Abstract

As Brazil expands its capabilities, how will it act towards neighboring countries, the United States, and extraregional powers, and how do we know?1 How valuable are security studies concepts, such as ‘rising powers,’ as templates for analyzing Brazilian foreign relations? This chapter critiques the conventional wisdom about Brazil as a rising power, discusses nine alternative concepts in relation to Brazilian foreign policy, articulates problems with the reference groups in which policy analysts categorize contemporary Brazil, and suggests avenues for future comparative research on Brazilian decision-making and on broader regional and global security issues.