Brazil and Latin America

Between the Separation and Integration Paths

By (author) José Briceño-Ruiz, Andrés Rivarola Puntigliano

Publication date:

28 August 2017

Length of book:

198 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9781498538459

Brazil and Latin America: Between the Separation and Integration Paths challenges the “separatist” bias in the vision of Brazilian relations with its Latin American neighbors. By exploring the parallel existence of a path of integration, the focus of this study is on those forces which have intended to forge different forms of alignment, integration, and, sometimes, rightward union between Brazil and different Latin American countries. The authors analyze the ideas and projects inherent in the mindset of elites even before independence. They show that the path of integration has been more influential than is generally known. Ultimately, this book demonstrates the complexity around policy-making, debates on foreign policy, and the history of shaping the Brazilian self.

Contents
Acknowledgments
List of Acronym Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter 1—A Prologue of Integration
Chapter 2— Distant but not Absent: Brazil and Latin America from the Independence to the
International American Congress
Chapter 3—Brazil and the Making of Latin America
Chapter 4—“Setting the Path for Integration”: Developmentalism, Nationalism, and Integration
Chapter 5— Brazil and the Contemporary Path of Integration: From MERCOSUR to CELAC
Conclusion
Bibliography
About the Authors

Briceño-Ruiz (Univ. of the Andes, Colombia) and Puntigliano (Univ. of Stockholm, Sweden) offer a diplomatic intellectual history of Brazil's unsteady relationship with Hispanic America. Brazilian thinkers tend to contrast Brazil with its neighbors, citing original Luso-Spanish differences, Brazil's 1822 non-violent independence, its 19th-century monarchical stability, and its mammoth geographic and economic stature. The "path of separation" of the "Brazilian island" led many to omit Brazil from "Latin America." Even Bolivar agreed; Brazil was just too different. All the while, however, Brazilian thinkers have entertained notions of "paths of integration" based on an Argentine-Brazil axis aimed at holding off a return of European colonialists. It never panned out, partly because of the several states' attempts at economic autocracy and import substitution. Some saw Latin American integration as an attempt at Brazilian dominance, which did not thrill its neighbors. The latest effort was the 1991 Mercosur of the Southern Cone countries…. Good corrective to the modern tendency to reify "Latin America." Summing Up: Recommended…Graduate students through faculty.