Rising powers and international order: comparing Brazil and India's strategies for admission to the great power club

摘要

Both books help to understand Brazil and India's potential contribution to global governance in a reconfigured GPC, and the challenges they face in their search for great power status. Schaffer and Schaffer (2016) make a unique contribution by combining their experience of more than 30 years in the U.S. Foreign Service, serving in senior positions at the U.S. embassies in India and Pakistan. This allows them to superbly explain the intricacies and complexities of India's foreign policy behavior, the Indian Foreign Service, and India's unique negotiating style, including "a willingness to go to the brink if needed in defense of India's interests" (p. 180) while protecting India's sovereignty and strategic autonomy. Mares and Trinkunas (2016) provide a useful—if controversial—theoretical framework, based on the concepts of "soft power" and "hard power" to explain why Brazil has repeatedly failed to achieve its great power status aspirations.