Repositório RCAAP

Abstract This article engages a conversation with Benjamin Cohen by raising three questions about the significance of materiality. The paper's questions focus on how materiality can be included in theorizations so that its political import is not defined away from the outset. The article does this focussing on Cohen's treatment of electronic money and its significance for the Politics of International Monetary Relations. The first question posed is about ontology, the second about agency and the third about the scope of politics. The three questions are raised as a conversation in which arguments and counterarguments are advanced. The questions are therefore posed with Cohen's contributions to theorizing the political significance of materiality as their point of departure. They are formulated as a consequence of bringing these contributions in relation to insights from the Social Studies of Finance. From this perspective it would seem that a more far reaching engagement with materiality (in terms of ontology, agency and epistemology) is necessary to capture its political significance for international monetary politics and currency hierarchies. The article does not conclude in conventional fashion but purposefully strives to leave these questions open for discussion.

Abstract Current efforts to teach and research the historical foundations of IPE thought in classical political economy in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries centre largely on European and American thinkers. If a more extensive 'global conversation' is to be fostered in the field today, the perspectives of thinkers in other regions need to be recognised, and brought into the mainstream of its intellectual history. As a first step towards 'globalising' the classical foundations of IPE thought, this article demonstrates some ways in which thinkers located beyond Europe and the United States engaged with and contributed to debates associated with the three well-known classical traditions on which current IPE scholarship often draws: economic liberalism, economic nationalism and Marxism. It also reveals the extensive nature of 'global conversations' about IPE issues in this earlier era.

Abstract Benjamin Cohen's disciplinary history of international political economy (IPE) begins with the premise that Africa has had little to contribute to this global discipline. Differing from this view, we argue that disciplinary histories such as Cohen's elide the relationship between the discipline and its field. It is only through the juxtaposition of knowledge, power and politics that we can arrive at a fuller historical understanding of theinternational political economy. We further argue that political economy as an intellectual project has been central to the creation of the political economy of southern Africa. In a historical narrative of this idea in this region, we demonstrate that states and markets have remained prisoners of their mainstream intellectual manifestations, although subversive lives of political economy persist in some critical corners.

Abstract Benjamin Cohen has provoked us into a global conversation aimed at unwrapping the practice and study of IPE. In this article, we build upon his powerful notion of geography as politics, and engage afresh with the role of regions as correctives to debates on developmental strategies and trajectories in the global political economy. We share Cohen's view that 'how we conceive of space has a real impact on how we think about rule-making' (1998: 10), and argue that regions take shape iteratively via social and political processes that differ both temporally and geographically. As such, the key question for IPE is not whether regionalism exists, but rather what kind of regional governance is taking shape, and how it fits into IPE's globalist soul-searching. With this in mind, we analyse various conceptions of regions over time, from spheres of influence to governance actors, marking important differences (in symbolic, practical and institutional terms) in relation to experiments of the past. In doing so, we seek to underline at least the value of giving greater attention to the place of regions and regionalism in IPE's global conversation.

Abstract In order to introduce this special issue of Contexto Internacional, we first seek to provide a panoramic understanding of the Latin American political landscape. Next, we consider the new (and not so new) development strategies adopted by Latin American states, and their implications for foreign policy and international relations. Following this, we offer a brief review of the literature on Latin American foreign policy analysis and some of the theoretical and methodological challenges facing the study of Latin American international relations, thus providing a context for a deeper understanding of the contributions to this special issue. Put differently, our objective is to provide readers with a general idea of the reasons why foreign policy has met, should have met, or has been expected to meet social demands in contemporary Latin America.

Abstract Traditionally, Argentine foreign policy has been regarded as the domain of the executive, and a laudable expression of realism. Perspectives that include domestic variables as a source of foreign policy have only emerged relatively recently, and have only assumed importance in a redemocratised Argentina in the course of its recurrent economic and political crises in the late 20th and early 21st century. This dynamic was particularly marked during and after the crisis of 2001. As a result, Kirchnerist foreign policy was affected by a range of complex domestic factors. The aim of this article is to show how those factors drove the governments of Néstor and Cristina Kirchner, without abandoning executive primacy, to prioritise a neodevelopmental economic model, and combine them with an autonomous foreign policy which they believed to be the only way to meet the social demands of those affected by the neoliberal crisis.

Abstract Studies about the relationship between public opinion and foreign policy are rare in Latin America as civic participation in these issues is a recent phenomenon. The following research explores the general perception of Argentine citizens about the orientation of foreign policy towards Brazil. Also, it explores the effects of information and its influence on citizens. In particular, it studies the psychotropic and socio-tropic attitudes of Argentinians about foreign policy toward Brazil. Based on a survey experiment, the research evaluates the impact of economic and political information (framing-effects) on the public's opinion of foreign policy (dependent variable). The experimental treatment was designed in an ordinal model by providing different pieces of information. The experiment also introduces 'Citizen Perception' as a covariate generated from a summation index with the scores of two variables (Preference for the actions of Argentina toward Brazil and the Position of Brazil in a charted preference of potential investor countries). The results show that the previous ideological bias is very significant and that the effects of information reinforce it. The work was run as part of a survey conducted by the Instituto PASCAL Universidad Nacional de San Martín, in Argentina´s major urban centres during 2015.

