International Political Science Association 24th World Congress of Political Science

July 23-28, 2016 | Poznań, Poland

The Limits of Regional Powerhood: a Comparative Study of Brazil and Turkey

Rafael Mesquita1

Panel: Regions, Inequality, and International Relations

Abstract

Regional powers have been considered rising players with the potential to lead their regions and reshape the international order. Brazil and Turkey are noteworthy cases as they share relevant commonalities: cultural outliers in their regions, they have nonetheless attempted to exert regional leadership; their foreign policy has oscillated between adhering and contesting the US-led order; and both have sought greater protagonism in the past decade. Their discourse indicates a desire to craft a more multi-polar order that is less unequal across the North/South and West/East divides. From the original optimism around these would-be influential players, their current situation shows the limits of regional and global preeminence for intermediate states: both have withdrawn from their activism due to domestic crises (Brazil) or dire regional instabilities (Turkey). Accordingly, regional surveys show a decline in favorable attitudes towards them. We seek to understand what factors lead intermediary states such as Brazil and Turkey to attempt to exert regional leadership, to seek greater alignment with (or contestation of) the liberal order, and what factors explain their limited success in becoming effective leaders. Methodologically, their alignment or refutation of the liberal order will be measured by voting records at the UN General Assembly, and regional leadership via opinion polls and intra vs. extra-regional investment and trade. Potential explanatory variables for Brazilian and Turkish behavior will be located via the comparative method. Keywords: regional powers; foreign policy; international liberal order; regionalism Introduction Have rising powers become receding powers? During the first decade of the 2000s, the group of countries identified as new emerging powers or regional powers, which included Brazil, South Africa, China, India, Turkey and others, drew the attention of the international community as they displayed growing influence in global affairs. Enjoying vigorous economic growth domestically and advancing a reformist agenda in multilateral fora, these countries were regarded as natural leaders of the regions and forerunners of a new, more multipolar world order. Yet, approximately a decade after this initial excitement, the picture is somewhat different. Economic dynamism and political clout seem to have withered away for some of these would-be new powers. Most importantly, in spite of their attempts at being stabilizers and providers of public goods, their regions are now going through severe economic and political instabilities, while being less enthusiastic about their leadership aspirations as well. This paper seeks to explain the limits of regional powerhood. It will focus on two cases, Brazil and Turkey, and try to understand, on a global level, to what extent have they contested the international liberal order, and, regionally, what factors can explain their limited success in becoming effective leaders.

1 Political Science/International Relations doctorate student at the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE), Brazil. E-mail: rafaelmesquita_5688@hotmail.com

The paper is structured as follows. The first two sections are devoted to a contextual and theoretical review: first, we will review the theoretical approaches towards regional powers and their roles concerning the international order and their own regions, and also briefly overview the trajectories of Brazilian and Turkish foreign policy; secondly, we will outline the article’s model for regional leadership and followership; third, we will present our research design, variables and hypotheses; fourth, we will display and analyze the data; lastly, we will present a discussion of the results and concluding remarks. 1 Regional powers 1.1 Regional powers and the international order The end of the Cold War brought about systemic changes that impacted the dynamics of regions and regional powers. The lifting of the bi-polar ideological split opened up greater permissiveness for regionalism. Additionally, former-soviet and Third World countries changed their attitude towards the now hegemonic neoliberal order and sought to participate in it (Acharya and Johnston 2007).

The dynamics of neoliberalism and globalization affected regions and regionalism in different forms: states resorted to regional strategies as a means to be able to exert some control over the contingencies and externalities brought about by globalization; security patterns changed, incentivizing regions, and in particular regional powers, to become more independent and active providers of their security (Hurrell 2007). While the regionalism of the 1990s emphasized globalization and non-state actors, the 2000s brought about a noteworthy shift. Large, semi-peripheric economies begun to emerge and engage more actively in international governance. After failed or unsatisfactorily attempts to integrate the US-led neoliberal order, these states were more and more vocal about their desire for more multilateralism and development (Mielniczuk 2013; Sanahuja 2013). Notably, the BRIC countries were frontrunners of this revisionism. Some authors point out that their chief concern has been to adjust the current order rather than to challenge it, as they have already internalized many of its principles (such as capitalist economy) and seek to forward their interests through existing institutions (Reis da Silva 2013, Stuenkel 2011, Carvalho et al 2015). As summarized by Milani (2011: 60):

Actually, it is not about radically changing the world order, not simply to join the system as the newly industrialized countries did in the 1980s and 1990s, but rather to ask for a reform in global governance which takes into account the new realities of international configuration. The required change does not mean necessarily a democratization of governance, but simply de inclusion of emerging states that are excluded from it presently2.

