Decision-making in Lula´s foreign policy (2003-2010): analyzing practices

• Ano de defesa: 2017
• Autor(a) principal: Castillo, Gabriel Carrozza
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Instituição de defesa: Biblioteca Digitais de Teses e Dissertações da USP
• Palavras-chave em Português: Diplomacia; Diplomacy; Policy; Politica; Practices; Práticas
• Link de acesso: http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/101/101131/tde-20022018-134638/

This article analyzes practices in Brazil´s Ministry of External Relations (MRE) in order to understand the decision making process for foreign policy of the Lula administration (2003-2010) through the lens of practices. More specifically, it seeks to understand if purported operational changes in the ministry during that time have had a concrete effect on foreign policy or are symptomatic of priorities within the administration. The research finds that despite sweeping social change promised during the campaign, the ministry´s structure remained stable even as it expanded - even favoring the use of presidential diplomacy in order to expedite proceedings - but that regular bureaucratic processes were circumvented by the most senior officials in dealing with sensitive topics with a tacit division of tasks. The article concludes by suggesting that diplomatic practices were not significantly changed during the Lula period but that the relative clout of rank and file diplomat has diminished. Procedural negotiations such as trade agreements have mostly escaped the change in the decision-making process because they were not picked up by Itamaraty´s hands-on leadership.