Abstract This study analyses whether Brazilian foreign policy under Lula successfully legitimised the country's international identity as a rising power in the eyes of the domestic and international media. Based on a constructivist framework, we have applied French Discourse Analysis to a corpus of 36 official addresses by the President of the Republic and the Minister of Foreign Relations and 137 news articles from four news outlets, two Brazilian and two international, concerning two diplomatic episodes deemed representative of Brazil's quest for greater pre-eminence: the leadership of MINUSTAH (2004) and the Nuclear Deal signed with Iran and Turkey (2010). Results show that official discourse characterises Brazil's identity as a rising power chiefly by South-South diplomacy, while media discourse was more heterogeneous, being the discursive formation of each news outlet determinant in explaining their interpretation of Brazil's international identity.

Abstract Which factors determine legislative support for the foreign policy initiatives of Latin American presidents? How do political parties and politicians behave when dealing with presidential foreign policy? The issue of whether presidents exercise greater influence over foreign or domestic affairs has been extensively debated in recent years, and the evidence indicates that legislators do behave differently when dealing with foreign policy proposals. Building on this debate, we analyse legislative support for the foreign policies of 22 Latin-American presidents in eight countries from 1994 to 2014, using an original dataset in a quantile regression framework. We also use three selected cases to illustrate our evidence. Our findings are counter-intuitive and bring new elements into the debate about legislative behaviour towards foreign policy in presidential countries. Measures of a political party's ideology, the size of the governing coalition, and the effective number of parties (ENP) play important roles in levels of legislative support for presidential foreign policy agendas. Surprisingly, the popularity of presidents and the nature of their initiatives - high or low politics - do not affect these levels of support.

Abstract In an increasingly interdependent world, not only politics but also societies become ever more intertwined. Therefore, foreign policy-making is progressively influenced by domestic factors, not only in the country in question but also in others. This special issue seeks to shed light on the degree to which Latin American civil societies and social movements are shaping foreign policy. The provisional, though contested, answer is 'not much.'

Abstract Abstract: By focusing on the musical styles known as bossa nova and afrobeat, I ask: Given that globalisation/capitalism promotes exchange, borrowing, and imitation, can we make sense of ‘authenticity’? Can we speak of an authentically Brazilian or Nigerian music? If today ‘authenticity’ makes little sense, why is talk about ‘authenticity’ so pervasive? If we expose ‘authenticity’ as reification, do we still need this term? What, then, may ‘authenticity’ mean? How can we restrict powerful musical cultures without limiting localities to replicating the past? How can cultures take up each others’ vitality without losing their particularity? Can we imagine a world stage inviting all music? I explore the astonishing but mostly uncharted flows between and within musical traditions. At the same time, I seek to ground those flows in locales. Moving somewhat against the grain of contemporary social theory, I retrieve the need for ‘reification’ and ‘authenticity’. If we value a diverse world, we may wish to balance capitalism’s dominant flows with the desire to situate music-making in specific locales.

Abstract South America features a very particular regional architecture, one which is characterised by the proliferation and overlapping of regional organisations, with UNASUR at the centre. UNASUR is an intergovernmental organisation with no supranational institutions. The article will argue that institutional flexibility, which is both a core element of South American regionalism and a specific institutional feature of UNASUR, corresponds with the key interests of the founding members of this organisation. Based on this assumption, the article will analyse the strategies and policies of the various Argentinean governments during the period when UNASUR was created (1999–2008). It will differentiate between a ‘uniaxial’ regional integration approach structured around one thematic axis and a ‘multiaxial’ approach evolving along multiple axes in parallel; it will also ask to what extent the new regional architecture corresponds to the core interests of that country. For the Argentinean government, it was important to ensure that UNASUR would not constrain its foreign policy options. The result was the variable geometry codified in the UNASUR Constitutive Treaty.

Abstract Abstract: Between 1975 and 1988, the Southern African regional system was marked by high levels of systemic conflict involving direct and indirect armed confrontation between South Africa and its neighbours. This reality sharply contrasts with the co-operative environment that has gradually formed since 1989. Following the trends towards deepening and widening the systemic comprehension of international relations, this study seeks to understand why there were changes in the pattern of co-operation–conflict in the Southern African regional system in the last 40 years. The central hypothesis is that (i) the state-building process and (ii) regional and secondary powers’ foreign policy formation and execution towards the regional order are factors which have directly affected the regional pattern of co-operation–conflict. Specifically, this article studies South Africa and Angola’s state-building process and foreign policy formation and execution from 1975 to 2015. The research concludes that these states produced co-operation or conflict as part of their balance of positions towards the systemic order, which is an interactional result of their state-building process (state capacity and state–society relations) and its impact on foreign policy’s formation and execution (interests and security of the elites and foreign policy position and impetus towards the regional order).

