The Lula's government foreign policy (2003-2010): an exercise of autonomy through assertiveness

Abstract

This project aims to analyse the foreign policy of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's government. Therefore, it will be presented the concepts of autonomy through distance, autonomy through participation and autonomy through diversification and its availability on the classification of Brazilian's foreign policy in the last years. Then, it will be presented a new concept named autonomy through assertiveness in opposition to the concept of autonomy through diversification. Our hypothesis starts from the idea that it is possible to frame historical periods under the perspective of the autonomies. However, we are going to sustain that the concept of autonomy trough diversification doesn't express consistently Brazilian's foreign policy during Lula's government, and that's why it is necessary to create another concept: the autonomy through assertiveness. Its basic assumption it's of a more affirmative foreign policy, in which concern the defense of Brazilians interests before the other nations of the international system. This would happen by the country's adherence to the principles and international rules via South-South alliances, thus demanding several polarities as a source of order in contemporary international policy. Therefore, it would explain Brazilian's role on the constitution of G-3; on the creation of G-22; on the approach to Africans and Arabic nations, in the Lula's government disposition to handle the costs of the exercise of its world's leadership and, specifically, on the Mercosul and South America. We are going still to defend that the practical base of autonomy through assertiveness would be sustained in the Labor Party's ideology about the role of foreign policy. (AU)