Brazilian Foreign Policy Discourses and the Quest for Ontological Security

Abstract

In this paper, I analyse Brazilian foreign policy with special attention to change from Americanism to Globalism in the early 1960s. This article argues that such change happened amid a crisis of ontological security. Traditional diplomats were supporters of Americanism, whereas some intellectuals and politicians came up with Neutralism, an alternative foreign policy discourse. They upheld different narratives of Brazil’s identity, whether as a Western country or a bridge between developing nations and the West. I will argue that diplomats did solve such critical situation and regain control over Brazilian foreign policy’s formulation and implementation. They did so by deactivating parts of Neutralism and carving out Globalism, which would become the new hegemonic foreign policy discourse.