Abstract
Abstract This article explores the challenges of multilateral forums to form coherent ‘strategic narratives’ that align positively with foreign policy narratives of member states in a multi-stakeholder society. Specifically, it focuses on whether and how BRICS’s communication on the issue of infrastructural development is strategically aligned with Brazil’s foreign policy narrative towards Africa. The case study involves interview data from 2016 with non-state actors in Brazil. This empirical case highlights how narrative misalignment on the national and multilateral level results from a high degree of ambiguity in the narratives, their problematic relation to actual events, and faulty practices of ‘inclusive’ participation.
Highlights
The twenty-first century has seen an intensification of actors engaged in the battle of narratives to shape the meaning of the international order
This article explores the challenges of multilateral forums to form coherent ‘strategic narratives’ that align positively with foreign policy narratives of member states in a multi-stakeholder society
The interviewees indicated that: the communication of solidarity, economic and geostrategic narratives in both Brazil’s Africa agenda and BRICS’s communication about infrastructural development was problematic; that the lack of direction was intensified and postponed by the economic recession and the political turmoil in Brazil; that the means, the ways, and the end objectives in BRICS’s communication were flawed, in relation to Brazil’s foreign policy agenda towards Africa; and that talk of collaboration was undermined by economic competition in Africa, especially in light of China’s economic weight
Summary
The twenty-first century has seen an intensification of actors engaged in the battle of narratives to shape the meaning of the international order. Within the context of the BRICS issue narrative on infrastructural development and Brazil’s foreign policy narrative towards Africa, non-state actors in Brazil are members of the target audience of these communications. The interviewees indicated that: the communication of solidarity, economic and geostrategic narratives in both Brazil’s Africa agenda and BRICS’s communication about infrastructural development was problematic; that the lack of direction was intensified and postponed by the economic recession and the political turmoil in Brazil; that the means, the ways, and the end objectives in BRICS’s communication were flawed, in relation to Brazil’s foreign policy agenda towards Africa; and that talk of collaboration was undermined by economic competition in Africa, especially in light of China’s economic weight
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