Starting from the perspective that foreign policy is a public policy (i.e. the state and government in action at the international level) this article discusses t he conceptual and political implications of the n ew configuration of Brazilian foreign policy. By considering foreign policy as public policy, the authors break its automatic association with crude versions of Realism and bring it to the field of politics, thus recognizing that its formulation a nd implementation f all w ithin the dynamics of governmental choices which, in turn, stem from negotiations within coalitions, bargaining, disputes and agreements between representatives of diverse interests. As a result, the text removes foreign policy from a condition linked to inertial and supposedly self-evident and/or permanent national interests (protected from injunctions of cyclical nature related to partisan politics) and strips it of features generally attributed (or preconceived) to so-called state policies. Finally, the authors suggest avenues for an innovative research agenda, such as (i) advancing sociological, organizational and institutional debates on the role of diplomatic agency, the process of learning and transformation, and the need to establish new institutional arrangements; (ii) rethinking the place of diplomatic agency in public administration; and (iii) incorporating comparative spatial and temporal perspectives in foreign policy analysis, in order to broaden our analytical capacities on contexts and contradictions. These moves allow the reader to understand how systemic opportunities, different national and historical contexts, multiple state and non-state actors, domestic and inter/transnational agendas play a role in foreign policy, especially in countries with characteristics similar to those of Brazil.
Brazilian Foreign Policy; Foreign Policy Analysis; Actors and Agendas; Public Policy