Brazil: an emerging military power? The problem of the use of force in Brazilian international relations in the 21st century

The central goal of this paper is thinking about the Brazilian military power and its linking to the international ambitions of the country in the 21st century. After a comparative analysis to other BRICs and with a historical one about Brazil's strategic irrelevance, we aim to establish what the minimum military capacity Brazil would need in order to meet the country's latest international interests. Similarly, it will be discussed if the National Strategy of Defense, approved in 2008, and the recent strategic agreements signed with France represent one more step toward this minimum military capacity.

A new Strategic Dialogue: Brazil-US relations in Lula's presidency (2003-2010)

The aim of this article is to examine Brazil and the United States bilateral relations from 2003/2010 and their strategic patterns during the Presidency of Luis Inácio Lula da Silva. The goal is to understand the development of this dialogue in the 21st century and its previous background in the Post Cold War world, identifying its evolution and change due to Brazil's growing regional and global role and US relative position

China's rising Soft Power: the role of rhetoric in constructing China-Africa relations

As China turns increasingly to the cultivation of soft power in the course of developing its foreign policy, the use of political rhetoric and its explicit and implicit audiences become more and more important, both on a bilateral level and within the international arena at large. Using the case of China's relations with African countries, this article examines key themes within China's diplomatic narrative regarding its role on the African continent and contrasts with Western and African responses.

South-South relations and the English School of International Relations: Chinese and Brazilian ideas and involvement in Sub-Saharan Africa

The rise of large developing countries has led to considerable discussions of re-balancing global relations and giving greater priority to understanding South-South relations. This paper, in exploring the central ideas of Chinese and Brazilian foreign policy and the behavior of these two rising Southern countries toward Sub-Saharan Africa, argues that the English School of International Relations is well suited to understanding the intentions and actions that characterize South-South relations.

Macau in China's relations with the lusophone world

After the transfer of the Portuguese administration to China, Macau kept its role as a bridge between East and West, inspired in the Portuguese settlement 500 years ago. The pragmatism of the Chinese central government, using the Lusophone specificities of this Special Administrative Region, supported the creation of the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and the Portuguese-speaking Countries, reviving the statute of the Portuguese language and culture in its own territory.

Environmental issues and international relations, a new global (dis)order - the role of International Relations in promoting a concerted international system

Is it possible to talk about the rise of a new global (dis)order founded on the challenges posed by environmental issues? Through the review of the state of the art on the subject, this article analyzes the growing importance of the environment, and natural resources in particular, in international relations; and aims to raise awareness among International Relations scholars to the potential positive impact of the development of the discipline in integration with global environmental change studies.

Forty Years of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 (XXX) on Zionism and Racism: the Brazilian Vote as an instance of United States - Brazil Relations

Abstract In 1975, Brazil voted in favor of the United Nations General Assembly resolution 3379 (XXX), equating Zionism with a form of racism. Focusing on the decision-making process of president Ernesto Geisel's (1974-1979) foreign policy, "responsible pragmatism", this article discusses how the ultimate decision to vote in favor of resolution was taken taking into account mainly US-Brazil relationship.

What does the field of International Relations look like in South America?

Abstract This article provides a comprehensive picture of IR in South America by applying content analysis to 7,857 articles published in 35 journals from six South American countries from 2006 to 2014 in order to discover what the predominant theories, methods and research areas in this field are, how scholars tend to combine them in their research designs, and what the profiles of regional journals are, regarding their epistemological, methodological and subject preferences. The findings reveal a predominantly Positivist and largely Qualitative discipline, resembling North American and European IR.

Studies in search of a suitable experimental insect model for xenodiagnosis of hosts with Chagas' disease: 4 - The reflection of parasite stock in the responsiveness of different vector species to chronic infection with different Trypanosoma cruzi stocks

Previous studies (1982,1987) have emphasized the superiority of sylvatic vector species over domestic species as xenodiagnostic agents in testing hosts with acute or chronic infections by T. cruzi "Y" stock. The present study, which is unique in that it contains data on both infectivity rates produced by the same stock in 11 different vector species and also the reaction of the same vector species to seven different parasite stocks, establishes the general validity of linking efficiency of xenodiagnosis to the biotope of its agent. For example, infectivity rates produced by "São Felipe" stock varied from 82.5% to 98.3% in sylvatic vectors but decreased to 42.5% to 71.3% in domestic species. "Colombiana" stock produced in the same sylvatic vectors infectivity rates ranging from 12.5% to 45%. These shrank to 5%-22.5% in domestic bugs. The functional role of the biotope in the vector-parasite interaction has not been eluddated. But since this phenomenon has been observed to be stable and easy to reproduce, it leads us to believe that the results obtained are valid. Data presented also provide increasing evidence that the infectivity rates exhibited by bugs from xenodiagnosis in chronic hosts, are parasite stock specific. For example, infectivity rates produced by "Berenice", "Y", "FL" and "CL" varied in R. neglectus from 26.3% to 75%; in P. megistus from 56.3% to 83.8%; in T. sordida from 28.8% to 58.8% in T. pseudomaculata from 41.3% to 66.3% and in T. rubrovaria from 48.8% to 85%. Data from xenodiagnosis in the same hosts, carrying acute infections by the same parasite stocks, gave the five sylvatic vectors a positive rating of approximately 100%, thus suggesting that the heavy loads of parasites circulating in the acute hosts obscured the characteristic interspecific differences for the parasite stock. Nonetheless these latter were revealed in the same hosts with chronic infections stimulated by very low numbers of the same parasite stocks. Certain observations here described lead us to speculate as to the possibility of further results from other parasite stocks, allowing the association of the infectivity rates produced in bugs by different parasite stocks with the isoenzymic patterns revealed by these stocks.

Mortality among patients with non-affective functional psychoses in a metropolitan area of South-Eastern Brazil

High mortality rates among those suffering from schizophrenia and related psychoses have been consistently described in developed societies. However, to date there is a lack of data on this matter in Brazil. In order to examine this issue, a prospective 2-year follow-up study was carried out in S. Paulo. The sample consisted of 120 consecutive admissions to psychiatric hospitals in a defined catchment area, aged 18 to 44 years old, with clinical diagnoses of non-affective functional psychoses according to the ICD-9. After 2 years, 116 (96.7%) subjects were traced. During the study period there were 7 deaths (6.0% of those traced), 5 (4.3%) due to suicide. All but one of the suicides occurred in the first year after discharge from hospital. Age and sex Standardised Mortality Ratios (relative to rates for the population of the city of Sao Paulo) were 8.4 for overall mortality (95% confidence interval: 4.0-15.9) and 317.9 for deaths due to suicide (95% confidence interval: 125.2-668.3). These results are in agreement with previous studies, and show that in Brazil non-affective functional psychoses are life-threatening illnesses, which need adequate care, particularly when patients go back to live in the community after hospital discharge.