A “Brazilian Way”? Brazil's Approach to Peacebuilding

ORDER from CHAOS Foreign Policy in a Troubled World GEOECONOMICS AND GLOBAL ISSUES PAPER 5 | FEBRUARY 2017 A “Brazilian way”? Brazil’s approach to peacebuilding CHARLES T. CALL ADRIANA ERTHAL ABDENUR ABOUT THE ORDER FROM CHAOS PROJECT In the two decades following the end of the Cold War, the world experienced an era charac- terized by declining war and rising prosperity. The absence of serious geopolitical competition created opportunities for increased interdependence and global cooperation. In recent years, however, several and possibly fundamental challenges to that new order have arisen— the collapse of order and the descent into violence in the Middle East; the Russian challenge to the European security order; and increasing geopolitical tensions in Asia being among the foremost of these. At this pivotal juncture, U.S. leadership is critical, and the task ahead is urgent and complex. The next U.S. president will need to adapt and protect the liberal international order as a means of continuing to provide stability and prosperity; develop a strategy that encourages cooperation not competition among willing powers; and, if necessary, contain or constrain actors seeking to undermine those goals. In response to these changing global dynamics, the Foreign Policy Program at Brookings has established the Order from Chaos Project. With incisive analysis, new strategies, and in- novative policies, the Foreign Policy Program and its scholars have embarked on a two-year project with three core purposes: • To analyze the dynamics in the international system that are creating stresses, challenges, and a breakdown of order. • To define U.S. interests in this new era and develop specific strategies for promoting a revitalized rules-based, liberal international order. • To provide policy recommendations on how to develop the necessary tools of statecraft (military, economic, diplomatic, and social) and how to redesign the architecture of the international order. The Order from Chaos Project strives to engage and influence the policy debate as the Unit- ed States moves toward the 2016 election and as the next president takes office. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors would like to thank the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Norwegian Foreign Ministry for research support through the “Rising Powers and Peacebuilding” project. Adriana Abdenur wishes to thank the National Counsel of Technological and Scientific Development (CNPq) and its Senior Post-Doctoral Scholarship Program and the Centro de Pesqui- sa e Documentação de História Contemporânea do Brasil (CPDOC) at Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV) for supporting her role in this research. Brookings recognizes that the value it provides to any support- er is in its absolute commitment to quality, independence, and im- pact. Activities supported by its donors reflect this commitment, and the analysis and recommendations of the Institution’s scholars are not determined by any donation. A “Brazilian way”? Brazil’s approach to peacebuilding CHARLES T. CALL ADRIANA ERTHAL ABDENUR Introduction Since 2000, a number of “rising powers” have sought a more active global role commensurate with their economic status and regional positions of influence. The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), as well as Turkey, Mexico, and Indonesia have stepped up their activism on the world stage in a bid to transform the international order toward greater multipolarity.1 It is not just the size of these countries’ economies that led to their status as “emerging” or “rising” powers, but also their dynamism. As former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva noted in 2009, even though the BRICS’ GDP accounted for only 15 percent of global GDP, Bra- zil was responsible for 65 percent of the growth of that GDP.2 Their economic protagonism (despite some fluctuations and recent -re tractions) has been accompanied by efforts to play a greater role on the stage of international peace and security. The BRICS, Turkey, and Mexico dramatically increased their development cooperation efforts as a tool of foreign policy, even as they adopted new roles in international crises and armed conflicts. India became an important player in post-Taliban Af- ghanistan, just as Brazil assumed a high-profile role in the top crisis in its own hemisphere, Haiti, as well as in Lusophone Africa. Turkey initiated its own mediation effort in Somalia, while South Africa has supported peace processes throughout the continent. Brazil represents an especially high-profile rising power that has sought to enhance its strategic-political profile and influence on the international ORDER from CHAOS 1 Geoeconomics and Global Issues A “Brazilian way”? Brazil’s approach to peacebuilding order, even as it faces internal constraints on its capacity to project influence abroad. Like Turkey, Brazil has experienced domestic political tur- moil and economic malaise in the past few years that call into question the sustainability and reach of its global ambitions. Its policies and stances on peace-related issues have continued, but with less protagonism and few- er resources. However, its policies on “peacebuilding”—one thematic area within its broader diplomacy and security policy—have persisted and offer a window into Brazil’s foreign policy, especially the close interdependence “Since the early 2000s, of security and development. Brazil has acted in the Moreover, Brazil’s peace-related initiatives offer an especially well-articu- areas of development lated example of a rising power’s approach to peacebuilding. Since the early cooperation, peace 2000s, Brazil has acted in the areas of development cooperation, peacekeeping, and other keeping, and other initiatives related to peacebuilding, not just implement- initiatives related to ing concrete initiatives, but also participating in normative debates and ad- peacebuilding, not vocating for alternative approaches. The country’s historical commitment just implement ing to non-intervention and to non-militaristic policies is part of a broader concrete initiatives, style of soft regional leadership. As one South American diplomat put it but also participating when Brazil was called a “tiger” in the continent: “Yes, but it is a vegetarian in normative debates one!”3 and ad vocating for alternative approaches.” Brazil’s avid efforts to deepen and diversify its role in international security are not a novelty in the post-Cold War era, but these initiatives became particularly visible during the administration of President Lula da Silva (2003-2010). During this period, Brazil sought greater prominence on the international stage on several fronts.4 Brazil pressed for transformations in the multilateral system, including by helping to create and then exercise leadership in loose fora such as the G-20, the BRICS coalition, and the IBSA (India, Brazil, and South Africa) Dialogue Forum, and by boosting its role in organizations like the Union of South American States (UNA- SUR) and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP). It also worked to gain greater influence within the multilateral system, boosting its historic bid for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council and contesting what Brazilian political elites view as excessive securitization of the U.N. Under Lula, Brazil nearly tripled its development cooperation to 1.6 billion reais ($923 million at the time). Some 66.3 percent of these funds were channeled through multilateral cooperation, while the remain- der was allocated to bilateral efforts focusing on Latin America and Africa.5 2 ORDER fromORDER CHAOS from CHAOS 2 GeoeconomicsAsia and Working Global Issues Group A “Brazilian way”? Brazil’s approach to peacebuilding This amount represented a significant surge and diversification in Brazil’s role in development, including in a number of conflict-affected countries. More broadly, Brazil became more active in a variety of initiatives during this period that can be considered to fall under the concept of peacebuilding—policies and programs broadly geared at boosting stability and preventing the outbreak or recurrence of armed conflict. As part of its South-South development cooperation efforts, Brazil vastly expanded its official technical cooperation with post-conflict countries such as Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, and East Timor. It also sponsored and exe- cuted peace-related development projects to support the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), whose military command it held contin- uously for an unprecedented 12 years, starting in 2004. Both in its home region and beyond, Brazil engaged in conflict mediation efforts, whether through organizations like UNASUR and the CPLP or via ad hoc arrange- ments like IBSA. At the U.N., Brazil was instrumental in the creation of the Peacebuilding Architecture, including the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC), in which Brazil assumed a leadership role, especially with respect to Guinea-Bissau. It also increased its contributions to humanitarian assis- tance, especially via U.N. agencies and programs. In U.N. normative debates, Brazil promoted peacebuilding as a complement, and sometimes as an alternative, to militarized approaches to peacekeeping, arguing that in- vesting in political processes and socioeconomic development is essential to the promotion of peace. This purpose of this paper is to describe the scope of, and trends in, Bra- zil’s peacebuilding activities since the early 2000s, focusing on the presi- dencies of Lula and Dilma Rousseff. This paper

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