Brazilian foreign policy and the structural limitations of the Mercosul

Our goal here is to analyze the construction of what we refer to as the "Mercosul model" that can be identified within Brazilian foreign politics, from the beginning of the 1990s through the second half of the decade of 2000. Starting from the premise that the positions that Brazil takes are relevant in defining the framework of integration processes, we suggest the hypothesis that it is Brazilian positions that limit the breadth of the bloc and, in particular, its depth, insofar as they undermine decision making processes, the legitimacy of the institutional mechanisms that have been put into place, the coordination of the expectations of different domestic actors and, most of all, the scope of the measures that have been proposed to solve or reduce current assymmetries between states. Brazilian positions have been based on the logic of intergovernability and have been more adapted to the expansion of the bloc than to intensifying it. This article looks at the formative aspects of standards for Brazil's foreign behavior, seeking to identify major tendencies in its actions within the bloc during the period analyzed. One of our major arguments refers to Mercosul's successive institutional crises, seeking to relate them to the structural limits of the model, compatible with formative elements of Brazilian foreign policy but still insufficient for sustaining a process of intensified integration.

Mercosul; Brazilian Foreign Policy; Itamaraty; Regional Integration