Brazil: A Good Case study

Today in the New York Times an article was published discussing the growing criticisms of President Luiz Inacio by the left on what appears to be a continuing inability to eliminate Brazil’s large wealth disparity. What was fascinating about the article is that it exemplified the idea articulated in Atkins book Latin America and the Caribbean that in Latin America, foreign policy is often an extension of domestic policy (Atkins 95). In this particular article, President Luiz Inacio was answering and defending claims against his social policy by not only claiming that he was “laying the foundation to eradicate Brazil’s social ills” but also used the “inauguration of a global campaign to eliminate world poverty to answer the growing chorus of critics on the left.” This article provides a perfect example of both foreign policy and domestic policy being intrinsically linked and interchangeable as a response to criticisms.
Another aspect of the article serves to provide a good example of the difficulty in discerning idealist from realist policies. The article points out that Brazil has attempted to position themselves as a champion of poor nations, which would suggest, a very idealist perspective in regards to world poverty. This commitment to world poverty involves sacrificing some wealth and power to cooperate with other countries for moral reasons. While some cynics could argue that Brazil’s tendency to partake in free trade and neo-liberalism is not being altruistic in its aid to developing countries, but rather ensuring its power is on the same level as the United States.