1.2 The many in the middle: defining middle powers, regional powers and cusp states Middle powers are an elusive category. Depending on the author and theoretical affiliation, different features and behaviors are proposed to characterize this group of countries. The emergence of the BRICS and other large economies has given some greater contrast to the term, as the behavior of these countries contradicts previous expectations on middle powermanship. The new emerging powers, also called second generation middle powers (Jordaan 2003; Soares de Lima 2010) and regional powers (Nolte 2010) include countries such as Brazil, India, China, South Africa, Turkey, Indonesia and others. Traditional or first generation

2 Translated from French by the author. All of this paper’s translations are the authors’. Original text: « En effet, il ne s’agit plus de transformer radicalement l’ordre mondial, ni tout simplement de s’intégrer dans le système comme l’ont fait les nouveaux pays industrialisés dans les années 1980 et 1990, mais plutôt de demander la réforme de la gouvernance mondiale en prenant en compte les nouvelles réalités de la configuration internationale. Le changement requis ne signifie pas obligatoirement une démocratisation de la gouvernance, mais tout simplement l’inclusion dans le processus des États émergents qui en sont pour l’instant exclus. »

middle powers include Canada, Australia, Nordic countries and South Korea. Some constitutive and behavioral characteristics set the new powers apart from their predecessors, notably, greater material capabilities in comparison to other intermediary states, the exercise of a more proactive and reformist role in the international system, and a self-perception as entitled to a greater global role (Flemes 2010; Hurrell 2006). Concerning their regions, unlike the previous generation which sought to avoid entanglement in regional politics, these new players present themselves as natural leaders of the regions, often as a way of securing the necessary support for greater global ambitions. The literature proposes many definitions of what constitutes a regional power. The most popular definitions are eclectic, in that they tend to encompass realist, liberal and constructivist angles in defining these actors’ nature and behavior. Based on criteria proposed by Jordaan (2003), Hurrell (2006), Destradi (2010), Nolte (2010) and Valencia and Ruvalcaba (2012), we will consider regional powers to be those countries that (i) clearly belong to a specific region; (ii) have superior material and symbolic capabilities; (iii) have a self-conception involving some form of regional preeminence; and (iv) have influence over the region. For this study we will focus on Brazil and Turkey and the regions they attempted to lead in the 2000s: South America and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, respectively. Our empirical analysis, further on, will demonstrate how they meet the material capabilities requirement. The other criteria will be addressed in the following section, where we will present a brief overview of their attitude towards the Western international order and towards their regions. Comparing both countries is relevant to understanding regional powerhood as they share interesting similarities. Notably, they are cultural outliers in their regions, or “Cusp states”: “States that lie uneasily on the political and/or normative edge of what is widely believed to be an established region" (Robins 2014: 22). They contrast with "Milieu States": "States that have decisively more in common with what is subjectively claimed to be the core values of an aspirant or established region than with the ambivalences epitomized by the existence of Cusp States" (p.22). Also, they have come to frame their ascendancy in terms of bridging across the North/South and East/West divides (as epitomized by their failed attempt to mediate the Iranian nuclear issue in 2010); and have enjoyed some measure of success in exerting regional leadership. 1.3 Brazil’s regional powerhood

Since its early days as an independent nation, the monarchical, Lusophone and gigantic Brazil was an odd "Other" in the middle of a Republican, Hispanic and fragmentary Latin America - and vice versa (Santos 2005; Pereyra-Doval and Romero 2013; Bethell 2009; Galvão 2009). In the early twentieth century, Brazil drew nearer to the Americas, but with little effect, as illustrated by the opposition of South American states to Brazil's candidacy for a permanent seat on the League of Nations in the 1920s. There was clearly a "cognitive dissonance" between the role Brazil ascribed to itself and that which the other South American states did (Santos 2005: 8). Concerning the international order, Brazil’s enduring concern with autonomy has made it display an oscillating foreign policy. Stuenkel (2011) detects an ambivalence towards the liberal system, “an ideological predisposition to criticize and refrain from integration, but a pragmatic necessity to join the system to continue to benefit from it and a desire to rise within it” (Stuenkel 2011: 193). All along the Cold War, Brazil retained its label as "Western", though adding its own nuances to the term, according to the situation and interests (Fonseca Jr 1998). Brazil’s identity as a reformist rising power began to emerge when the “autonomy though participation” paradigm of the 1990s collapsed (eventually, it became clear that neither the expected economic development nor international visibility resulted from Brazil's adherence

to the neoliberal consensus) and was replaced by the “autonomy through diversification” outlook in the Lula governments (Vigevani and Cepaluni 2007; Mesquita 2014).

