Na RBPI 1/2012 - Bringing Itamaraty back in: diplomacy under the Collor de Mello administration

One of the main features of the Collor de Mello administration, which ran the country briefly between 1990 and 1992, is said to be its strong centralism, based on an excessively voluntaristic leader and on a rigid presidential system. How did it affect Brazilian foreign policy, if at all? The widespread consensus in the literature (Batista 1993; Lima 1994; Hirst and Pinheiro 1995) is that changes seen in the country’s global relations at the end of the Cold War are mostly due to President Collor’s personal choices towards neoliberalism and the return of special relations with developed nations.

This is a bold statement. In hindsight, no single president in the twentieth century was able to fully determine the guidelines of Brazil’s foreign relations. This role has historically belonged to Itamaraty, the country’s Foreign Ministry, which enjoyed a virtual monopoly over foreign policy-making and implementation from the early days of Barão do Rio Branco (Cheibub 1985). If the ‘bureaucratic insulation’ of Itamaraty and its world renowned diplomatic service could stand the test of time, having prevailed over two long periods of authoritarianism, why would it be different with the first democratically elected president in thirty years?

We argue that there is no reason to believe that the Foreign Ministry was put on the sidelines of foreign policy. Nor is it plausible to claim that changes in Brazil’s international orientation – toward a subservient and ideological alliance with the United States – must be exclusively charged on the president’s preferences.

First of all, changes were not as dramatic as conventional wisdom might indicate. Most decisions under President Collor were made in the light of a triple transformation, which involved at least three levels of analysis – the international system, the domestic structures and preferences, and the bureaucratic institutions and preferences. Systemically, Brazil witnessed a grave economic downturn in the late 1980s, which undermined its trade dynamism and aggravated its dependence on foreign creditors. The world also saw the implosion of the Third World, which represented the main axis of Brazilian foreign policy since the mid-1970, as international politics entered a unipolar moment with the triumph of the U.S. (Krauthammer 1990).

Domestically, state-society relations underwent a major shift, as the country embraced democratic values and paved the way (albeit slowly) for societal demands. It had an important impact on foreign policy, insofar as ‘new issues’ such as environmental protection, trade liberalization, nuclear non-proliferation, and human rights could finally find its place in the foreign policy agenda. Moreover, Brazilian business community had successfully pushed their own progressively liberal interests into public policymaking, which involved, among other issues, closer ties with the United States (Velasco e Cruz 1997).

But such transformations would not mean much if the Foreign Ministry had stayed the same. After all, the organizational strength and insulation of Itamaraty meant a great deal of continuity in foreign affairs (Lima 2000). If we may speak of a ‘new foreign policy’ under Collor de Mello, we could either consider it was one of which Itamaraty did not take part (which do not find historical nor conceptual support) or, rather, that the bureaucracy did go through changes, both in its structures and in its preferences. That latter claim is the hypothesis on which our research was built.

A number of in-depth interviews with key foreign policy actors were conducted in order to test our hypothesis and to shed light on the relations between President Collor de Mello and the Brazilian diplomatic service. We also looked at the institutional modifications introduced by that administration so as to understand their role and potential outcomes. It was possible to identify two main groups within the Foreign Ministry, the nationalists and the liberals, whose interaction was delicate and where the former usually prevailed.

The conclusion rests on three main findings. First, Itamaraty has never stood aside from foreign policymaking during the Collor years. It actively partook in the most relevant foreign policy achievements of that time, such as the establishment of the Common Market of the South (Mercosur), the liberalization of trade policies, and the adherence to international regimes – particularly in the fields of sensitive technology and environmental protection. Second, some changes in Brazil’s international relations may relate to the victory of liberals over nationalists within Itamaraty, which was only made possible through a new institutional design and by means of a conscious choice of diplomats to assume key positions, such as the Secretary-General for Political Affairs, the Embassy in Washington, and the president’s closest aides. Third, the outcome of the interaction between the president and the Foreign Ministry, having systemic and domestic inflections at its background, may be understood as a mitigated Americanism. Through it, Brazil has attempted to project itself globally with a view to enhance its international position, in line with the country’s diplomatic traditions of autonomy and the rule of law.

Guilherme Stolle Paixão e Casarões é professor de Relações Internacionais das Faculdades Integradas Rio Branco, Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado (FAAP) e Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) ([email protected]).

CASAROES, Guilherme Stolle Paixão e. O papel do Itamaraty na definição da política externa do governo Collor de Mello. Rev. bras. polít. int. [online]. 2012, vol.55, n.1, pp. 135-153. ISSN 0034-7329.