The transformation process in the foreign policy guidelines of the United States of America and of Cuba during the governments of Barack Obama and of Raúl Castro

Author(s)

Stella Bonifácio da Silva Azeredo

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo. 2022-09-12.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp). Instituto de Políticas Públicas e Relações Internacionais. São Paulo
• Defense date: 2022-08-22
• Advisor: Cristina Soreanu Pecequilo

Abstract

In 2014, the cuban president, Raúl Castro, and the american leader, Barack Obama, officially announced that they would begin the process of re-establishing diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba, after years of isolation due to the context of the Cold War (1947/1989). The bilateral break that took place in 1961, the economic embargo and subsequent strangulation measures, are related to the events of the Cuban Revolution (1959), when the island broke traditional historical ties with the Americans and installed, with Fidel Castro, a socialist regime supported by the Soviet Union. Even with the end of the Cold War in 1989, the re-establishment of diplomatic ties only officially began in 2014 (although without changing completely the structure of bilateral relations, due to the maintenance of the economic embargo). Therefore, the broad objective of this research is to analyze the changes in the foreign policy orientation of the United States and Cuba that took place during the government of these State leaders, which led to the bilateral rapprochement, discursive changes, and the implementation of cooperation agreements. The specific objectives involve the identification of the political, economic, social sources – domestic and international – and the cognitive traits of these two leaders that contributed to lead to these changes, as well as the identification of the stabilizing elements of the former policy. Furthermore, it seeks to observe the level and scope of these changes in foreign policy. The analytical model employed combines, in an adapted way, ideas present in the causal dynamics presented by authors who are part of the Foreign Policy Change literature, a subfield of Foreign Policy Analysis. To this end, a qualitative work is carried out with secondary sources to address the independent variables (political, economic, social, and cognitive factors) and the restrictive intervening factors (stabilizers). As for the dependent variable (the change in foreign policy), in order to verify in which level this theme fits and which scopes are involved, a qualitative and quantitative work is carried out with official pronouncements, as well as the measures that were actually implemented are observed. To make the work with the speeches possible, the software Voyant-Tools is used. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 20/05835-7 - The transformation process in the foreign policy guidelines of the United States of America and Cuba during the governments of Barack Obama and Raúl Castro
• Grantee: Stella Bonifácio da Silva Azeredo
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master