Would-be great powers, status, and stigma: the case of Brazil, 1970-1979

Thesis

This thesis critically engages the dominant theoretical account of would-be great power status-seeking behaviour in International Relations (IR), namely Larson and Shevchenko’s social identity theory (SIT) framework. This critical engagement involves bringing the SIT framework into dialogue with a literature that it has hitherto neglected: the emerging scholarship on stigma in IR. Through this dialogical synthesis, I make two theoretical arguments. First, I argue that the SIT account of would-be great power status-seeking has theoretically overemphasised the extent to which these states strive for ‘positive distinctiveness’ because of their ‘need for distinctive identities’ in their quest for higher status. This overemphasis has overshadowed another crucial drive animating these states’ attempts to move up the international pecking order. I contend that this has led to neglect of the other principal motive, which I draw from the literature on stigma, relating to desires by these actors to be seen and accepted as ‘normal’. Thus, in contrast to the one-dimensional account offered by the dominant SIT framework, I suggest that would-be great power status-seeking is Janus-faced, animated both by a desire to be positively distinct and by attempts to be seen and accepted as ‘normal’. I develop a new conceptual framework to account for this dualistic conception of status. Second, I attempt to theorise the effects that being stigmatised as ‘underdeveloped’ has on would-be great powers’ quest for higher status. I suggest that being stigmatised as such makes these states extremely wary, bordering on paranoid, of any sort of relationship of political and economic dependence, and that this mindset powerfully shapes their quest for higher standing in world politics. I substantiate these claims using original archival research based on Brazil’s near-brush with great power status in the 1970s in the face of underdevelopment.

Authors: De Bhal, J

• Type of award: MPhil
• Level of award: Masters
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: Great Powers; Status; Brazil
• Subjects: International Relations