As três camadas da política externa do governo Collor

Abstract

This work intended to shed light on the process of change that characterized Fernando Collor's foreign policy, from a level-of-analysis perspective: system, society, and bureaucracy. Our hypothesis is that the shifts observed in that government's foreign policy are due to a juxtaposition of transformations in those three levels, in the context of the global crisis of the 1980s. In the systemic level, one could notice a structural shift in the international order, as well as the downfall, both political and economically, of the Third World. The logic of power politics prevailed in Brazil's international politics, that is, the country became vulnerable to external pressures exerted on it, especially by the United States. At the same time, in the domestic level, the breakdown of the developmental state would allow for the emergence of neoliberal positions, that will ultimately lead Brazilian foreign policy towards economic liberalization -in a timid way during the Sarney administration, and more emphatically during the Collor government. Finally, in the bureaucratic level, we argue that the president benefitted from a dissonance within the diplomatic body, between liberals and nationalists, to advance a new international agenda, even though maintaining the very principles of our foreign policy. The synthesis of these changes can be interpreted as a new strategy based on old premises, to which we call "autonomy through modernization".