48
members are remarkably disciplined and have strong linkages to labor unions, the remaining
parties; however, tend to be plagued with politicians who switch affiliations.
Institutional weakness and fragmentation makes policy coordination extremely difficult
in the national Congress. In this scenario, there is not one single party that dominates the foreign
policy agenda. Lula’s PT may claim to have a strong influence on social issues, but it certainly
does not have the same policy leverage and networks in the international domain, since its agenda
is focused on domestic politics. Consequently, the Senate rarely challenges foreign policy
decisions, limiting itself to exert its constitutional functions, such as confirming appointed
ambassadors, ratifying international agreements, authorizing troop deployments for UN
operations, but with almost no political contestation. (Almeida 2000) As Guilhon Alburquerque
argues, “party politics is generally far away from foreign policy, and the official agenda of major
parties either ignore or simply mirror Itamaraty’s views.” (Alburquerque 2003, 270)
In the presence of party fragmentation, the state apparatus tends to dominate national
politics. As Mainwaring summarizes, “the use of state resources is so decisive in party processes
that we can speak of parties of the state. By this I mean that Brazilian parties are formed by the
state as much as they are by society, and that they represent interests in the state as much as they
represent society.” (Mainwaring 1995, 390) In the foreign policy realm, party fragmentation
enables Itamaraty to coordinate and set the foreign policy agenda with relative autonomy from
party politics. The Rio Branco Institute, the school of Foreign Service, is responsible for
institutionalizing Itamaraty’s bureaucratic preferences among Brazilian politicians. Itamaraty’s
international strategy has been very consistent, even at times when the country has undergone
political and economic transitions. As Maria Regina Soares de Lima argues, the
institutionalization of the foreign service contributed to de-politicize foreign policy by isolating
international issues from the constant struggles of Brazilian domestic politics. (Lima 2000, 289)
Since the foreign policy agenda is not subject to the constraints of term limits or re-election
campaigns, Brazil has been able to take a more long-term and ambitious view in its diplomatic
Convention