The Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Center (NOREF) and PRIO's research groups Regions and Powers and Humanitarianism are happy to invite you to a seminar with Matias Spektor, who will give a talk on Brazil's aspirations as a rising power.
Pick any proxy for power and influence in world politics and Brazil is clearly on the rise. This is a story of growing material power, fast-paced domestic change, and the recognition by major players in the international system that on several global issues you better have Brazil at the table. But does Brazil embrace the norms, institutions and ideology of liberal internationalism? If it becomes a regular at the high tables, will it have the interest, capacity, and determination to work towards maintaining global order as we know it or will it seek to fundamentally change it?

Recent commentary is mixed. On one account, “though it is thriving within the current international order, Brazil is nonetheless the most revisionist of all emerging powers” – a “rising spoiler”. On another, Brazil will work with other emerging states to push the system towards multipolarity without necessarily committing to multilateralism, an “irresponsible stakeholder”. Yet another portraits the country as “the cuddly BRIC”, suggesting that for all its rhetoric, when push comes to shove, Brazil will work as a moderating voice.

This lecture will tackle Brazil’s evolving relationship with global order. It will focus more specifically on Brazil’s vision of global order, its relationship with the United States, its performance as a regional power, and on the degree to which social transformation at home might change its posture abroad. In so doing, the lecture will attempt to grapple with the core themes that recur in the Norwegian government’s Brazil strategy.

Matias Spektor is an associate professor of International Relations at the Fundação Getulio Vargas in Rio de Janeiro, where he was the founding director of the Center for International Relations. His books include "Kissinger e o Brasil" (Kissinger and Brazil, 2009) and "Azeredo da Silviera: um depoimento" (Azeredo da Silviera: A Testimonial, 2010). In August, his next book comes out under the title of "18 Dias: Lula, Fernando Henrique e a Casa Branca de George W. Bush" (18 Days: Lula, Fernando Henrique and the White House of George W. Bush). He is currently preparing a global history of Brazil's nuclear program. He previously served as a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Spektor writes the foreign policy column for Folha de S. Paulo, a major Brazilian newspaper, and his work has been published in the International Herald Tribune, the New York Times and the Financial Times. He is the 2013 Rio Branco Chair at King's College London. Spektor worked for the United Nations before completing his doctorate at the University of Oxford.

Benjamin de Carvalho, senior researcher at NUPI, will act as a discussant and Maria Gabrielsen Jumbert, senior researcher at PRIO, will chair the event.