Modern Diplomacy in Practice

By Robert Hutchings and Jeremi Suri

This textbook, the first comprehensive comparative study ever undertaken, surveys and compares the world’s ten largest diplomatic services: those of Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Russia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Chapters cover the distinctive histories and cultures of the services, their changing role in foreign policy making, and their preparations for the new challenges of the twenty-first century. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Release date: Sep 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9783030269333

Book preview

© The Author(s) 2020

R. Hutchings, J. Suri (eds.)Modern Diplomacy in Practicehttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26933-3_1

1. Brazil

Maria Pereyra-Vera¹, Daniel Jimenez² and Robert Hutchings³  

(1)

2018 Master of Arts Degree, Global Policy Studies, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

(2)

2017 Master of Arts Degree, Global Policy Studies, and 2015 Master of Arts Degree, Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

(3)

Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

Robert Hutchings

Email: [e-mail]

Keywords

BrazilItamaratyDiplomacyDiplomatsForeign policyForeign ministry

Executive Summary

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in Portuguese Ministerio das Relações Exteriores, has a particularly rich history. Colloquially referred to as Itamaraty, after the palace that has housed the ministry since its inception in the nineteenth century,¹ the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs began as an institution reserved primarily for the aristocracy. Though still an elite institution, Itamaraty has since become more open and modern, with respected diplomats who are widely regarded as among the most distinguished and effective in the world. The early French influence on Brazilian governmental institutions is still reflected in both the prerequisites and core curriculum of the Brazilian diplomatic academy, the Instituto Rio Branco in Brasilia, through which every Brazilian diplomat must pass.

Brazilian diplomats typically enjoy a high degree of autonomy and capacity for independent judgment, especially in smaller or less sensitive postings. Unique among the countries covered in this book, Brazil requires that rising diplomats complete rigorous academic course work at several points in a career, including the equivalent of a master’s thesis (additional to whatever degrees already earned) for promotion to the highest level.

Because of its prominence in Brazilian history, Itamaraty traditionally has played a strong role in the making and execution of foreign policy, with relatively little political interference during the period of democratic and authoritarian rule alike. Presidentialism and Itamaraty’s leading role have gone hand in hand, even under strong and assertive presidents. Itamaraty’s distinctive role is beginning to change, however, as foreign policy has come under increased public scrutiny and as decision making has become more centralized in the office of the president.

Although Brazil is sometimes accused of having an inconsistent foreign policy, owing to its turbulent political history, its diplomatic culture is informed by a coherent and durable set of core principles. Article 4 of the 1988 Brazilian Constitution articulates the basic tenets, which include adherence to international law, peaceful settlement of disputes, multilateralism, equality of states, sovereignty, and non-intervention. These principles flow naturally from Brazil’s colonial history, its geographical situation with more national borders than any other state save China and Russia, and relatively weak capacity for military and economic power projection. Thus, Brazil has long been among the most active proponents of multilateralism and global governance, and has at the same time been a sharp critic of US domination of international institutions and of what former foreign minister Celso Amorim called multilateralism in the service of unipolarity. Under former President Luiz Inácio Lula de Silva, Brazil embarked on a more active and assertive foreign policy under the banner of acting globally, the title of Amorim’s memoir,² and often as part of an informal BRIC (Brazil–Russia–India–China) grouping that coordinates primarily on economic and financial issues. It is an open question whether that tenuous grouping, which otherwise reflects very different positions on political and human rights issues, will survive the cross-pressures facing each of those countries and whether Brazil will be able to play the larger global role it set for itself just a few years ago.

History and Culture

The Brazilian diplomatic tradition can be traced back to the eminent Portuguese diplomat Alexandre de Gusmão, whose negotiation of the 1750 Treaty of Madrid secured for Portugal most of the borders of present-day Brazil, and whose legacy survives today via the eponymous Fundação Alexandre de Gusmão (FUNAG) in Brasilia. After independence and following territorial disputes with neighboring states, these borders were secured for the newly independent Brazilian state by José Maria da Silva Paranhos, Sr., Baron of Rio Branco. Considered the father of Brazilian diplomacy, Rio Branco successfully negotiated the peaceful consolidation of Brazil’s numerous borders before and during his tenure as foreign minister from 1902 to 1912. Indeed, because of Brazil’s highly partisan political system, Rio Branco had demanded as a condition of his accepting the position of the foreign minister that he be empowered to create a professional diplomatic service removed from the highly charged political scene.³ Brazilian diplomacy was thus nearly synonymous with Brazilian statehood, conferring on it prestige and domestic legitimacy that continues to this day.

The Brazilian diplomatic service, like other Brazilian institutions, was strongly influenced by French culture and institutions. The Spanish and Portuguese colonies in continental Latin America all gained independence in the immediate post-Napoleonic era and based their legal systems on the Napoleonic Code. They also drew on the US Constitution, but France and French culture served as an attractive counterweight to US domination of the western hemisphere. Nineteenth century liberalism came to Brazil in the form of the positivism of the French philosopher August Comte, whose writings inspired the motto Ordem e Progresso on the Brazilian flag. Itamaraty’s website on France begins with this acknowledgment: Since the independence of Brazil, France has held a central position in the Brazilian cultural, intellectual and institutional development. Political, philosophical, and religious ideas were sought in that country, as well as school, university and military models that would be employed in Brazil.⁴ Indeed, Brazil’s diplomatic academy, the Instituto Rio Branco, was modeled directly on the French Grandes Écoles and named after the Baron, who was himself an ardent Francophile.

