The symbolic dimension of the Brazil-UK strategic partnership: Aspects of Lula's foreign policy and its cultural diplomacy strategies: aspects of Lula’s foreign policy and its cultural diplomacy strategies

This book analyses the role of the Brazil–UK strategic partnership as a particularly conducive environment for Brazil’s cultural diplomacy initiatives and as a platform for the country’s international projection during the first administrations of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003–2010). It examines how the Lula government sought not only to deepen this partnership, but also to reshape its terms in line with Brazilian interests through the implementation of an innovative and all-encompassing cultural diplomacy strategy.

Adopting a broader understanding of cultural diplomacy, grounded in Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic power as a ‘power to construct reality’, the book argues that a wide range of political and diplomatic activities- not necessarily confined to the cultural field - can perform cultural-diplomatic functions. From this perspective, the symbolic dimension of the Brazil–UK strategic partnership emerges as a fertile environment for the mobilisation of cultural and symbolic resources. The study demonstrates how, during the Lula administrations, these resources were strategically deployed to enhance Brazil’s bargaining capacity within the partnership and to transform it into a platform for the international projection of Brazilian soft power, reinforcing Brazil’s prestige, influence and status as an emerging power.