This book is the consolidation of a research project I have pursued throughout the years since earning my degree: a Marxist interpretation of Brazilian foreign policy in the 1990s, and the years 2000 and 2010. It has taken eight years to get to the point of publishing it in English. During the coursework in international relations, I began to experience a certain uneasiness, as many international relations students do, on perceiving that the debates in this area were far removed from Latin American reality. Furthermore, there was little or no emphasis on critical studies and, particularly, on Marxism. In those years of my Master’s degree courses, I embarked on theoretical research regarding the concepts of the State that studies of international relations use and compared them with Marxism. The respective readings and theoretical reflections enabled me to develop my ideas and acquire the means I would use to conduct the empirical analysis in my doctoral studies. Marxist Nicos Poulantzas has been the theoretical reference for my academic studies.
The rigor of his systematization of the Marxist theory of the State was highly important in enabling me to establish a dialogue between political science and international relations. When comparing realism and Marxism, I was able to discern the points on which the two approaches diverge and those on which they draw closer. I moved away from theses that criticized the centrality of the State, and instead preferred to problematize the function and representation of its class interests. Thus, the Power Bloc concept, the idea that the bourgeoisie is fractional but at the same time maintains its unity around political objectives, was the key to enabling my application of that theoretical arsenal to foreign policy analyses. The State is no longer viewed as a ‘billiard ball’, a homogeneous entity for organizing the interests of the hegemonic fraction within the power bloc.
I undertook my doctoral research in the ambit of the ‘Neoliberalism and Class relations in Brazil’ group, linked to Unicamp’s Marxist Studies Center. The research also enjoyed the support of the fapesp thematic project ‘Policy and social classes in neoliberal capitalism’ (Política e classes sociais no capitalismo neoliberal). In addition to reading papers, theses and books on the theme, I undertook a systematic research review of the documents, publications and declarations of the Brazilian internal bourgeoisie, namely, the Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo (Federação das Indústrias do Estado de São Paulo — fiesp), the National Confederation of Industry (Confederação Nacional da Indústria — cni) and the National Confederation of Agriculture (Confederação Nacional da Agricultura — cna) to identify class interests
After having defended my PhD thesis, I joined the research project O Brasil e a França na mundialização neoliberal (Brazil and France in the neoliberal globalization) financed by the Capes-Cofecub agreement. In 2014, I had the opportunity to carry out a working mission at the Université de Lumiére – Lyon ii. I then expanded my research to embrace the ‘people’s’ classes as one of the readers of my doctoral work had challenged me to do. I was also able to further qualify my reflections after I matriculated in the competitive selection process for the post of lecturer in International Relations at the abc Federal University, in January 2015. The pedagogical proposal of the Batchelor’s Degree course was highly innovative, and I became responsible for the study discipline ‘Global organized civil society’, a situation that led me to a more profound investigation of the role of social movements and trade unionism in foreign policy.
Later, when I was a tutor for Master’s degree and PhD students in two of the ufabc’s graduate programs (Global Political Economics and International Relations) and coordinator of the research group ‘Foreign Policy and social classes’ (Política Externa e classes sociais) (cnpq), I continued to review the documents and positions of Brazil’s internal bourgeoisie and broadened the outreach of my studies to ponder the role of the middle sectors. In the last eight years I have dedicated myself to reflecting on the Brazilian political crisis and the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff. I conducted an analysis of the alliances among classes and class fractions in the 2016 Coup d’état and especially that of the upper middle class (civil servants, doctors, journalists, lawyers, etc.), a sector that has been the driving force behind the process of neofascist resurgence in Brazil. I have also registered some observations regarding the Temer and Bolsonaro governments. In short, I have endeavored to systematize and unify the research I have carried out in the years since I defended my PhD thesis as well as the work of the students I have tutored.
Research into the interests of classes and class fractions and into Brazilian foreign policy has long been a latent research object and aroused much interest both in the Brazilian academic world and beyond it. I hope it will have the same impact on the English-speaking audience.