The role of Brazil in the multilateral financial system: an analysis of domestic and structural factors (2003-2015)

Abstract

At the beginning of the 21st century, a series of structural and domestic factors created an environment favourable to the projection of Brazil in the international financial agenda. The period was marked by intense intellectual productivity and reflections about the country's role in the world, leading to the quest for an independent and dynamic foreign policy. Brazil, along with other Southern countries, submitted proposals to the main multilateral forums operating in the financial sector (such as the International Monetary Fund, the G20 and the Financial Stability Forum), and proposed a number of institutional reforms in its foreign policy decision-making process. However, throughout the 2010s a different set of domestic and structural factors altered the environment that had given rise to the previous wave of strong activism in Brazilian foreign policy. This article seeks to identify the internal and multilateral gains achieved during that period, as well as the major obstacles that prevented some other Brazilian claims from being addressed. It argues that Brazilian diplomacy was shaped according to the possibilities, given the domestic context and the international constraint.