Tullo Vigenavi and Gabriel Cepaluni's Brazilian Foreign Policy in Changing Times: The Quest for Autonomy from Sarney to Lula fills a significant gap in the literature by offering a thorough, informative overview of twenty-five years of Brazilian foreign policy. ... Vigenavi and Cepaluni's study does not only offer a thorough, well informed, and systematic examination of a major country's foreign policy, but also suggests interesting broader insights that hold relevance far beyond its subject matter. Brazilian Foreign Policy in Changing Times: The Quest for Autonomy from Sarney to Lula is recommended to Latin America specialists as well as to students of international relations.

E-International Relations

One of the most persistent deficiencies in the literature on foreign policy is its almost exclusive focus on the 'core states' of Europe and North America - with an occasional sideward glance at China and India. Here we have a book that breaks these bonds. Its central theme is "autonomy" - exactly what peripheral states are not supposed to have in their foreign policies. Tullo Vigevani and Gabriel Cepaluni follow Brazil's "quest for autonomy" from the mid-1980s when its regime became democratic to the present moment - through five consecutive presidencies - and they demonstrate that this quest has been an underlying strategic priority, but that its tactical expression has varied considerably. … [T]heir innovative conceptualization of Brazil's progress in gaining greater autonomy. . . . suggest[s] a "model" that might be applicable to the foreign policies of other peripheral states with similar ambitions.

Philippe C. Schmitter, European University Institute