Abstract As is well known, Mercosur was conceived as an economic bloc. However, over time, it has also behaved as an international coalition. This article aims to trace this process in the period 1991 to 2012 via two indicators: the voting behaviour of the four original Mercosur member states in the United Nations General Assembly, and positions adopted on international political issues in the communiques emanating from the bi-annual Mercosur presidential summits. The period under review will be divided into two further periods, namely 1991-2002 and 2003-2012.

Abstract The 1998 Brasilia Peace Agreement ended a territorial dispute between Ecuador and Peru that, due to the size and location of the contested area, had remained a source of regional instability and continental tensions for decades. This paper examines the circumstances that finally allowed negotiations, beginning in 1995, to overcome an almost two-centuries-old conflict, long after almost all territorial disputes in South America had been laid to rest. It will focus in particular on the diplomatic endeavours by the guarantor countries of the 1942 Rio de Janeiro Protocol, which involved a unique set of negotiations, and the setting up of the first effective multilateral peace operation in South America. It also suggests that the peace agreement benefited from the dynamics of economic integration underway since the 1980s. Finally, it considers the implications for regional security arrangements, as well as Brazil’s leadership credentials in South America.

Abstract Historically, great powers have gone to great lengths to guarantee the energy necessary to compete in the international system. Today, as fossil fuel sources diminish and energy demands increase, the most powerful States, specifically China and the United States, are competing for energy resources, including renewable energy sources, while continuing to protect and procure remaining nonrenewable sources around the world. As such, this article’s goals are: 1) to offer a brief overview of energy security; 2) to present a brief overview of the energy scenarios of China and the United States; 3) to show that China is investing more in renewable energy than the United States due, in part, to the domestic endowment of shale gas of the latter, and the imperative need to diversify the energy sources of the former.

Abstract Abstract: This article discusses the political dynamic of agenda-setting in the subfield of international nuclear co-operation, within an analytical framework that integrates the literature on international co-operation in science and technology, international nuclear co-operation, and foreign policy analysis. It presents the emblematic case of Argentine–Brazilian co-operation about the construction of two multipurpose reactors, whose process of decision-making has been disputed by officials, technological firms, managers, and nuclear scientists. It also underlines that economic and commercial motivations prevail in the process of international co-operation.

Abstract This study focuses on Brazil’s international co-operation in science and technology (S&T), notably technical transfers to the semiarid branch of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) from the early 1990s onwards. It is based on interviews with Embrapa personnel, as well as literature and documentary reviews. It starts by outlining a conceptual framework. Next, it examines Brazil’s Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) policy, and compares this policy and actual S&T co-operation initiatives in order to establish whether they converge or diverge. The co-operation in question involved a diversified agenda aimed at meeting global demands, encompassing issues such as the green economy, clean and renewable energy, climate change and desertification, species extinction threats, social technologies, and biodiversity. The study shows that international collaboration in the period under review largely conformed with Brazil’s STI policy. However, it identifies some gaps and areas of concern, notably a degree of fragmentation between the macro and micro levels of co-operation, which should be effectively managed if S&T collaboration is to consolidate Brazil’s international role and its geo-political interests.

Abstract Working from an analytical framework that emphasises the horizontalisation of the decision-making process of Brazilian foreign policy, considered as public policy and subject to democratic control, this article analyses the democratic quality of this policy’s participatory institutions, using the criteria established by democratic theory. Civil society participation is analysed in three areas of foreign policy: multilateral international negotiations, regional integration, and South–South development co-operation. It can be stated that civil society participation in Brazilian foreign policy is of a diffuse nature, discretionary, and with a high degree of informality.

Abstract Abstract: To return to the history of Brazil’s participation in South-American economic regionalism has gradually become of paramount need as the issue of regional integration is at the top of the country’s foreign policy agenda. This article aims to contribute with a study of this participation, by examining the failed attempt to revive the ABC Pact in the Brazilian political arena in the 1950s. Based on many documentary sources, our goal is to analyse the internal and external conditions that ended the Vargas Administration’s engagement in the Peronist proposal to build an economic bloc among Argentina, Brazil and Chile through a customs union. Herein, we present the reasons that led to the adoption of a realistic and pragmatic position by the Brazilian government regarding the ABC project, which were far removed from any possibility of getting involved in the project or even from not frustrating early expectations.