Brazil in the Streets and Away from the World: How the Prolonged Political-Economic Crisis Led to the Collapse of Brazilian Foreign Policy

Abstract

In this article, we argue that Brazil's foreign policy has no longer been guided by the country's long-term objectives and interests, in view of the global possibilities, but by the immediate domestic circumstances. We identify three major stages in this process, coinciding with the strategies of the specific administrations: (1) retraction, in which president Dilma Rousseff sought to lower the Brazilian status of emerging power to that of middle power; (2) normalization, in which president Michel Temer sought to guarantee the legitimacy and survival of his fragile transitional government by strengthening the trade agenda, with a view to the country's economic recovery; (3) redefinition, in which president Jair Bolsonaro sought to reposition Brazil as a Christian and conservative nation by substantiating the country's international objectives to the new correlation of forces that came to power in 2018.