The BRICS and Brazilian public opinion: Soft balancing or economic strategy?

Abstract

The paper examines Brazilians’ attitudes toward the BRICS, verifying whether the soft balancing strategy finds support on public opinion, by using survey data from the Brazil, the Americas and the World Project. Results indicate that the attitudes toward the BRICS countries are similar to those toward other relevant partners. Moreover, attitudes toward the BRICS are not associated with a rejection of the US, which points to the possibility of soft-balancing having support in national public opinion.