América do Sul: construção pela reinvenção (2000-2008)

Abstract

This article intends to show that the South America construction came from a concept reinvention. It is used in the speech and practice of Brazilian diplomacy and is based on elements related to hegemony, lidership, hispanic and latin-american identiy. The text tracks the idea of South America since its intelectual origins until its institucionalization in regional political and diplomatic arrangements.Palavras-chave: América do Sul; História das Relações Internacionais do Brasil; Rastreamento de ideias.

Colonial legacy as a source and a problem in South-South Cooperation: The Case of Brazil

“…Однако, и это хотелось бы особо подчеркнуть, ключевые проблемы госу-дарства Латинской Америки как потенциального лидера региона связаны не столь-ко с количественным, сколько с качественным отличием бразильского иденти-фикационного дискурса от регионального. И именно это, как подчеркивается в разных исследованиях, становится серьезной преградой на пути к региональ-ной гегемонии [Malamud 2011, Gehre Galvão 2009.…”

The hegemonichermano: South American collective identity and Brazilian regional strategy

“…The economic bloc was created out of the approximation of Brazil and Argentina. Their relationship had been marked by prolonged mutual suspicion and competition, not only during Brazil's imperial period but especially during their military dictatorships, with disputes in fields such as frontier rivers and nuclear research (Pereyra-Doval and Romero 2013; Galvão 2009). During the Cold War, regional integration in Latin America did not progress due to the military governments' vertical alignment with Washington, tense diplomacy, and their insistence on substitution-of-imports development models (Medeiros 2000).…”

“…Galvão (2009) argues that one of the factors that led to a greater institutionalization of the South American region in the 1990s was the perception that initiatives such as the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) were a looming sign of economic takeover of the continent by the USA. Likewise, the Free Trade Agreement for the Americas (FTAA) was seen as forwarding US interests and menacing to the ongoing industrialization processes of the largest South American economies (Alemany 2004;Briceño Ruiz 2007;Grugel 2007).…”

“…As argued by Meunier and Medeiros (2013, 680), Brazil's recognition as a regional leader does not rest on its capacity to provide tradeoffs alone, but to "foster the idea of a South America united and directed towards common goals". This is an ingenious task, considering that Brazil's outlining of South America as its area of natural interest deliberately excludes Mexico (a competing major player) and the rest of Central America and the Caribbean (Galvão 2009;Malamud and Rodriguez 2013). 9 By removing such nations (and consequently their symbolic weight in defining the region), Brazil mitigates the centrality of some traits these countries share, which are core to the Latin American narrative: the Hispanic heritage, deep ancestral civilizations, and belligerent independence processes.…”

“…Nonetheless, there are limits to such othering narratives when articulated by a country like Brazil, itself an uneasy "Cusp state" that sits in the edge of what is held to be "normal" in the region (Robins and Herzog 2014). Galvão (2009) believes that it is possible to speak of a common South American identity based on shared traits and preferences of the region's states. However, he identifies that from a symbolic point of view there is a gulf separating Brazil from the rest of the region.…”