Inimigos sim, negócios à parte

Abstract

The arrival of Hugo Chavez in Miraflores presidencial palace, in 1999, began a period marked by progressive governments in South America, and resulted in the implementation of a foreign policy sui generis in the region: a policy that has, at the same time, a side that can be called ?antagonist and peripheral revisionism? and, on the other hand, improve commercial pragmatism. The antagonism toward the United States, which ran actively from 2002 to 2009, lived at the same time with an oil diplomacy apart from differences and focused on maintaining good trade relations with the U.S. market, and trade policy imports in the same period hit record purchases of U.S. products. These are two variations of the same policy, which is not canceled or paralysis caused a conflict, despite the widespread contradiction between. This "exceptional coexistence" between the two sides of its foreign policy, done the Chavez government managed to increase its currency without the economic collapse that would occur if thrown back on oil diplomacy in relation to the United States, while deploying a revisionist policy that brought important consequences for bilateral relations and to relations between South American countries. Based from the old realist tradition, this thesis uses the concepts of peripheral revisionism (Cesar Guimaraes), and antagonistic confrontation and autonomic confrontation (Helio Jaguaribe), as starting points for reflection on the Hugo Chavez government's foreign policy between 1999 and 2011