Political Parties And Foreign Policy: Understanding The Workers Party And Brazil’s Move For IBSA

The year 2002 introduced in Brazil a “time for change”, a change that would bring for the first time in its democratic history the influential and renowned left-wing party, Partido dos Trabalhadores(Workers Party in Portuguese, hereinafter referred to as “PT”) to office.The PT emerged as a manifestation of the social movements that erupted in Brazil in the end of 1970 s, a political party with strong socialist principles, a leftist discourse and an activist approach to governance. The evolution of the party’s internationalist identity and its strong socialist principles were thus translated into the PT’s view of Brazil as deserving a protagonist role in international politics. Following the democratic transition process(ending in the late 1980s), Brazil tried to adapt of the new realities of globalization and market economy.The 1990 s marked a stage where there was an increased interaction with market economy and foreign policy directed at integrating with the international regimes provided by the Western world. Nevertheless, high levels of income inequality and the effects of an underperforming economy in 2002 led to a change of government, with the PT elected for the presidency.By 2003, the recognized leftist political party had finally arrived in office, with Lula da Silva, its co-founder, as President. The PT succeeded at the presidential elections with a campaign on one of the principles that would guide the government after the elections, the concept of “time for change”.Six months later, after the G-8 Summit, where President Lula raised strong criticism against developed “industrialized” countries, Brazil announced the creation of a strategic partnership, the IBSA Dialogue Forum, formed by the greatest democratic countries of Brazil, India and South Africa on the basis of South-South Cooperation aimed at trilateral coordination and strengthening of agendas of developing countries in multilateral forums.The main objective of the thesis is to assess the role of the political party “PT” in Brazil’s decision to join in the creation of the IBSA Dialogue Forum in June, 2003, six months after the party arrived for the first time in office.The main research questions will be as follows: To what degree and how did PT influence Brazil’s decision to join in the creation of the IBSA in 2003 and how?The main argument of this paper is that the Workers Party played an extremely pertinent role in the decision of Brazil to pursue the creation of the IBSA Forum. In the year 2003 Brazil experienced a change, yet a change conceived in political terms, with the arrival of the PT for the first time at the presidency. Since its creation in 1980, the PT had developed as part of its identity an important internationalist component, based on the view that Brazil deserved to play a protagonist role in international politics. The idea of Brazil as a global player determined the developed a foreign policy strategy which required the active diversification of relations, which implied pursuing relations with developing countries from the South, based on the precepts of “solidarity”—that is, sharing experiences and possibilities of different countries to promote cooperation—which would allow it to magnify its power, thus increasing its international standing. Therefore the IBSA could be understood as a tool devised by the PT government for the purpose of advocating for southern development and this way increase its international projection.In terms of how the PT was able to influence Brazil’s decision to create this Dialogue Forum, this paper will argue that the PT’s interest in appointing members of the party and other influential actors that had the same vision in terms of Brazil’s destined role in the international system into the main institutions responsible for the formulation and execution of foreign policy, allowing for the interests of the party to be translated into action. The appointments of specific actors by the Executive branch, such as M.A Garcia, Guimaraes and specially Celso Amorim as Minister of Foreign Affairs and the correlation of views transpired into the foreign policy decisions after January 1, 2003 leading to the creation of the IBSA as a first statement of Brazil’s new path in world politics.The hypothesis of the thesis is that the PT as a domestic factor can explain the government decision to create the IBSA Dialogue Forum. The lack of international pressure allowed for the PT to play an important role by the Executive’s appointment of party members and others with similar ideas, leading to a partisan diplomacy.Theoretical approach: Pursuant to objective of this paper, which is centered on the study of a foreign policy decision and the influence of domestic factors, the researcher has opted for the field of Foreign Policy Analysis as the most adept to pursue this task.Foreign Policy Analysis has been developed as a branch of international relations which focuses on the motives that lead states to take actions, and how these decisions affect the international system. Foreign policy outcomes have traditionally been explained based on the external constraints, yet the current levels of economic interdependence have determined a greater need for the study of domestic factors. Among other domestic factors,(such as media, public opinion, culture, and government system) there are interest groups, which way of action can be compared to that of political parties. The importance of ascertaining the role of domestic factors in foreign policy decision prompted this research on the PT in the context of Brazil’s foreign policy.Methodology: This paper applies the methodological tool of process tracing. This method of research is a fundamental tool of qualitative analysis, defined as the “systematic examination of diagnostic evidence selected and analyzed in light of research questions and hypothesis of the investigator”1. Based on the data obtained, and the analysis aimed at creating causal links, the researcher resorts to the inductive approach of process tracing for the purpose of explaining the influence of domestic factors in foreign policy decisions.Data collection: This paper has relied on a vast number of resources, to enable a holistic understanding of the subject and to allow for the provision of causal links to prove its hypothesis. In terms of primary sources, the researcher was able to secure direct information from sources, by personal interviews, and communications through email, skype calls which provided insightful information. Moreover, interviews with government officials available online were used for their personal and impromptu value, as well as official records available at the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Website and the IBSA Trilateral Forum Website. As far as secondary sources are concerned, the researcher was able to consult with ample sources of academic papers available online, as well as opinion newspapers of popular distribution in Brazil.The Thesis is divided into five(5) chapters: Chapter One is introduction. Chapter Two will address the Theoretical Background of the thesis, followed by Chapter Three which will contextualize the political situation in Brazil at the time of change of government, and explain the political party PT as a domestic factor. Chapter Four will assess how the PT was able to influence the foreign policy decision of Brazil to join in the creation of the IBSA Trilateral Forum, followed by closing remarks and on the discussed topic.In Chapter One the researcher explains the logical rationalization by which the process of the political party PT’s influence on the creation of IBSA was pursued. This Chapter includes subsections addressing the Hypothesis formulation, Research Question and Main Argument, another subsection on the Methodology, and Data Collection necessary for the purposes of the thesis.Chapter Two offers a theoretical introduction to Foreign Policy analysis, followed by the explanation of Brazil as a Middle Power, and an overview of domestic factors and their influence over foreign policy. The aforementioned are core concepts that assist the researcher in conceptualizing the PT as a domestic variable and determine the objective of her research.Chapter Three explores the development of the internationalist identity of the PT, the party’s view of the world and the role of Brazil within this framework, which will assist the researcher in understanding how it affected the development of its foreign policy strategy. The following subsection analyses the domestic setting in Brazil before and after the advent of the PT to government, which enable the researcher to determine the importance of the change of government as the cause for the change of foreign policy. This chapter also includes a subsection which assesses the role of South South Cooperation and specifically IBSA in the context of global governance.Chapter Four of the Thesis represents the core of the paper, where the researcher undertakes to assess the ways partisan views were able to permeate into the foreign policy decision making, thus influencing the outcome known as the creation of the IBSA Forum. The first subsection provides a general contextualization of the new views that emerged in Brazil’s foreign policy at the time of change of government, followed by the main section of this chapter, which explains the changes in the presidential staff, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other bureaucratic bodies. This main subsection is named “Changes in the Ministry and Presidential Staff under the PT Government: partisanship and coordination of views” and addresses the specific appointment of actors that carried the worldviews and foreign policy ambitions of the PT, with the assistance of the executive branch, under the presidency of Lula da Silva.The Conclusion includes final remarks regarding the perception of “time to change” in terms of political shift and the channels available for partisan views to permeate foreign policy formulation, leading to the specific creation of the IBSA initiative.