Class Compromise as Middle Power Activism? Comparing Brazil and South Africa

Abstract

One of the most glaring differences between traditional and emerging middle powers relates to their projection of societal values abroad. Since most emerging powers are essentially fragmented multiclass states, class compromise often emerges to intermediate contradictory demands emanating from fragile political coalitions. Against the backdrop of vast income inequalities, and facing some domestic constituencies favouring liberalization on the one hand against pro-redistributive groups on the other, adopting a middle power role, in the cases of South Africa and Brazil, emerges in order to ameliorate these conflicting demands. Two dimensions are examined very briefly, namely recent mediation efforts in Iran and Libya and attempts to effect redistribution by reforming processes of global governance.

Brazilian South–South Development Cooperation: The Case of the Ministry of Social Development in Africa

“…The diverse profile of Brazil's engagement with Africa was analysed by Saraiva () as resulting from a balance between idealism and realism. It also converges with theories on middle powers' foreign policy and on the role South–South relations played in satisfying contradictory demands from Brazilian society (Westhuizen, ).…”

“…This double facet of Brazilian cooperation (financing and capacity building) can be explained by the fact that middle powers receive contradictory domestic pressures and tend to respond to both the expansionist objectives and the search for a more egalitarian international system (Lima, ; Westhuizen, ). As a country that does not hold as many hard capabilities as great powers, Brazil tries to influence other countries using soft power, including the exportation of national policies (Lima, ).…”

Severity, salience, and selectivity: understanding the varying responses to regional crises by Brazil and South Africa

“…The former underscores Brazil's growing footprint in the development cooperation regime. This participation was attributed to the country's effort to become a more active provider of international goods, to boost its influence in the broader Global South, and to role expectations over redistributive policies during the Workers Party government (Westhuizen 2013;Westhuizen and Milani 2019). More importantly, Brazilian officialdom promoted cooperation as closely associated with security, seeing development as key to prevent further destabilization in fragile states (Mesquita and Medeiros 2016: 405).…”

Middle power, status-seeking and role conceptions: the cases of Indonesia and South Korea

“…With the constructivist turn on the middle power literature, a growing number of studies have shifted their focus to unpacking the state by taking agency levels analysis into account in analysing the activism of the middle powers. For instance, recent studies on middle power have tried to understand the variations in middle power behaviour by analysing the differences between states in terms of their resource availability and governance capability (Öniş and Kutlay 2017), regional strategic environment (Emmers and Teo 2015), the projection of societal values (Westhuizen 2013), as well as other domestic issues, such as the role of political parties and elites in stirring middle power behaviour (Sandal 2014). While those factors may affect the behaviour of middle powers, by focusing only on specific factors, such as domestic sources or the structural constraints of the regional and global environment to middle power roles, these studies seem partial in explaining the behaviour of middle powers.…”