South America Surged in Brazilian Diplomacy, Especially Under Lula

🔎 Questions Investigated

This study uses quantitative content analysis to answer three questions about concept use in Brazilian foreign policy discourse from 1995 to 2014:

• How did decision-makers employ the concepts of Latin America and South America?
• Were South America terms prioritized over Latin America terms?
• Did Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva invoke South America more than Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Dilma Vana Rousseff?

📊 How the Analysis Was Done

• Dataset: 6,523 pronouncements by Brazilian decision-makers dated 1995–2014.
• Method: systematic content analysis of official statements to track frequency and temporal patterns of the terms Latin America and South America.
• Comparative focus on three presidential periods: FHC (Fernando Henrique Cardoso), Lula (Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva), and Dilma (Dilma Vana Rousseff).

🔍 Key Findings

• South America was cited more often than Latin America across the full period.
• The frequency of South America references peaked during the Lula years.
• Lula’s diplomacy invoked South America more frequently than did FHC’s or Dilma’s.
• These quantitative results corroborate conclusions previously reached by historians and qualitative analysts, providing convergent evidence through a different methodological approach.

✳️ Why It Matters

The choice between regional labels—Latin America versus South America—shaped diplomatic discourse and reflects shifting regional emphasis in Brazilian foreign policy. By documenting aggregate citation patterns across a large corpus of official pronouncements, the study strengthens confidence in prior qualitative claims and demonstrates the value of quantitative textual measures for studying conceptual change in diplomacy.