This article analyzes Brazil's foreign policy for Africa during the post-Cold War period. As a permanent theme within the Brazilian diplomatic agenda for decades, Brazil-Africa relations have taken on a salient role within Lula administration foreign policy. We attempt to understand the meanings and possibilities that it opens up for Brazil throughout the African continent. We do this by giving emphasis to the political and commercial dynamics between this country and its African partners, and we employ the following analytical variables: the diplomatic actions and the commercial flows that Brazil has established with African countries of the sub-Sahara region. As our main argument, we maintain that the end of the Cold War brought substantial change within the Brazilian diplomatic agenda, directly affecting Brazil's relationship with its African partners. Thus, we argue that Brazil-Africa relations have been characterized by intensely variable movement, with accentuated decline between the decades of the 1980s and 1990s and recovery and possible intensification during the Lula administration. Our work can be divided into four parts. In the first, we present a general picture of Brazil-Africa relations during the period that precedes the 1980s. This is followed by a focus on the restrictive impact of international economic crises on African and Brazilian realities, seeking to identify their repercussion on Brazilian foreign policy with regard to Africa. The third part looks at possible opening up toward Brazil on the African continent, placing emphasis on the directives and proposals for foreign policy developed by the Lula government. The last section attempts to provide a synthesis of the arguments that have been developed.
foreign policy; diplomatic agenda; commercial relations; Brazil; Africa
