Política Externa coleção Brasileira THE QUEST FOR AUTONOMY MINISTRY OF EXTERNAL RELATIONS Foreign Minister Ambassador Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado Secretary-General Ambassador Eduardo dos Santos ALEXANDRE DE GUSMÃO FOUNDATION President Ambassador Sérgio Eduardo Moreira Lima Institute of Research on International Relations Director Ambassador José Humberto de Brito Cruz Center for Diplomatic History and Documents Director Ambassador Maurício E. Cortes Costa Editorial Board of the Alexandre de Gusmão Foundation President Ambassador Sérgio Eduardo Moreira Lima Members Ambassador Ronaldo Mota Sardenberg Ambassador Jorio Dauster Magalhães e Silva Ambassador Gonçalo de Barros Carvalho e Mello Mourão Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes Ambassador José Humberto de Brito Cruz Minister Luís Felipe Silvério Fortuna Professor Francisco Fernando Monteoliva Doratioto Professor José Flávio Sombra Saraiva Professor Antônio Carlos Moraes Lessa The Alexandre de Gusmão Foundation (Funag) was established in 1971. It is a public foundation linked to the Ministry of External Relations whose goal is to provide civil society with information concerning the international scenario and aspects of the Brazilian diplomatic agenda. The Foundation’s mission is to foster awareness of the domestic public opinion with regard to international relations issues and Brazilian foreign policy. Andrew James Hurrell THE QUEST FOR AUTONOMY THE EVOLUTION OF BRAZIL’S ROLE IN THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM, 1964 – 1985 Brasília – 2013 Copyright © Fundação Alexandre de Gusmão Ministério das Relações Exteriores Esplanada dos Ministérios, Bloco H Anexo II, Térreo, Sala 1 70170-900 Brasília-DF Telephones: +55 (61) 2030-6033/6034 Fax: +55 (61) 2030-9125 Website: www.funag.gov.br E-mail: [email protected] Editorial Staff: Eliane Miranda Paiva Fernanda Antunes Siqueira Gabriela Del Rio de Rezende Guilherme Lucas Rodrigues Monteiro Jessé Nóbrega Cardoso Vanusa dos Santos Silva Graphic Design: Daniela Barbosa Layout: Gráfica e Editora Ideal Impresso no Brasil 2014 H966 Hurrell, Andrew James. The quest for autonomy : the evolution of Brazil’s role in the internacional system, 1964 - 1985 / Andrew James Hurrell . – Brasília : FUNAG, 2013. 470 p. (Coleção política externa brasileira) ISBN 978-85-7631-459-2 1. Governo militar (1964-1985) - política externa. 2. História diplomática - Brasil. 3. Política externa - Brasil - Estados Unidos. I. Título. II. Série. CDD 327.81 Bibliotecária responsável: Ledir dos Santos Pereira, CRB-1/776. Depósito Legal na Fundação Biblioteca Nacional conforme Lei n° 10.994, de 14/12/2004. FOREWORD Oxford Professor Andrew Hurrell is one of the best-known and most renowned theoreticians in the field of contemporary International Relations. His creative intellectual production ranges across the fundamental issues of the current international order: he is one of the most incisive and balanced analysts of the phenomenon of globalisation; his articles on international law are exemplary; his texts on the transformations of the international world order and the rise of new emerging powers are mandatory reading for understanding today’s international dynamics; and he has also written important papers on environmental matters and Latin American international relations. The best way to capture the nature of this work in a synthetic manner, however, is perhaps to quote Celso Lafer, who defined Andrew Hurrell as “an admirable representative and continuing figure of the English School”. In fact, his largest work, On Global Order – Power, Values and the Constitution of International Society, may be read as a sequel to Hedley Bull’s Anarchical Society, one of the core texts that shaped the English School. Hurrell renews and sensibly updates Bull’s classic work. However, it is important to underline in this Preface that Hurrell’s notable intellectual trajectory began with a thesis on Brazilian foreign policy, defended at Oxford, in 1986. In it there lay dormant many of the qualities he would come to develop during his future career. It is an innovative thesis, starting from the methodological creativity and the choice of the period, the military governments of Brazil, whose foreign policy had not yet been examined in a systematic way. But the text is much more than a mere historic review of a given period. It is of great value to those interested in the logic underlying the moves of Brazilian diplomacy, then and now. After all, both in the 1970s and today, there was a similar expectation of “Brazil’s emergence” which highlights one of the defining characteristics of the country’s international stance. Some things have changed, others have remained the same, and Hurrell’s text helps determine which is which. Thus, the timely