Brazil’s Rise and Its Soft Power Strategy in South America

Abstract

Since 2003, in a shifting international scenario of increasing fragmentation and following the decline of the liberal world order seen in the 1990s, Brazil has taken assertive action to expand its participation in multilateral forums and debates on global political matters as part of a diplomatic strategy that envisages a reformulation of existing international institutions. Brazil’s regional context has also proved beneficial to its rise. Since 11 September 2001, the US has neglected its foreign policy towards Latin America to make way for its War on Terror. The lack of any structured US behaviour in South America persisted even when Barack Obama took office. Meanwhile, in the same year, Argentina (Brazil’s historical rival for hegemony in the Southern Cone) found itself weakened by the regional political and economic crisis. The rise of new governments keen to reformulate the international political setting from the beginning of the century further reduced the alignment of these countries with the US. It was the conjunction of all these factors that paved the way for Brazil to take an increasingly autonomous approach in the region.