Autor:

Mario Schettino Valente

Abstract:

This article relies on the Brazilian social and political thought to provide a narrative of sociological foundations of the national foreign policy in the New Republic. This research analyses the conformation of the Brazilian society and its national State to discuss how the Portuguese patrimonial and bureaucratic heritage, which shaped the Brazilian empire, the ever-increasing technical and bureaucratic rationality, mainly since the 1930s, and the process of pluralisation in the Brazilian society, majorly since the democratic transition sparked in 1974, set the foreign policy production in the irst thirty years of the New Republic. This narrative argues that these seemingly antinomic characteristics engendered tensions and adaptations, which result in the accumulation of estate-type patrimonialism, bureaucratic insulation, mitigated republicanism as characteristic features of the foreign policy production in the New Republic. The historical accumulation of these three characteristics resulted in a concentrated foreign policy cycle that is refractory to the participation of society. In recent years, this cycle has been under pressure to expand its openness to participation and opposition, thought these demands have not necessarily advocated for an enlargement that permits the unrestricted participation of society, relecting historical values of the formation of the Brazilian political community and State. To develop this scientiic endeavor, this research employs the qualitative methodology, predominantly historiographical and literature reviews, as well as discursive narrative.