MERCOSUR and the Brazilian Leadership Challenge in the Era of Chinese Growth: A Uruguayan Foreign Policy Perspective

Francisco Urdinez; Camilo López Burian; Amâncio Jorge de Oliveira

doi:10.1515/ngs-2015-0015

Article

MERCOSUR and the Brazilian Leadership Challenge in the Era of Chinese Growth: A Uruguayan Foreign Policy Perspective

Francisco Urdinez , Camilo López Burian and Amâncio Jorge de Oliveira

Published/Copyright: February 12, 2016

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From the journal New Global Studies Volume 10 Issue 1

Abstract

In recent years, China has expanded its presence in Latin America leading to increased trade flows, foreign direct investment, and bilateral cooperation agreements. At the same time, Brazil has attempted to emerge as a global player from its belief in itself as a regional leader. While both countries are part of the emerging South, they are also competing for influence in the South American area. We hypothesize that for MERCOSUR members, deepening commercial ties with China would be a viable option to counterbalance Brazil’s regional leadership, using Uruguayan legislators preferences as a tool for our study. Using logistic models, we conclude that that the probability of supporting a hypothetical free trade agreement with China is larger when politicians viewed MERCOSUR as an obstacle to the interests of his or her country and when he or she had doubts about Brazilian de facto regional leadership. This empirical evidence allows us to reflect on the political consequences of free trade agreements, on Brazil’s leadership in South America, and Brazil-China relations from the perspective of South-South relations in general.

Keywords: MERCOSUR-China relations; FTA with China; Uruguayan Foreign Policy Brazilian leadership

Funding source: São Paulo’s Research Foundation (FAPESP) (Grant/Award Number: “2015/12688-2”) São Paulo’s Research Foundation (FAPESP)

Award Identifier / Grant number: ‘2014/03831’

Funding statement: São Paulo’s Research Foundation (FAPESP) (Grant/Award Number: “2015/12688-2”) São Paulo’s Research Foundation (FAPESP) (Grant/Award Number: ‘2014/03831’)

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Appendix 1: The Concept of Brazilian Leadership in Peered-Reviewed Papers

We registered in Google Scholar all the peer-reviewed papers published since 2001 in Social Sciences journals containing in their titles the words “Brazilian” and “leadership”, “Brazil” and “leader”, “Brazil” and “leadership” or “Brazilian” and “leader” in English, Portuguese or Spanish. In total, we registered 33 papers containing the aforementioned combinations. Figure 5 shows that 2010 was the year with the most number of papers containing both words (8) and since then the number has gradually decreased. Interestingly, two of the four paper we registered for 2014 and 2015 focus on how Brazilian leadership is under crisis since 2012/2013 (Vanbiervliet 2014; Burges 2015).

Figure 5:

Number of peer reviewed papers per year.

We are aware that our methodology might be excluding papers which are of our interest but do not contain the explicit references to Brazilian leadership in their titles. We assume that this methodology is a proxy for the academic interest in Brazilian rise as an emerging leader and not an exhaustive examination. The list is available within the replication file package at request.

Table 2:

Descriptive statistics.

Name	Question	Type	Mean	sd	Minimum	Maximum
Dependent Variable:	“Would you be willing to strengthen the bilateral relationship with China, regardless of regional considerations, by signing a free trade agreement?”	Dichotomous	0.44	0.498	0	1
Independent Variables:
Brazilian leadership	“Do you agree that Uruguay should prioritize the region and follow Brazilian leadership?”	Dichotomous	0.69	0.46	0	1
MERCOSUR is a priority	“Should MERCOSUR be the priority of national foreign policy?”	Dichotomous	0.14	0.34	0	1
MERCOSUR’s influence	“On a scale of 0–10 (where 0 is zero and 10 is maximum) What degree of influence does MERCOSUR have in Uruguayan foreign policy?”	Ordinal	6.43	2.14	0	10
Ideology	“In politics, we speak of ideology in terms of left and right. By using this scale from 1 to 10 (where 1 is left and 10 is right), I am going to ask you to indicate what position you would say you occupy.”	Ordinal	3.90	1.64	1	8
Incumbent party (Frente Amplio Party)	(publicly known information)	Dichotomous	0.53	0.50	0	1
Opposition party (NP)	(publicly known information)	Dichotomous	0.29	0.45	0	1
Opposition party (CP)	(publicly known information)	Dichotomous	0.17	0.37	0	1
Urban area representative	(publicly known information)	Dichotomous	0.24	0.43	0	1
Opposition party (NP)×Ideology	−	Ordinal	0.81	1.88	0	7
Opposition party (CP)×Ideology×Ideology	−	Ordinal	1.54	2.52	0	8
Current relations with Chinese government	“Compared with 10 years ago, do you think Uruguay’s relations with China are better, the same or worse?”	Ordinal	1.36	0.77	1	3

Published Online: 2016-2-12

Published in Print: 2016-4-1

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https://doi.org/10.1515/ngs-2015-0015

Keywords for this article

MERCOSUR-China relations; FTA with China; Uruguayan Foreign Policy Brazilian leadership