Brazil's Rising Ambition in a Shifting Global Balance of Power

Abstract

Rooted in democracy and economic stability and propelled by President Lula's extraordinary popularity and assertive foreign policy, Brazil's recent rise has allowed the country to gain a new global pre-eminence despite its failure to achieve the stated goals of its international strategy. Consolidation of the nation's place and influence will depend as much on its ability to tackle domestic vulnerabilities, such as low competitiveness and low savings and investment rates that limit potential economic growth, as on its capacity to calibrate ambition to its position in the redistribution of international power under way in the early twenty-first century.