sponsoring of this publication by FUNAG will broaden the circle of readers, and our understanding of Brazilian foreign action will gain an important reference point. Hurrell wrote his thesis as the academic interest on Brazilian foreign policy was beginning its expansion. This was motivated, on the one hand, by some remarkably uninhibited initiatives on the part of Brazilian diplomacy, which diversified the country’s traditional international ties and made way for the adoption of a more independent attitude; on the other hand, the years of strong economic growth, along with the “miracle” of the beginning of the 1970s suggested that there was consistent support for such an “emergence”. Diplomatic solutions were ceasing to be predictable and it was necessary to explain why a Western country aligned with the United States came to develop friction with the superpower in so many areas. Academic interest on Brazilian diplomacy was stimulated by the evolution from the alignment of the Castelo Branco years to this new situation, and the new trend manifested itself in two movements. The first takes place overseas, especially in American universities, with a new generation of “Brazilianists” dedicated to the study of diplomatic history, such as Stanley Hilton, or contemporary themes, such as Wayne Selcher, Riordan Roett and Keith Storrs, among others. More than just diplomacy, this was a period in which all that was happening in Brazil was beginning to attract attention outside. This is a broad movement which includes not only international relations but many other themes, as in the works of Albert Fishlow, Werner Baer, Thomas Skidmore, Alfred Stepan, Leslie Bethell and Kenneth Maxwell, among many others. Brazil was “trendy”. Andrew Hurrell would come slightly later, in the mid-1980s, but it is possible to include him in that group of important researchers, and, among the English, he is one of the few who dedicates himself to the study of contemporary Brazilian foreign policy. The second movement took place in Brazil. With the return of some professors who had obtained their doctorates in the United States or in Europe, such as Celso Lafer, Gerson Moura, Maria Regina Soares de Lima, Sonia Camargo, Marcelo Abreu, Amado Cervo, Antonio Carlos Peixoto and some others, Brazilian institutions for research on foreign policy were consolidated their role and their position through the 1980s. After the pioneer works by Helio Jaguaribe and José Honório Rodrigues, International Relations re-entered the Brazilian academic world. These two movements converge and there is an intense dialogue between Brazilian and Brazilianist scholars. Cross-citations in books and articles are frequent and it seems clear that, in terms of diplomatic studies, a new perspective of analysis was emerging. Its most visible characteristic is that, on both sides, authors are intent on rigorously following the canons of academic production. The search for sources is broadened; statistical materials are brought in to support lines of argumentation; hypotheses are stated and tested more precisely. Another characteristic of both movements is the focus on the logic of diplomacy. “Modern” conceptual apparatuses are constructed to study Brazil’s relations with its partners (state-to-state relations) and the way in which medium or emerging countries, as they were then named, might come to influence the international order. In this sense, the first contribution made by Hurrell’s thesis was the axial choice of the issue of autonomy in theory and in history. We must recall that, no matter the methodological perspective, realist or liberal, the comprehension of international society begins by the realization that it is a game of mutual and constant influences. What differentiates the various academic schools of thought is the way in which they perceive the consequences of the game of mutual influence – whether they are necessarily conflictual, or whether they come to foster the possibility of sociability between the states. The ability to exert and prevent influence is central to the definition of the boundaries of “autonomy”. In Hurrell’s words, “Autonomy can be defined as the degree of effective independence that a state is able to attain. It is thus by definition a relative concept, with all states finding themselves on a continuum between autonomy on the one hand and dependence on the other”. The key to this concept is thus to examine precisely what effective independence is, and how to mitigate the vulnerabilities and external pressures and influences that would pose obstacles to the accomplishment of the state’s foreign policy objectives. Another important element of the thesis is the connection between the conceptual discussion of autonomy on the one hand, and the theoretical models that steered the study