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PUBLISHED WORK

DEMAGOGUERY, POPULISM, AND FOREIGN POLICY RHETORIC: EVIDENCE FROM JAIR BOLSONARO’S TWEETS

This article investigates whether Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro extended demagoguery and populism into his foreign policy discourse. An analysis of 673 tweets indicates that demagoguery was more common (observed in 94 tweets) than populism (observed in 14 tweets). Bolsonaro adopted a Red Scare tactic, distorted information about the 2019 Amazon wildfires, spread rumours about COVID-19, and portrayed relations with the US during Trump’s administration and Israel during Netanyahu’s as panaceas. Findings suggest that demagoguery can ramify into foreign policy discourse, with a leader fitting distorted interpretations of foreign topics and actors into stories made for domestic consumption. Bolsonaro was cautious concerning relations with China though, indicating that international power politics and expected gains or losses from trade and investment may condition the scope of demagogical discourses. This article shows a conceptual gap in literature on foreign policy discourse, which a framework using the concept of demagoguery can, in part, fill.

CONSTRUCTING A TRANSNATIONAL CRIME: PESTICIDE SMUGGLING IN BRAZIL

Pesticide smuggling may intensify public health, occupational health, and environmental risks associated to the use of agrochemicals. Yet, there is little scholarly research about this crime. Using data from around 1,300 forensic reports made by Brazil’s Federal Police between 2008 and 2018, this article demonstrates that the market for smuggled pesticides in Brazil is probably small, smuggled pesticides are rarely counterfeit, smuggling of prohibited pesticides is uncommon, and petty smugglers – rather than organized criminal groups – prevail. For pesticide manufacturers, campaigning against pesticide smuggling – framed as a threat to human health, the environment, and public safety – is important though. Corporations’ emphasis on the problem of pesticide smuggling may be driven not only by concerns about market losses but also by other reasons: interest in improving corporations’ legitimacy, expanding their networks with government officials and police agencies, or preventing tax increases. This can work as a diversionary tactic in response to criticisms against intensive pesticide use or low levels of taxation. This article’s findings indicate that corporations can increase the political salience of a crime alongside police agencies.

TRANSNATIONAL ACTIVISM AND DOMESTIC POLITICS: ARMS EXPORTS AND THE ANTI-APARTHEID STRUGGLE IN THE UK–SOUTH AFRICA RELATIONS (1959–1994)

In 1964, the UK government imposed an arms embargo on South Africa, which it maintained until the end of the white minority rule. What explains this embargo? Using mainly archival evidence, this paper demonstrates that domestic political dynamics in the United Kingdom mediated the influence of the transnational anti-apartheid and anti-colonial struggles on the British government. The United Kingdom imposed and maintained this embargo due in part to a domestic advocacy network, whose hub was the Anti-Apartheid Movement. The paper provides a comprehensive explanation of an important issue in British foreign policy, the anti-colonial struggle, and Southern Africa's history. There are theoretical implications for foreign policy analysis concerning the role of advocacy networks, interactions between local and global activism, the role of political parties’ ideology and contestation, the effects on foreign policy of changes in a normative environment, the effects of norm contestation, and normative determinants of sanctions.

ARMING A FEW DICTATORS BUT NOT OTHERS: THE POLITICS OF UK ARMS SALES TO CHILE (1973–1989) AND ARGENTINA (1976–1983)

British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 2021

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/13691481211033192

The United Kingdom imposed an arms embargo on Chile in 1974 but not on Argentina after the 1976 coup, despite brutal military dictatorships in both countries. This article demonstrates that this difference is explained by a stronger advocacy network in the United Kingdom campaigning on Chile, which was largely due to a greater identification of the British left with the Chilean struggle. The hub of this network was the Chile Solidarity Campaign, which mediated the influence of the transnational anti-Pinochet movement on the UK government. These findings suggest that shared values or identities make transnational issues more likely to resonate with domestic audiences.

WEAPONS FROM THE SOUTH: DEMOCRATIZATION, CIVIL SOCIETY, AND BRAZIL'S ARMS EXPORTS

What explains the existence of humanitarian concerns in decisions involving arms transfers? Brazil's re-democratization in 1985 provides an opportunity to test whether a change of regime type influences arms export behaviour and whether civil society groups can influence it in newly democratized countries. This paper argues that transitioning to democracy had an immediate effect on arms transfer policies and practice in Brazil. After the end of Brazil's military regime, arms export policies and practice changed due mainly to reputational concerns: a stricter arms control could provide reputational gains to Brazil in an international norm environment where liberal values were perceived to be cascading. In addition to this immediate effect, democratic institutions created better conditions for the emergence of civil society groups campaigning for a stricter arms control, which emerged in the late 1990s. These findings imply that democratization has both short- and long-term effects on arms transfers and that democratic institutions can influence state behaviour regarding arms transfers even in countries with little tradition of civil society groups working with arms control.

WHITHER SECURITY COOPERATION IN THE BRICS? BETWEEN THE PROTECTION OF NORMS AND DOMESTIC POLITICS DYNAMICS

This paper argues that the BRICS are status quo powers concerning two core norms of the international society: sovereignty and hierarchy, what conditions both the scope and depth of their security cooperation. On the one hand, this enables cooperation, as they can use the group to protect these norms and reinforce state control on transnational flows. In addition, this facilitates the formation of ties among foreign policy and bureaucratic elites across the BRICS who share a preference for protecting these norms. On the other hand, the importance attached to these norms constrains cooperation: differences of regime type are associated to higher levels of distrust; and intragroup power asymmetries raise fears of potential unequal agreements. The paper then applies these ideas to indicate the potential for cooperation on anti-drug and cybersecurity policies. On the one hand, different regime types and power inequalities are likely to hinder cooperation. On the other hand, interests from foreign policy, political and bureaucratic elites in protecting norms, as well as in increasing state control on transnational flows and expand repression against new threats are likely to facilitate cooperation.

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