama, Barack, 21, 106 Olympic games, 4 Olympics, 5, 20, 27, 28, 32, 39 ontological insecurity, 21, 74, 79, 80, 140, 181, 182 ontological security, 3, 70, 77–79, 182

P pacifism, 120, 185 pawn, 10, 11, 98–102, 107, 154, 187, 188 peaceful, 22, 23, 25, 80, 115, 118, 120, 121, 125, 139, 166, 180, 183, 188, 191 perceptions, 4, 9, 10, 12, 23, 27, 30, 42, 43, 62, 64, 67–69, 71–73, 75, 77, 79, 82, 84, 85, 100, 101,

199

106, 111, 122, 131, 143, 146, 150, 154, 170, 181, 184, 185, 188–191 permanent member, 3, 5, 20, 28–30, 36, 75, 84, 98, 130–133, 161, 163, 169, 180, 191 permanent seat, 3, 27, 29, 64, 99, 116, 130–132, 134, 160, 185, 187 power transitions, 166 R realist, 20, 27, 39, 68, 70, 111, 121, 128, 159, 163, 180, 184 Reflexive Thematic Analysis (RTA), 83 Regional leadership, 33 regional power, 19, 21, 43, 110, 149 reputation, 9, 28, 29, 36, 43, 66, 68, 69, 72, 80, 82, 84, 122, 163, 174, 191 rhetoric, 2, 11, 37, 106, 139, 149, 150, 163, 165, 182, 191 Rio+ 20, 5, 28, 32 Rio Branco, 22 rising powers, 27, 38, 160 role theory, 75 Rousseff, Dilma, 5, 21, 31 S serious country, 1, 4, 111, 143 Social Identity Theory (SIT), 27, 66, 70 social power, 7, 64 soft power, 1, 9, 12, 28, 30, 36, 42, 64, 72, 98, 99, 116, 118–124, 126–129, 139–141, 162, 167, 184, 185, 191 South America, 28, 33, 105, 110, 151, 186 status anxiety, 21, 77, 78, 158 status dissatisfaction, 179

200

INDEX

status immobility, 179 status inconsistency, 12, 21, 24, 77, 139, 179, 180, 182, 189 status quo, 10, 12, 22, 27, 38, 78, 133, 154, 157–160, 166, 169, 170, 180, 181 status-seeking, 8, 9, 70, 80, 180 stereotypes, 12, 30, 43, 116, 124, 126, 127 stray dog complex, 25

T Tehran deal, 7 think tank, 83, 103–105, 107–110, 116, 118–121, 123, 127, 128, 132–134, 144, 147, 150, 151, 165, 169–171, 174 Trump, Donald, 191

U Ukraine, 115, 164, 166

UN peacekeeping operations (PKOs), 5, 20, 28, 31, 154 UN Security Council (UNSC), 3, 5, 20, 27–30, 36, 64, 75, 83, 84, 98, 99, 116, 130–134, 159–161, 163, 169, 173, 180, 185, 187, 191 V violence, 126, 141 voluntary deference, 3, 8, 27, 62, 67, 81, 157, 158 W Weber, Max, 63, 65, 66, 74, 189 World Cup, 1, 2, 5, 20, 27, 28, 32, 39 World Trade Organization (WTO), 21, 28, 33, 183 World War II, 3, 6, 36, 69, 130, 134, 160 WWI, 69