Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2018
North American political scientists and foreign policy observers spend a good deal of time lecturing Brazil on its proper role in world affairs. Brazilian diplomats and foreign policy specialists are occupied with formulating appropriate responses to the well meaning, but basically inaccurate, attempts of the Americans to push Brazil into global leadership (Política e Estrategia, 1983).
With the coming change in government on March 15,1985, the debate will again erupt. Will Tancredo Neves reformulate Brazilian foreign policy? Can Paulo Maluf redefine his country's role in world affairs? My own sense of the evolution of Brazilian foreign policy is that the concern is irrelevant. Brazil's world view, for some decades, has manifested a high degree of coherence and even predictability, if one listens to what Brazilian foreign policy elites say as well as what they do.