Being a country of contrasts and structurally heterogeneous, Brazil has the ability to communicate with different poles of the world (Arbilla, 2009, Lafer 2009). Malamud and Rodriguez (2013, p. 168) see the country as a cusp state that, unlike Turkey (which is attracted by two different regions, Europe and Middle East), Brazil stands astride a region (South America) and the world. Mesquita and Medeiros (forthcoming) have demonstrated, by analyzing diplomatic speeches, that the Global South is indeed becoming more central than the region in defying Brazil’s identity as an emerging power.

Brazil’s engagement in South America, nonetheless, have been substantial throughout its history. From the late 1980s on Brasília has been at forefront of the more ambitious regional initiatives, chiefly the Common Market of the South (Mercosur), which spurred an unparalleled wave of trade in its early years, with intra-bloc exports growing as much as 23% per year between 1990 and 1998 (Domínguez 2007). In the context of Latin America’s left turn in the 2000s, the South American Union of Nations (Unasur), founded in 2008, is the most ambitious of a new generation of post-liberal initiatives that emphasize policy coordination rather than trade integration. According to Sanahuja (2012), Unasur meets Brazilian interests of regional leadership and accommodates the objectives of other countries due to its infrastructure promises, energy integration, market diversification and mutual assistance.

The new regional activism, however, does not mean that other South American countries have accepted Brazilian leadership. Some authors emphasize Brazil’s instrumental approach towards the region, using it as a stepping-stone for its global ambitions (Spektor 2010; Vigevani and Cepaluni 2011, Lazarou and Theodoro 2015), and the resulting balancing tactics deployed by its reticent neighbors (Flemes and Wehner 2015; Burges 2015). Others argue that the country has transcended such self-interested regionalism and has become an actual "development leader" in South America (Pinheiro and Gaio 2014); or an "instrumental" and "situational" leader, capable of guiding other countries to a consensus at critical moments (Mouron and Onuki, 2015: 21). Recent research has also emphasized how Brazil’s self-image is detached from the region if compared to other, more “Latin” nations (Mesquita 2016; Onuki, Mouron and Urdinez 2016). This has led some authors to suggest that Brasilia will tend to pursue their interests in global arena rather than regional one, as a banner carrier for the Global South (Malamud and Rodriguez, 2013; Steiner, Medeiros and Lima 2014). 1.4 Turkey’s regional powerhood

Modern Turkey was born from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, which had been dismembered by the European powers of the nineteenth century. Thus, the country was built having territorial integrity as its cornerstone, seeing ethnic heterogeneity as a threat to national unity, and religion as opposed to progress. Kemalism – a doctrine named after General Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who ruled the country from 1923 to 1938 – had two components: nationalism and secularism.

Thus, Turkish political elites sought to "Westernize" the country. Externally, this redefinition was pursued by adhering to institutions such as NATO in the Cold War. Participation in this block was not motivated solely by security concerns. It symbolized the desire to adopt Western values such as democracy, human rights and rule of law (Yilmaz and Bilgin 2006)3. Regionally, Turkey’s gaze has long been focused on the European Union (EU) and the promise of membership. It became a candidate in 1999, and ascension talks started in 2005. The slow progress of its entry and the fear that it was simply “too big, too poor and too

3 See, however, Danforth (2015), who argues that US-Turkish alliance was never based on “shared ideals”, only the on the “shared goal” of containing the Soviet threat

different” (Ogluzu 2008: 6) to ever join the group have led Ankara to be less enthusiastic about the Western promise.

As early as the 1980s, a new counter elite began appear in the Turkish political scene, until then dominated by state bureaucracy, armed forces, and the secular Kemalist party establishment. This new group differed from previous one concerning their attitude towards the West, the Arab world and Turkey’s place in the region. The Justice and Development Party (AKP), which reached prominence in the 2000s, singles out Kemalism as the root of the current ethnic problems in Turkey and re-invited Islam as an element of social solidarity, thus re-framing the international identity of the country regarding its heritage and the Arab world (Altunışık 2014: 35).

