Regionalism as an instrument: assessing Brazil's relations with its neighbourhood

Abstract

This article aims to understand the basic characteristics of regionalism in Brazilian foreign policy. For this purpose, it goes over the recent history of Brazilian involvement in regional trade and security arrangements in South America. It also examines the manner in which economic uncertainties, brought about by the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, affected Brazilian foreign policy towards its region. Based on this historical analysis, it defines five key aspects that characterise Brazilian behaviour in the region, namely: post-democratisation regionalism; presidential regionalism; reactive regionalism; concentric/multilevel regionalism; and instrumental regionalism.