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integration’ 459 of the state in foreign relations. This prompts the question to whichextent PT has influenced Brazil’s foreign policy trajectory, and in which ways thegoverning party has conditioned the responses of the Brazilian state to externalchallenges and threats.The literature on Brazil’s foreign policy has by and large neglected the role of thegoverning PT in the formulation of foreign policy options and the ratification offoreign policy means. Furthermore, it is only in recent years that greater attentionhas begun to be paid to the ‘realist’ dimension of Brazilian foreign policy, firmlyattached to notions of ‘the national interest’. 460 Many analyses have, however,chosen to focus on ‘soft power’ in Brazilian foreign policy, and on the country’sdistinctiveness as a ‘peaceful’ rising power. 461Foreign policy is, of course, not a blank slate on which PT has been able to write itsown account. A constant and moderating force in Brazilian foreign policy is thehighly-respected Ministerio dos Relaçoes Exteriores, which has managed thecountry’s foreign relations with professional astuteness and competence since thedays of the Baron do Rio Branco, at the turn of the twentieth century. However, theextent to which even this venerable institution, colloquially known as Itamaraty, hasbeen permeated by the ‘ideological’ tendencies of PT, and its consequent effects onforeign policy, came increasingly under the spotlight during the two Lulaadministrations.This chapter operationalises the neoclassical realism (NCR) framework establishedin Chapter 3, along with the institutional dynamics described in Chapter 4, toconduct an analysis of the extent of internationalist influence on the foreign policy459Paulo Roberto de Almeida, “Chapter 9: Lula’s Foreign Policy: Regional and GlobalStrategies”, in Brazil Under Lula: Economy, Politics, and Society under the Worker-President, eds., Joseph L. Love, and Werner Baer (New York: Palgrave-Macmillan,2009): 172.460 Examples include Sean W. Burges, Brazilian Foreign Policy After the Cold War.(Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2009); Alexandre De Freitas Barbosa, ThaisNarciso and Marina Biancalana, “Brazil in Africa: Another Emerging Power on theContinent?”, Politikon, 36, Issue 1 (2009).461 Examples include Kelley Lee and Eduardo J. Gómez, “Brazil’s ascendance: The softpower role of global health diplomacy”, The European Business Review (January-February, 2011); Leslie E. Armijo, and Sean W. Burges, “Brazil, the Entrepreneurial andDemocratic BRIC”, Polity, 42, No.1 (2010); Lima and Hirst, “Brazil as an intermediatestate”.193