Externally, the AKP also reoriented Turkey's relations with its neighbors, approaching previously distant nations: Syria and Iran. Its attitude towards Tehran went from antagonism to mediation, as seen in the case of the 2010 nuclear agreement. Similarly, Turkey has adopted a more vigorous speech to condemn Israel's actions and position in favor the Palestinians on the issue of Gaza.

One can summarize Ankara’s shift as follows: Formerly the passive presence in the Middle East, an eager aspirant to the European Union, and close partner of the United States, Turkey has today become an active regional player which is ambivalent about joining the European Union, and behaves independently of, at even times at cross-purposes with, the United States. (Reynolds 2012: iii)

Ogluzu (2008: 3), however, believes that this “Middle Easternization” of Turkish

foreign policy does not “suggest a break with the West but rather the growing salience of the Middle East in Turkey’s relations with the West”. Even its preference for soft power tools in the Middle East, such as mediation, can be seen as sign of Ankara’s Europeanization.

The developments of the Arab Spring have affected Turkey’s regional strategy dramatically. At first, the region-wide popular uprisings were interpreted by Turkey as an opportunity to advance the “Turkish” model, which combined Islamism and democracy (and indeed it enjoyed some popularity in the first years). However, Erdogan’s choice to get involved in internal disputes, accompanied by erosion of this very model at home, contributed to growing regional hostility (Oguzlu 2016). In light of that, we can highlight the following noteworthy similarities between Brasília and Ankara regarding their political trajectories, relation with the region and with the international order: (1) Both transitioned from authoritarian-military governments to civil governments, and from being inward-looking countries to being more assertive regional and global players. This shift was also marked by a frustrated attempt to integrate the liberal order (Brazil) or a group of Western nations (Turkey). (2) Both the Worker’s Party (PT) and the AKP started out as parties closer to the masses and with an anti-establishment discourse. They have also secured stable majorities and prolonged terms, and irradiated their influence through regional solidarity. (3) Their rise in the international scene was boosted by the presence of charismatic leaders, Lula and Erdogan. (4) Both were held to be models for their regions, by their peers as well as by greater powers (Brazil for combining progressive policies with orthodox fiscal policies; Turkey for its conciliation of an Islamist ruling party and secular democracy). (5) They have shown a preference for soft power in exerting their influence, regionally as well as globally, privileging tools such as development aid, presidential diplomacy, cultural diplomacy, and the like. Also, they have consistently tried to disarm fears concerning their regional predominance by framing their leadership in benign terms.

(6) Their attempts at regional leadership have not been without attritions. Most notably, both have a competing regional player which attempts to define the region via alternative and more extreme narratives (Venezuela: anti-US Bolivarianism; Iran: anti-Western Islamism). (7) They are cusp states with regard to the region. Nonetheless, they skillfully invoke their cultural oddity and multiethnic/multi-civilizational heritage to legitimize a new foreign policy orientation, by emphasizing ethnic or historical ties with new partners (Africa, in Brazil’s case; Europe, the Balkans and the Middle East for Turkey). This framing of their new position in interstate relations has also been accompanied by some “geographical ingenuity”: they have proposed new symbolic boundaries for their region of interest (“Latin” vs. “South America” for Brazil, which is also recently focusing on what it calls the “South Atlantic”; the “nation of contrasts” metaphor is also useful for legitimizing a middleman role between North and South; while Turkey presents itself as a “central nation” and “energy corridor” between East and West). Having presented the features of these aspiring regional leaders, we now turn to the dynamics of its fellow states, in order to understand what factors can explain their success or failure in achieving this status. 2 Hegemony, leadership and regions 2.1 Leaders or hegemons? The goal of this article is to understand whether or not Brazil and Turkey have succeeded in becoming regional leaders. This requires a definition of leadership. It is important to stress that the concept of leadership is not very rigorously addressed in International Relations and, depending on the author, no differentiation is made between similar concepts such as hegemony or dominance.

