Consensual Hegemony: Theorizing Brazilian Foreign Policy after the Cold War
| Published date | 01 March 2008 |
| Date | 01 March 2008 |
| Author | Sean W. Burges |
| DOI | 10.1177/0047117807087243 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
CONSENSUAL HEGEMONY 65
Consensual Hegemony:
Theorizing Brazilian Foreign Policy after the Cold War
Sean W. Burges,1 Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Ottawa
Abstract
Conventional approaches to hegemony emphasize elements of coercion and exclusion, char-
acteristics that do not adequately explain the operation of the growing number of regional
projects or the style of emerging-power foreign policy. This article develops the concept
of consensual hegemony, explaining how a structure can be articulated, disseminated and
maintained without relying on force to recruit the participation of other actors. The central
idea is the construction of a structural vision, or hegemony, that specifi cally includes the
nominally subordinate, engaging in a process of dialogue and interaction that causes the
subordinate parties to appropriate and absorb the substance and requisites of the hegemony
as their own. The utility of consensual hegemony as an analytical device, especially for the
study of regionalism and emerging market power foreign policy, is outlined with reference
to Brazil’s post-Cold War foreign policy, demonstrating both how a consensual hegemony
might be pursued and where the limits to its ideas-based nature lie.
Keywords: Brazil, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, foreign policy, Antonio Gramsci,
hegemony
The concept that will be elaborated in these pages and then given an initial applic-
ation to Brazil’s post-Cold War foreign policy is consensual hegemony. Elements
of leadership explicit in early discussions of hegemony and implicit in subsequent
international relations and international political economy literature combine with
the potential power of ideas to provide a method of understanding how a regionally
predominant, but not dominant, state such as Brazil might seek to push a regional
or international system in a given direction. Where realist, neorealist and neoliberal
institutionalist approaches to hegemony privilege its coercive underpinnings, the
consensual approach draws on Gramscian suggestions that a hegemony gains its
strength through consent, not the latent threat of imposition. In this context Brazil
emerges as an interesting illustrative case study because it highlights how a state
with limited military and economic power capabilities might attempt to leverage
its idea-generating capacity to construct a vision of the regional system and quietly
obtain the active acquiescence of other regional states to a hegemonic project.
Consensual hegemony is particularly useful for explicating the dynamics behind
consensus ‘creation’, something Brazilian diplomats highlight as one of their
institutional strengths. It was also a critical part of regionalist strategies pursued
by Itamaraty (the common shorthand name for Brazil’s foreign ministry) during
International Relations Copyright © 2008 SAGE Publications
Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore, Vol 22(1): 65–84
[DOI: 10.1177/0047117807087243]
66 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 22(1)
the Cardoso years and globally during the Lula presidency. Embedded within the
‘creation’ of consensus is the notion that Itamaraty brought other countries to accept a
position or participate in projects that might have been greeted with some scepticism,
suggesting power or infl uence. The reality in Brazilian foreign policy is that power
was rarely directly applied or explicitly visible; infl uence was instead sought by
disseminating ideas or by attempting to create situations where it became implicitly
too costly for other countries to deviate extensively from the Brazilian position. The
coercive element is implicit, coming in the costs and lost opportunities attendant on
exclusion from the project. Consensual hegemony – an oblique application of pres-
sure or the advance creation of conditions that would make a future policy appear a
self-interested move by other countries – comes into play here, allowing Itamaraty
to mask consistent efforts to structure continental relations and organizations in a
manner decidedly in Brazil’s interests.
The argument is not that Brazil succeeded in creating a consensual hegemony,
but that the concept is useful for understanding the leadership strategy of an emerging
middle power state. A more important theoretical angle comes from Brazil’s ultimate
failure to form a stable consensual hegemony in South America, offering two valuable
lessons for students of international relations and the foreign policy of developing
areas. First, it establishes the limitations of ideas as a currency for the conduct of
foreign policy. Second, and conversely, it demonstrates that the very attempt to form
a consensual hegemony offers the leading state gains that can compensate for an
ultimate failure in the larger project; the non-dominating nature of consensual hege-
mony allows for a series of shifts in the nature of regional relations that at least
partially embeds the leading state’s interests.
The article is divided into two main parts, shifting progressively from the intensely
theoretical to the decidedly more empirical. In the fi rst part the concept of con-
sensual hegemony will be the focus with only general allusions to its manifestation
in Brazilian foreign policy. The second part will reverse this pattern, surveying major
events in Brazil’s post-Cold War foreign policy to illustrate how consensual hege-
mony can be used to understand a country’s regional interactions. There is no inten-
tion to offer a comprehensive treatment of Brazil’s post-Cold War foreign policy in
the limited space available here.2 Rather, the main ambition is to establish consensual
hegemony as a viable construct and then offer an initial application of the concept
to the Brazilian case in order to provide a deeper theoretical basis for building on
the existing literature examining the country’s foreign policy.3 Attention will fi rst
be turned to hegemony, working through neorealist, neoliberal institutionalist and
Gramscian approaches to the concept, before setting out the concept of consensual
hegemony as an analytical tool for understanding Brazilian foreign policy. Reference
to the literature on the new regionalism will be used as a segue into an outline of the
ideas, economic and security aspects of the consensual hegemony project attributed
to Brazil, highlighting how the pursuit of consensual hegemony offers rewards that
compensate for a failure to attain it.
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