Brazil: a cordial power? Brazilian diplomacy in the early 21st century

Abstract

Brazilian foreign policy and its diplomacy saw a significant advance in its concepts, instruments and practices in the early 21st century, which corresponds to a new standard in the country’s international insertion, an apparently positive response in the new globalization phase and characterized by cordiality. Brazilian international relations during this period underwent at least four great changes: greater emphasis on the internationalization of Brazilian companies, diversification of the country’s international ties, stronger action in international organisms and adoption of the non-indifference principle. On the whole, along with other elements, Brazilian foreign policy reveals the exercise of a power’s policy, without incorporating values and elements of classical realism and neorealism. It is the construction of a cordial power, ostensibly cooperative and modern on the international plane, however incapable of overcoming its internal maladies.