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This paper analyzes the foreign policies of Brazil and Venezuela during the last decade in order to understando what changes have taken place in South American actions towards the U.S. and how important and long-lasting they are. We want to test the proposition that in foreign policy, actors are conscious and reflexive, and act with the purpose of attaining their preferences, but different actors under similar ideational influences and different material circumstances may construct their preferences differently. As the variable to look at, we have chosen changes in development strategy (structure) for they almost always produce shifts in foreign policy (agency), granting credibility to the claim that internal political aspects of developing nations are key factors in the shaping of their foreign policies. If important changes have taken place in the development strategy of a country, this should have more lasting effects on its foreign policy and this is the notion we explore through our case studies. Our aim is to answer the following questions: 1) what changes have taken place in South American foreign policies towards the U.S.? 2) What is the influence of structure and agency in them? And 3) what are the implications for the new U.S. administration? ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivated by the debate about the rising power of Southern countries, most notably the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China), we critically examine whether it inhibits the potential for the transformation of North-South relations within the global political economy. We argue that these new North-South-relations are much more characterized by similarity and complementarity rather than challenge.This paper analyzes both the regulation of money and production for Brazil, China and India, as well as the ideologies by which they legitimize their orders in international arenas such as the IMFC and the IMF Board of Governors. Such a combined examination of both material and ideational structures reveals that, beyond the rhetoric of contestation, these countries share much of the politico-economic common sense within the G7. In effect, these countries align to the Post-Washington Consensus on how to regulate order in the political economy. This "tolerant liberalism" is able to incorporate any substantial different order stemming from emerging powers. The "challenge" of Southern economies thus does not bring about any substantial change which would not have been on its way within the G7 anyway. Furthermore, it does not enhance the potential for developing countries to pursue independent development strategies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How and when do politically influential interest groups influence national economic policymaking? A well elaborated formal political economy literature suggests that macroeconomic and public policy outcomes vary when opposed partisan coalitions?representing, for example, either business or labor?come to control the executive and other high policymaking positions. Yet existing partisan models have not always traveled well when applied to developing country and historical cases, arguably because most such models assume that the underlying political system is an advanced industrial democracy. Opportunistic models of political economy also present problems when applied outside the OECD. I propose a model that accommodates political variation along two dimensions. First, politically dominant partisan coalitions may be either rightist/conservative or leftist/developmentalist. Second, the scope of national political participation may be low, medium, or high. The result is six types of national political regimes, each of which generates strong incentives to incumbent leaders to prefer certain types of national economic policies. Appendix I outlines the application of this framework to predicting choices of national financial architectures across historical and developing country cases. Appendix II sketches a research design focusing on policies for national financial ?reform? in Brazil and India from the early nineteenth century to the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brazil will gain a place as a significant player in the multi-polar international system taking shape since the end of the Cold War simply on the basis of its economic size and material capabilities. However, its potential to influence international outcomes is likely to be determined more by the capacity of the country's elites to identify and harness qualitative assets associated with its stable and democratic governance than by any hard power assets. Brazil is the quintessential soft power BRIC. Among the four BRICs, Brazil is the only one positioned to become a potential environmental power in a world increasingly preoccupied with global warming. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American hegemony has passed its peak. The twenty-first century will see a more multi-polar international system. Yet Western European countries may not be the United States' main foils in decades to come. Four new poles of the international system are now widely known in the business and financial press as the "BRICs economies" (Brazil, Russia, India, and China). Does the concept of "the BRICs" have meaning within a rigorous political science framing? From the perspective of an economic liberal employing neoclassical assumptions to understand the world economy, the category's justification is surprisingly weak. In contrast, a political or economic realist's framing instructs us to focus on states that are increasing their relative material capabilities—as each of the four is. Finally, within a liberal institutionalist's mental model, the BRICs countries are a compelling set, yet one with a deep cleavage between two sub-groups: large emerging powers likely to remain authoritarian or revert to that state, and those that are securely democratic. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]