Auto-Estima in Brazil: The Logic of Lula's South-South Foreign Policy

Argues that the Brazilian Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva government is pursuing a psychologically transformative foreign policy agenda in the global South that looks to change how developing countries are inserted into & view the international political & economic system. The importance of Lula's idea of auto-estima (self-confidence) is that it indicates that a group of people are making decisions on its own terms. Lula's foreign policy, while lined by a discourse shot through with idealistic notions of South-South solidarity, in fact, centers on interest-based solidarity; ie, expanding South-South trade & investment is a key to Brazil's strategy for economic expansion & development. Frantz Fanon's anticolonial ideas in Black Skin, White Masks (1967) are seen to be at play in Lula's quest to reconstruct Brazil's & the global South's identity. The link between Fanons thought & auto-estima is noted before detailing the psychological shift that Lula is bringing to Brazilian foreign policy. His frequent reference to changing the global economic geography is addressed. Attention is then given to some of the pitfalls of Lula's transnationalization of auto-estima, highlighting the G-20 & the creation of the India-Brazil-South Africa dialogue forum. Implications of this reading of Lula's auto-estima-based foreign policy are outlined. J. Zendejas