Brazil's International Activism : Roles of an Emerging Middle Power

In Brazil’s International Activism Monika Sawicka questions how Brazil’s deep-rooted craving for greatness has led to the quest for status in the twenty-first century and contends that the categorization of Brazil as an “emerging middle power” enriches the understanding of modern Brazilian foreign policy. Drawing on the rich vocabulary of role theory, Sawicka sets out to establish an original theoretical framework that comprises the structural (status), the behavioral (role), and the cognitive-ideational (identity) to assess whether Brazil has performed roles distinguishing a middle power and how the state has reconceptualized them.The model is applied to scrutinize how ideational and material drivers impacted Brazil’s engagement as an integrator in Latin America, donor in Africa, mediator in the Middle East, and coalition-builder of developing states in global fora.Despite recent criticism of the concept of “emerging middle powers”, Sawicka argues that Brazil’s international activism