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Flacso Chile

What do Chileans think of the Armed Forces since the death of Augusto Pinochet? This is one of the questions which is tackled by “Captive Institutions"

 

 

Transnational Terrorism, Security and the Rule of Law

The Transnational Terrorism, Security and the Rule of Law (TTSRL) project is aimed at framing the current nature of the threat of terrorism as it exists within the EU, and at generating insight into the various response options to terrorism that are available to European governments.

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Regional powers / Working Paper

Brazil in the Americas: a regional peace broker?

01/04/2007 By Susanne Gratius

Emerging powers such as Brazil, India, and South Africa are beginning to assume an important role in the international and regional agenda.

Nevertheless, none of these three countries has voice or vote in the main international fora, including the Security Council, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the Group of Eight (G-8).

Their status in the international hierarchy of states remains unclear: they meet the quantitative criteria for great powers, but they are either unwilling or unable to act as such, probably due to lack of either resources or political will. The latter is the case of Brazil, which sees itself as a middle power acting with soft power instruments.

At the same time, Brazil presents itself as a South American power with definitional and regional stabilisation capacities.

After analysing the country’s position in the international hierarchy of states, this working paper focuses on Brazil’s internal factors and the material resources (military, geographical and demographic, economic, technological, and cultural capacity) it has to act as a regional power.

Given that due to its great social and internal security challenges Brazil is not considered a consolidated state, there are doubts over its capacity to be a pivotal state in terms of stability and political mediation in its neighbourhood.

A brief analysis of the available data leads to the conclusion that although internal difficulties do limit Brazilian regional leadership, they do not prevent it.


Download the full version of this publication, available in English (912 kB)
Portuguese (365 kB)
Spanish (358 kB)

Publishing groups

IBSA: India, Brazil, South Africa

Keywords

Brazil Failed states Latin America & Caribbean Multipolarity Regional powers

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Bio author: Susanne Gratius

PhD in Political Science by the University of Hamburg. Expert in Latin America.