Ideology, Elections, and Brazil's International Engagement | Ideologia, Eleições e o Engajamento Internacional do Brasil
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12957/rmi.2026.101377Keywords:
Brazilian Foreign Policy, Ideology, Elections, Presidential DiplomacyAbstract
This article investigates the effect of ideological convergence between the Brazilian president and foreign counterparts on bilateral diplomatic engagement, as well as the conditioning role of the domestic electoral cycle in this relationship. Using a systemic GMM model with panel data for 110 countries between 1998 and 2020, and the Foreign Policy Index (FPI) as the dependent variable, the results indicate that ideological convergence alone does not produce a significant effect on bilateral engagement. However, during electoral years, ideological affinity becomes a vector of distancing: ideological allies suffer a reduction of approximately 1.7% in the FPI. The effect is more pronounced in reelection years (-2.1%) than in presidential transition years (-1.4%). The findings suggest that, in contexts of domestic political competition, the Brazilian government tends to neglect ideologically aligned partners, possibly because they are considered more complacent and, therefore, less priority in terms of diplomatic attention.
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