Recommended for COHA’s Readership: Brazilian Foreign Policy After the Cold War

February 24, 2009February 24, 2009 COHA

– Comprehensive study examining Brazilian foreign policy by COHA Senior Research Fellow Sean W. Burges, published by the University Press of Florida
– Burges’ work explains how and why Brazil has been building its role as a leader in South America and the global South
– Research for the book draws on interviews with key Brazilian policy makers, including President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former foreign ministers Celso Lafer and Luiz Felipe Lampreia, and Lula special presidential advisor Marco Aurelio Garcia
– Book available at a 40% discount until April 19, 2009, if purchased with the linked coupon

Brazilian Foreign Policy

After the Cold War

Authored by Sean Burges and published by University Press of Florida

– AVAILABLE AT 40% DISCOUNT FOR COHA READERS UNTIL APRIL 19 –

Since 1992 – the end of the Cold War – Brazil has been slowly and quietly craving a niche for itself in the international community: that of a regional leader in Latin America. How and why is the subject of Sean Burges ‘ investigations. Under President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Brazil embarked on a new direction vis-à-vis foreign policy. Brazilian diplomats set out to lead South America and the global south without actively claiming leadership or incurring the associated costs. They did so to protect Brazil’s national autonomy in an ever-changing political climate. Burges utilizes recently declassified documents and in-depth interviews with Brazilian leaders to track the adoption and implementation of Brazil’s South American foreign policy and to explain the origins of this trajectory. Leadership and desire to lead have, until recently, been a contentious and forcefully disavowed ambition for Brazilian diplomats. Burges dispels this illusion and provides a framework for understanding the conduct and ambitions of Brazilian foreign policy that can be applied to the wider global arena.

Sean W. Burges is an adjunct professor with the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa and a senior research fellow with the Washington, D.C. – based Council on Hemispheric Affairs. He has published on Brazilian foreign policy and inter-American affairs in the Miami Herald, The Washington Times, The Journal of Commerce, The National Post, The Washington Report on the Hemisphere, FOCAL Point, Brazzil Magazine, Analise Internacional, the Oxford Analytica Daily Brief, and in academic journals such as Third World Quarterly, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, International Journal, International Relations, and the Bulletin of Latin American Research.

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