Brazil is the subject of a Ditchley Foundation seminar

More than 40 experts from 13 nations discuss Brazil’s place in the world, under the anonymity of the “Chatam House Rules”.

By Carlos Eduardo Lins da Silva

Agência FAPESP – This past April, FAPESP President Celso Lafer coordinated a three-day meeting of 42 experts on Brazil from 13 different nations at the Ditchley Foundation’s headquarters to discuss Brazil’s place in the world.

The foundation is a British non-governmental organization (NGO) established in 1958 and located near Oxford that is dedicated to the study of important international issues from an academic and political perspective. This organization is housed on an estate that was used several times as a weekend retreat by then-British Prime Minister Winston Churchill during World War II.

The meetings held by the Ditchley Foundation bring together academics, diplomats, businesspeople, leaders of NGOs, politicians and individuals with proven knowledge of the issues to be discussed. These meetings follow what are known as the “Chatham House Rules,” according to which the participants are free to use the information and opinions expressed during the meetings but are not allowed to reveal who made any comment. These rules were designed to increase the openness of discussion.

In 2006, Brazil was the subject of a similar seminar held by the foundation. At the opening of the 2014 meeting, it was noted that Brazil continues to suffer from many of the problems identified eight years ago.

There was little agreement among the participants, and especially between Brazilians and foreigners, about Brazil’s place in the world and how it has performed in the international scenario. These circumstances led to one initial important conclusion: there is a gap between how Brazil perceives itself and how others perceive Brazil.

All accepted the fact that Brazil has made enormous progress over the past 20 years due to a broad national consensus established around basic political and macroeconomic principles, a situation that will naturally lead to expansion of the country’s importance in the world.

Despite this progress, huge challenges continue to present themselves in all fields, and particularly infrastructure, productivity, the tax system, competitiveness, education, the effectiveness of the political party system and public security.

However, even if these obstacles are successfully overcome, there will still be critical issues regarding what role Brazil wants to play in the world and how much it is prepared to pay to do so.

Dubious image

Even regionally, in South America, does Brazil want to be the leader or just a benevolent giant, a status that is virtually assured due to its geographic size and its diplomatic tradition of respect for peace?

The self-image of a power that does not involve itself in its neighbors’ problems stood in stark contrast to the views of observers who labeled Brazil as negligent in the face of critical situations such as those experienced by Argentina and Venezuela.

The weakness of Mercosur and the threat posed by the Pacific Alliance to Brazilian foreign trade were the subjects of several discussions. Several stated that Brazil had already been marginalized because of its decision to side with Mercosur, which excludes it from the large transpacific and transatlantic agreement. In contrast, others said that multinational treaties, including the Pacific Alliance, have still not materialized and that Brazil’s decision to side with the World Trade Organization (WTO) is correct.

Despite not having reached a consensus, it was clear that the process of South American integration is weathering a particularly difficult period that lacks clarity in terms of the very definition of integration. However, it has been stressed that there are areas in which progress is possible, even with the current ideological divisions, such as educational, scientific and cultural cooperation and the war against drug trafficking and organized crime.

There is no question that Brazil can and will continue to be a major global player. However, the scope of its importance depends partly on the solution that it will offer to the internal obstacles that are hindering its progress and partly on how it would like to define its role in the world.

For example, does Brazil prefer to be viewed as a Western country because of its culture and values or as a Southern country because of its status as an emerging economy?

According to critics, this contradiction is the result of what is perceived as Brazil’s continuous inclination to fail to clearly position itself on issues such as the crises in Syria and Libya.

However, such perception is contrary to the argument that Brazil has historically given preference to actions that are more effective behind the scenes and that it is opposed to political condemnations of human rights violations in several countries.

Brazil’s willingness to become more influential and responsible on the global scene is clear, according to several participants, due to its consistent participation in United Nations (UN) peace missions, most recently in Haiti and the Congo. They argue that the country would be more prominent in such endeavors if not for certain circumstances that arose when it wished to become prominent (such as in the 2010 agreement between Turkey and Iran to try to resolve the Iranian nuclear program impasse) but was boycotted by the major Western powers.

The conceptual dilemma of Brazil’s place in the world was summarized as follows in the final document: “...whether Brazil is essentially a passive power, not wanting to engage deeply in most world problems, or simply an unfamiliar type of power, working actively to promote international peace and better global governance, just not in the prescriptive and interventionist ways that Western countries often use.”

It is agreed that Brazil, by luck or by virtue (or both), is a country with no real enemies or major security worries, no significant religious or ethnic division or sectarianism and enormous natural and human resources available as in no other nation (e.g., China, India, Russia, Nigeria and Indonesia, to name just a few cases).

This fortunate position offers Brazil the chance to develop strong “soft power” and to exercise real influence on global destinies, particularly because today’s world is more polarized than ever before. Even the apparent Brazilian contradictions (Western/Southern) are viewed more as active than passive for the country.

However, this “soft power” needs to be more clearly expressed, which has not yet been done. This power may be at serious immediate risk if, for example, the country is not able to properly handle street protests during the World Cup beginning next month; if its social inclusion programs, admired around the world, fail to be sustainable; or if its environmental management efforts prove to be ineffective.

In short, Brazil’s place in the world essentially depends on how capable it is of resolving its domestic problems and how clearly it can define what role it wants to play in relation to its sub-continent and the world.

The final report from the April meeting, drafted by Sir John Holes, Director of the Ditchley Foundation, was posted on May 8 on the institution’s website and can be viewed at www.ditchley.co.uk/conferences/past-programme/2010-2019/2014/brazil.