Quick and transparent results, holding political actors accountable, curbing disinformation, and fostering cross-party collaboration are tools that any democracy can use to defuse tensions.
Oliver Stuenkel is an associate professor at the School of International Relations at Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) in São Paulo, Brazil. He is also a visiting scholar affiliated with the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a columnist for Americas Quarterly (AQ) and Estadão. His research focuses on Latin American politics and foreign policy, as well as China’s and the United States’ role in Latin America.
Stuenkel is the author of IBSA: Rise of the Global South (Routledge, 2014), BRICS and the Future of Global Order (Lexington, 2015) and Post-Western World (Polity, 2016), the two latter of which have been translated into Chinese and Portuguese.
His other publications include Argentina, Brazil and Chile and democracy defence in Latin America: principled calculation (International Affairs, co-authored with A. Feldmann and F. Merke), Rising Powers and the Future of Democracy Promotion (Third World Quarterly), Emerging Powers and Status: The Case of the First BRICs Summit (Asian Perspective) and The Financial Crisis, Contested Legitimacy and the Genesis of intra-BRICS cooperation (Global Governance). Aside from his academic research, he has written op-eds for newspapers and magazines, including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, New York Times, and the Financial Times.
From 2016 to 2019, he directed an oral history research project that records in-depth interviews with former Latin American presidents, foreign ministers, and leading diplomats.
Oliver holds a B.A. from the Universidad de Valencia in Spain, a Master in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a PhD in political science from the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany.
Quick and transparent results, holding political actors accountable, curbing disinformation, and fostering cross-party collaboration are tools that any democracy can use to defuse tensions.
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The 16th BRICS Summit, which took place in the Russian city of Kazan, proved to be a symbolic diplomatic victory for Vladimir Putin.
Since Brazil co-founded the BRICS in 2009, Brazilian analysts and politicians have largely agreed that membership brought tangible benefits to the country—including closer ties to China. But as this year’s summit approaches, the costs are adding up.
A second Trump presidency would likely see the return of more explicit U.S. pressure on Latin American countries to pick sides in the brewing competition between the United States and China. That could create considerable friction in the region.
Rather than bemoaning the emergence of the BRICS, the West should court those member states that have a stake in making sure that the grouping does not become an overtly anti-Western outfit intent on undermining the global order.
The president has dug in and is waiting for global attention to move elsewhere.
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Brazil’s earlier intervention not only failed to secure the Caribbean nation—it is also linked to Bolsonaro’s militarization of government.