18 dias: Quando Lula e FHC se uniram para conquistar o apoio de Bush by Matias Spektor

Latin America and Caribbean (p. 58) ignores the spate of military coups since 1930, a coup being defined by the author as a ‘violent challenge to the state’ (p. 259). Finally, Tavares tends to downplay the recent trend towards the resolution of border disputes, the 2009 Bolivia–Paraguay settlement and the 2014 International Court of Justice ruling on the Chile–Peru maritime boundary dispute being prime examples. More generally, it has to be said that the work is marred, to the point of distraction, by a surfeit of typographical errors, including misspelled words, misplaced apostrophes, erratic use of the requisite accents, and variance in the rendition of proper names and the dates of specific events. There is some inconsistency in the use of the present and past tense: the discussion of Lula da Silva’s policies, for example, gives the impression that he is still in office. The reader has to contend, too, with the author’s occasionally slightly flawed English. At just three pages, the index is wholly inadequate; for instance, there are no entries for either Guyana or Carlos Andrés Pérez. The bibliography, while comprehensive, has the book by Waiselfisz placed between ‘Sánchez’ and ‘Sanjuán’ (p. 284) and omits entirely the oft-quoted 2010 work by Andrés Malamud. These are all areas, needless to say, where diligent copy-editing would have made the difference; a singular lapse on the part of this esteemed publisher. This would have been a better book had the quality of its presentation matched the overall quality of its analysis. It is wide ranging, well organized, forcefully argued and commendably up to date. Philip Chrimes 18 dias: quando Lula e FHC se uniram para conquistar o apoio de Bush. By Matias Spektor. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva. 2014. 288pp. Pb.: R$36.90. isbn 9 788 53900 581 9. [18 days:  when Lula and the FHC teamed up to win the support of Bush] Matias Spektor is one of the brightest names in the Brazilian International Relations academe. His last two books—Kissinger e o Brasil (Zahar, 2009) and Azeredo da Silveira: Um depoimento (FGV, 2010)—were widely acclaimed by critics as near-perfect combinations of politics and history in the study of foreign policy and international relations. Spektor’s latest book, 18 dias, is built on in-depth interviews with high-level politicians and diplomats in Brasília and Washington, testimonies from advisers and staff, agendas and notebooks. His research achieves a high level of detail from the treatment of personal diaries as fundamental archival sources, allowing the author to understand and map the ideas and interests of all actors. This empirical richness is complemented by a broad theoretical review of developments in Brazilian foreign policy literature over the last 60 years. Spektor’s argument is that an inter-government task force combining the incoming Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s team and the outgoing Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s (FHC) team was formed to work behind the scenes to persuade George W. Bush to support Brazil’s presidential transition in 2002. With US–Brazil relations seen as being crucial for economic stability, both presidents collaborated on two fronts. First came the careful management of frayed ties between the Brazilian Social Democracy Party and the White House. The second goal was to introduce Lula’s emissaries to Washington and create bridges that allowed the Workers’ Party (PT) access to centres of influence in the US capital. The book is particularly important because it sheds considerable light on how Cardoso and Lula managed the first transfer of power from one directly elected president to another in Brazil. As Spektor points out, the transition was particularly fraught in the eyes of US policy-makers who not only instinctively distrusted the leftist PT and Lula, but also

1507 International Affairs 90: 6, 2014 Copyright © 2014 The Author(s). International Affairs © 2014 The Royal Institute of International Affairs.

Full issue November 2014.indb 1507

06/11/2014 11:38:35

Book reviews had doubts as to whether the new government was serious about meeting all the agreements listed in Lula’s pre-election manifesto, Carta ao povo Brasileiro (Letter to the Brazilian people). The mission undertaken by the joint Cardoso–Lula team was to convince officials in Washington that these concerns were misplaced. Completing this task proved complicated and involved not only managing relations in Washington, but also taming combative elements in their respective party bases, as well as defusing direct attacks in the Brazilian and international media. According to Spektor, the critical goal for Brazil was to gain the confidence of President George W. Bush and to reverse the cold bilateral relations that had marked the last two years of Cardoso’s time in office. Related to this was the need to allay Wall Street’s fears of the new ‘quasi-former socialist’ Lula government. For his part, Bush was simultaneously looking to prevent Latin America from becoming a problem in need of management and also to soothe jittery Wall Street nerves. White House perceptions of Brazil changed due to the combined efforts of Cardoso and Lula. Notably, Brazil moved from being viewed within the US National Security Doctrine as a big peripheral country to being seen as an ‘emerging power that should be listened to more and more’ due to its democratic stability and demonstrated market-friendly credentials. To develop his narrative, Spektor finds commonality in the Cardoso and Lula foreign policy positions and draws on established Brazilian foreign policy thinking to demonstrate that Brazilian governments have generally followed an autonomist strategy since at least the Second Empire. The challenge for the autonomists was how Cardoso and Lula could create leeway for freedom of action by Brazil, a peripheral country. Embedded within this argument is the aim of sharing the constituent values and beliefs of a ‘Brazilian civilization’ with the rest of the world. Here the argument is linked with the concepts of multiracial miscegenation and religious tolerance that make up a positive multi-ethnic and pacific country. The remarkable aspect of the literature review in this book is the subtlety with which Spektor demonstrates that there is no other strategy in Brazilian foreign policy. Spektor’s book is a masterful account of what will emerge as a critical inflection point not only in Brazilian foreign policy, but also in the country’s process of economic and political stabilization and growth. The book is written with such literary skill that one might go so far as to describe it as a thriller—as Spektor moves the focus between Brasília, Washington, embassies and testimonies, it is almost possible to hear Bush talking to Lula about the future of Brazil. What is undeniable is that Spektor is a step ahead of his peers in the analysis of Brazilian foreign policy and is leading the way to a deeper, richer, insightful and accessible scholarship on Brazil’s rising role in the region and the world. Fabrício H. Chagas Bastos, Grande Dourados Federal University/University of São Paulo, Brazil The Vatican and Catholic activism in Mexico and Chile: the politics of transnational Catholicism, 1920–1940. By Stephen J. C. Andes. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2014. 272pp. Index. £60.00. isbn 978 0 19968 848 7. This work is one of the first fruits of the decision by Pope John Paul II in 2002, fully realized in 2006 under his successor, to open the Vatican archives on the pontificate of Pope Pius XI (1922–39). The bulk of the ensuing scholarly output thus far has focused on Europe, in particular on the relationship between the Holy See and Fascist Italy, which encompassed the resolution of the seemingly perennial ‘Roman Question’ with the signature of the Lateran accords in 1929, an issue that had dominated Vatican diplomacy since 1870. The

1508 International Affairs 90: 6, 2014 Copyright © 2014 The Author(s). International Affairs © 2014 The Royal Institute of International Affairs.

Full issue November 2014.indb 1508

06/11/2014 11:38:35