After independence and the creation of the Empire of Brazil under Emperor Dom Pedro I in 1822, Itamaraty, like other governmental institutions, was a preserve of the nobility. With the proclamation of the Republic of Brazil in 1889, the aristocracy was abolished along with titles of nobility, though a few prominent individuals were allowed to retain their titles. Among those was the Baron of Rio Branco, who nonetheless (and ironically) played a key role in the evolution of Brazil’s diplomatic service by seeking to equalize members of the service in terms of social origins and ideological bias, [favoring] the creation of a relatively cohesive and homogenous group. This groundwork of institutional unity and ideological homogeneity eventually led to institutional changes, including the adoption of public examinations and not long after, the merger of the State Department, Consular Service, and Diplomatic Service under the Mello Franco and Oswaldo Aranha reforms. On April 18, 1945, as part of the centennial celebration of the birth of the Baron of Rio Branco, the institute the bears his name was created by then President Getulio Vargas. Since that time, the institute has trained every Brazilian diplomat, giving Itamaraty a uniquely cohesive diplomatic corps all the way from third secretaries to ambassadors.

Like other Brazilian institutions, Itamaraty played a delicate, controversial, and somewhat compromised role during the military dictatorship that lasted from 1964 to 1985. Most of the oppressive measures under the ditadura were performed by the military itself or by CIEX (Information Center Abroad), a powerful intelligence agency under the supervision of the SNI (National Intelligence Service), but recent investigative reports, some drawn from the work of the National Truth Commission from 2012 to 2014, have implicated Itamaraty in spying on exiles and mounting counterpropaganda campaigns.⁵ Much of the history of this period remains murky, however, and Itamaraty survived this dark period in Brazilian history with its reputation relatively unscathed. In a perverse way, the restrictions on political participation may actually have strengthened (at least temporarily) the autonomy of Itamaraty by shielding it from Congressional or public scrutiny.⁶

Certainly, Brazilian diplomats themselves consider their patterns of diplomatic thought and action to be uniquely theirs. Such was the premise of the three-volume Brazilian Diplomatic Thought published by the Alexandre de Gusmão Foundation, which posed and then answered in the affirmative the question, Is there a Brazilian diplomatic thought?⁷ (There are parallels with a similar question posed by and to British diplomats: is there such a thing as a Foreign Office mind, discussed in Chap. 9 of this book.) The Brazilian diplomat and scholar Paulo Roberto de Almeida summed it up this way:

Historically, Brazilian diplomacy has its own set of ideas—its own patterns of thought—which support its actions. These patterns of thought include concepts such as: an undeniable adhesion to international law; the absence of the recourse to force, to resolve disputes among States; nonintervention in the internal affairs of other countries; the observance of human rights; and a set of values unique to our civilizing heritage.⁸

Profile

Historically, Itamaraty has been well-funded, in keeping with its privileged place among Brazilian institutions, but the past decade has seen huge fluctuations in its operating budget. To support President Lula’s ambitious foreign policy agenda, funding for the ministry soared, and the number of new diplomats entering the service annually more than tripled.⁹ Under his successor Dilma Rousseff, beset by scandal and recession, funding went into a free fall, declining by more than 50% from 2010 to 2015, when it sank to 1.89 billion Brazilian Reals (approximately $600 million).¹⁰ The budget recovered somewhat in subsequent years, but the 2018 accession of the populist and anti-globalist administration of Jair Bolsonaro introduced new uncertainties about future funding levels.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the primary governing institution for the implementation of diplomatic relations with states and relevant international organizations. Headquartered in Brasilia, it is the main body providing direct support to Brazil’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, as well as the Secretary General of Foreign Affairs. Itamaraty is organized through seven under-secretariats, both regional and functional.¹¹ The Rio Branco Institute, Alexandre de Gusmão Foundation (FUNAG) and International Relations Research Institute (IPRI) also fall under its authority.¹²

According to the Ministry’s website, the Brazilian Foreign Service consists of three careers: diplomat, chancery officer and chancery assistant. In April 2014, the board of employees counted with 1581 diplomats, 872 chancery officers and 603 chancery assistants.¹³ The relatively small size of the service—compared, that is, to most of the services surveyed in this book—is a reflection both of the budget constraints of the time and of its elite character. Similar to the US Foreign Service, the Brazilian Foreign Service is divided into four cones—Geographic, Thematic (Functional) and Multilateral Negotiations, Consular, and Administrative—with some possibility for officers to move between them during the course of a career. Diplomats enter as Third Secretary and may be promoted sequentially to Second Secretary, First Secretary, Counselor, Second Class Minister, and First Class Minister (Ambassador). Abroad, Second Class and First Class Ministers may exercise the function of Ambassador.¹⁴

In terms of Itamaraty’s presence abroad, the Ministry of External Relations boasts a network of 226 official representations in 138 countries. This can be further broken down into 152 diplomatic missions, and 70 consular missions. The Ministry’s more than 200 diplomatic representations abroad provide a range of services: they promote Brazil’s interests abroad, provide various consular services to Brazilian ex-patriots and Brazilians living outside the country, offers key logistical and administrative support to Brazilian companies located abroad, and other similar