LULA´S GOVERNMENT FOREIGN POLICY: AN ORAL HISTORY

• Grant number: 16/24710-5
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: May 01, 2017
• End date: April 30, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - International Politics
• Principal Investigator: Matias Spektor
• Grantee: Matias Spektor
• Host Institution: Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação de História Contemporânea do Brasil (CPDOC). Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research seeks to develop an interpretation based on concepts and primary sources on the foreign policy of Lula´s government (2003-2010). In addition to that, we also intend to continue to develop a system of analysis of quantitative data. The main objective is to explain how and why the government of the Workers Party engaged in an activist diplomatic rout, its main hurdles, and major outcomes. More specifically this research seeks to understand Brazil´s strategic behavior during Lula´s administration having two phenomena as backdrop. On the one hand, the transformation of the social scene and domestic politics (the structure of electoral competition, the incorporation of millions of people to the consumer market, the new political equilibrium among Brazilian states and new forms of organization taking place within Brazilian society). On the other, the evolution of the international system of that time (the evolution of formal and informal international organizations, the trajectory of American power and the transformations in international political economy). The outcome of this project will be an academic article published in a top international journal, the conduct and transcripts of 45 hours of horal history interviews on the foreign policy of Lula´s government, and the upload of such interviews online within the oral history program that Fundação Getulio Vargas runs in São Paulo. (AU)