Go Global or Go Home: Comparing the Regional vs. Global Engagement of Brazil and South Africa at the UN General Assembly

Abstract

Brazil and South Africa have long been regarded archetypical regional powers, commanding more resources than their neighbours, spearheading regional projects and pursuing highprofile global status. Yet, recent years have also evidenced how the engagement with their regions and acceptance as leading players is often ambiguous and incomplete. How does one ascertain that a regional power privileges either the regional or the global stage? Through an original dataset of Brazilian and South African output at the UN General Assembly between 1994 and 2013, we monitor sponsorship patterns and thematic preferences in order to verify whether these countries indulged their regional partners and topics. Our findings suggest that Brazil and South Africa favoured their immediate neighbourhoods, but have gradually engaged their regions in different ways: while Brazilian emphasis on regional peers and themes declined over the years, South Africa developed an increasingly more regionalised UNGA agenda. Table 1: Brazil's most frequent co-sponsors, per session/year Session (Year) Brazil's top 5 most frequent co-sponsors S.49 (1994)

Regional powers, global aspirations: lessons from India and Iran

“…Hurrell (2010, p. 17) similarly argues that 'regional powers cannot be understood unless they are viewed within a global context'. Yet, barring some exceptions (Prys, 2013;Mesquita and Seabra, 2020), regional powers' global interactions remain under-theorised in the literature. The tendency is still to see how global influences impact upon regional powers rather than vice versa (Østerud, 1992, p. 1).…”

To What Cost to its Continental Hegemonic Standpoint: Making Sense of South Africa’s Xenophobia Conundrum Post Democratization

“…In the last decade, the importance of regional powers within their respective neighborhoods has become a prolific academic topic amid the growing multipolarity of the international system (Mesquita & Seabra, 2020). Because of globalization and other social ills, current global contemporary politics require states to work with each other like never before.…”

“…While since the Mandela administration South Africa has tried to put into practice the much-publicized core pillars that encompass, among others, promoting human rights, democracy, justice, and respect for international law. Over the years, a mostly vague foreign policy outlook in which the premium of human rights and democracy often incurred in initiatives that either contradicted some of its tenets or underscored the limits of its continental appeal (Mesquita & Seabra, 2020). Therefore, if Pretoria is to bring back the respect it once enjoyed from the Mandela administration, one may ask what could be the way forward and what possible solutions may be brought forward.…”

“…In particular, Pretoria's role in Africa and Southern Africa is still marked by a profound historical legacy and the corresponding political will to surpass it. Following years as a pariah state, 1994 witnessed what Mesquita and Seabra (2020) call a wholesome effort to push beyond the apartheid stigma and win over new external credentials. It is not much of an obvious implication to say Pretoria's democratic prospects will depend on its ability to shake off the legacy of years of inequality, poverty, and unemployment.…”

“…These are countries that Gramsci (1971)) refers to as hegemonic states 2 in his Prison Notebooks (1925)(1926)(1927)(1928)(1929)(1930)(1931)(1932)(1933)(1934)(1935) and are referred to as modern economies in their specific regions. Similarly, regional powers or hegemons have been defined by literature around a core of constitutive features including but not limited to 1) belonging to a given region, 2) possessing material capabilities superior to the rest of the region, and 3) exerting some kind of influence over the region (see Mesquita & Seabra, 2020). From the 1960s to the late 1990s, South Africa was often denoted as a pariah state isolated from the continental and international political landscape.…”