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Introduction In this chapter, I explore the use of the concept of multipolarity in the Brazilian foreign policy debate from 2000 to 2015. To do so, I draw on four sources. First, I analyse documents from Brazilian government agencies to reconstruct how polarity was thought of and what impact this had on actual policy. Second, I rely on a series of in-depth interviews conducted in June 2017 with academics and Brazilian public officials to help unravel their understanding of the term and the interests of different actors. Third, I systematically review the
Perhaps one of the most consistent themes in Brazilian foreign policy over the last century has been the drive for a seat at the main global governance decision making tables. Whether it be the Versailles Palace talks after World War One, the San Francisco discussions leading to the United Nations system or negotiations in countless international forums such as the Food and Agriculture Organization, GATT/WTO, or World Health Organization, Brazilian diplomats have devoted enormous efforts to ensuring they are given space to be active participants. This has
As Brazilians frequently point out, from 1968–1973 their country experienced the sort of economic surge and staggering GDP growth rates we now associate with China. These boom years were not an accident, but the result of focused government policy designed to precipitate rapid industrialization and transformation away from a rural, agrarian economy towards an urbanized, manufacturing economic model. A stable of state industrial champions were placed at the heart of this policy push, all financed and supported by state-run banks and development institutions
This book contributes to the construction of an integrated analysis of Brazilian foreign policy by focusing on the country's insertion into both the regional and global system over the roughly twenty-five years through to the end of Dilma's first term as president in 2014. An attempt is made to order the discussion through exploration of a series of themes, which are further broken down into key component parts. The first section presents the context, with chapters on institutional structures and the tactical behaviours exhibited by the country's diplomacy, which will be used to guide the analysis in subsequent chapters. The second focuses on issues, taking in trade policies, the rise of Brazilian foreign direct investment, security policy and multilateralism. Key relationships are covered in the final section, encompassing Latin America, the Global South, the US and China. A central contradiction is the clear sense that Brazilian foreign policy makers want to position their country as leader, but are almost pathologically averse to explicitly stating this role or accepting the implicit responsibilities. The recurrent theme is the rising confusion about what Brazil's international identity is, what it should be, and what this means Brazil can and should do. A repeated point made is that foreign policy is an important and often overloooked aspect of domestic policies. The Dilma presidency does hold an important place in the analytical narrative of this book, particularly with respect to the chapters on trade, Brazil Inc., security policy and bilateral relations with the US and China.
Exhumation may be defined as the legally sanctioned excavation and recovery of the remains of lawfully buried or – occasionally – cremated individuals, as distinct from forensic excavations of clandestinely buried remains conducted as part of a criminal investigation and from unlawful disinterment of human remains, commonly referred to as bodysnatching. The aim of this article is to review the role of exhumation – so defined – in the activities of CEMEL, the Medico-Legal Centre of the Ribeirão Preto Medical School-University of São Paulo, in international, regional and local collaborations. Exhumations form part of routine forensic anthropology casework; scientific research in physical and forensic anthropology; and forensic casework conducted in collaboration with the Brazilian Federal Police; and are carried out as part of humanitarian investigations into deaths associated with the civil–military dictatorship of 1964 to 1985. This article aims to offer a non-technical summary – with reference to international comparative information – of the role of exhumation in investigative and scientific work and to discuss developments in their historical and political context.
Since the turn of the century, perhaps no country has proven as important or confusing to Brazilian foreign policy makers as China. It is both the key to Brazil’s rise and the bane to its ambitions of becoming a truly global power with real influence over structural power frameworks. While Brazil’s foreign policy establishment initially hoped that China’s rise would be a major boost for the country’s economic development, and that Beijing would join it in a Southern alliance pushing for the global governance changes sought by Brasília, events during the PT
Latin America more broadly and South America specifically provide the platform on which Brazilian foreign policy architects positioned their main lever for attempting to shift structural power frameworks and the pursuit of their country’s particular brand of international insertion. Central to this has been a continental strategic reality particularly propitious for the consensual hegemonic style of leadership sought by Brazil over the last quarter century. While there have been occasional armed contretemps between South American states, the most serious
few examples of works that discuss what it means to tell the story of a musician or to use popular music as the topic of a documentary. This chapter contributes to this under-explored field by focusing on the music and musicians that constitute the subject matter of four recent Brazilian films. Although music has always played a prominent role in Brazilian popular culture, filmmakers’ interest in music is a relatively recent
During the Second World War and its aftermath, the legend was spread that the Germans turned the bodies of Holocaust victims into soap stamped with the initials RIF, falsely interpreted as made from pure Jewish fat. In the years following liberation, RIF soap was solemnly buried in cemeteries all over the world and came to symbolise the six million killed in the Shoah, publicly showing the determination of Jewry to never forget the victims. This article will examine the funerals that started in Bulgaria and then attracted several thousand mourners in Brazil and Romania, attended by prominent public personalities and receiving widespread media coverage at home and abroad. In 1990 Yad Vashem laid the Jewish soap legend to rest, and today tombstones over soap graves are falling into decay with new ones avoiding the word soap. RIF soap, however, is alive in the virtual world of the Internet and remains fiercely disputed between believers and deniers.
Truth commissions are widely recognised tools used in negotiation following political repression. Their work may be underpinned by formal scientific investigation of human remains. This paper presents an analysis of the role of forensic investigations in the transition to democracy following the Brazilian military governments of 1964–85. It considers practices during the dictatorship and in the period following, making reference to analyses of truth commission work in jurisdictions other than Brazil, including those in which the investigation of clandestine burials has taken place. Attempts to conceal the fate of victims during the dictatorship, and the attempts of democratic governments to investigate them are described. Despite various initiatives since the end of the military government, many victims remain unidentified. In Brazil, as elsewhere, forensic investigations are susceptible to political and social influences, leading to a situation in which relatives struggle to obtain meaningful restitution and have little trust in the transitional justice process.