The Rise, Fall and Rebirth of Foreign Policy Planning in Brazil (1949-2018)

What is it about?

Policy planning has a long history in Ministry of Foreign Affairs around the world. This article provides an overview of almost seventy years of this technique in Brazil’s Ministry of External Relations (Itamaraty). I will argue that there was a clear tradeoff between predicting, preaching, disrupting and managing. Despite its failures, planning was an important tool to cope with uncertainty and provide coherence in foreign-policy making.

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