An overview of the literature reveals that one of the main challenges in differentiating and classifying these behaviors is that their final observable outcome is the same (acquiescence or followership) but the underlying motivations for them are not the same. Two features stand out as peculiar to leadership: the presence of shared goals4, and a preference for using ideational resources. Thus, some authors will consider both material and ideational resources as valid tools for exerting leadership. Ikenberry (1996: 386) defines leadership as “the ability to foster cooperation and commonalty of social purpose among states”. Further, it is a dual phenomenon, involving “power” and “purpose”:

Leadership may involve the ability to not just "twist arms" but also to get other states to conceive of their interests and policy goals in new ways. This suggests a second element of leadership, which involves not just the marshalling of power capabilities and material resources. It also involves the ability to project a set of political ideas or principles about the proper or effective ordering of politics. It suggests the ability to produce concerted or collaborative actions by several states or other actors. Leadership is the use of power to orchestrate the actions of a group toward a collective end. (Ikenberry, 1996: 388)

Keohane and Nye (2001: 200) make no differentiation between leadership and

hegemony. They define leadership broadly and differentiate between three types, placing each in a continuum: “hegemonic leadership” consists of a state with sufficient capabilities and willingness maintaining an international regime; “unilateralism” is a type of leadership in which a state acts on its own and sets an example for others, so that, even if it is unwilling to procure compliance, it will affect the surrounding regime due to its political and economic weight; lastly, states can be “multilateral leaders”, when they try to induce other states to cooperate into building and maintaining a regime. 4 Common goals can be shared from the start or be instead the product of deliberate persuasion on the part of the regional power; some authors will consider the latter hegemony, not leadership.

Schirm (2010: 200) defines leadership as: the ability to make others follow goals and positions which these others did not previously share and/or to make others support an increase in status and power of the emerging power. This definition includes influence through material incentives and the ability to exert ‘soft power’ through shared ideas and agenda setting

In his view, successful leadership necessarily requires that the leader inserts, into its regional project, some of the ideas and interests of its potential followers. Thus, all of these authors consider both material and ideational resources as characteristic of leadership, and make no extra requirements on the nature of the ideational relations. That is, it is relatively unimportant whether all states came to share the same goals because they were originally so or due to active persuasion on the part of the leader. Other authors, however, believe that if such preference-transforming efforts are in place, then the relationship is hegemonic. Genuine leadership, in their definition, would stem from an untampered commonality and complementarity of aims. Destradi (2010) identifies three possible behaviors which vary in terms of the ends sought (whether selfish or collective) and the means deployed (material or symbolic). "Empire" is the behavior that occupies one end of the continuum and it is characterized by the search of selfish ends through hard power means, such as coercion, imposition and military intervention. "Hegemony" occupies the middle of the spectrum. A hegemon pursues selfish goals, though presenting them to subordinate states as collective. Consensus among subordinates is obtained via a combination of material incentives and ideational power instruments. The author subdivides hegemony into three forms: "hard", which relies on subtle forms of coercion, threats and sanctions to ensure dominance; "intermediary", which "is centered around the provision of material benefits and rewards to subordinate states (as suggested by hegemonic stability theory) in order to make them acquiescent." (Destradi 2010: 919); "soft", in which the hegemon tries to change the values and norms guiding the subordinate states so that they would willingly comply, rendering material sanctions and incentives unnecessary. Lastly, the strategy of "leadership" differs from "hegemony" in that the regional power does not pursue selfish ends. Instead, it is the leading agent in the search for a collective goal. Van Langehove, Zwartjes and Papanagnou (2016: 17) also refuse to define leadership as articulating “intellectual and material capabilities in a struggle for ideational dominance”. Instead, they “understand regional leadership as having a stronger focus on the formation of common goals and processes of collective institution building independently of underlying economic interests and structures” (p.17). Pinheiro and Gaio (2014), likewise, believe that if the regional power attempts to alter the preferences of its peers, this is an example of domination, not leadership. They understand leadership as based on complementarity and free will. A leader, in that sense, merely sets the example or shows the way. These authors also make an interesting distinction between dimensions of leadership for regional powers: “inward regional leadership” refers to the “capacity to set formal or informal rules and patterns of behavior within the regional sphere”, while “outward regional leadership” refers to “the capacity to lead regional partners in global matters.” (p.9) For this paper, we do not aim to present any new definition for leadership. We will, however, highlight that followership is a necessary requirement for effective regional powerhood, as will become clear in the discussion below of models of regional hegemony. 2.2 Criteria for effective regional powerhood As we stated, our definition of a regional powers is four-fold. A regional power must (i) clearly belong to a specific region; (ii) have superior material and symbolic capabilities; (iii) have a self-conception involving some form of regional preeminence; and (iv) have

influence over the region. While these points focus on what the country must have, it is necessary to emphasize how can its leadership claim be made effective. Prys (2008) identifies three dimensions that are necessary and, in combination with the requisite of material predominance, jointly sufficient for producing hegemony: (1) Perception: states must be perceived as legitimate leaders, by themselves (self-conception) and by others. Regional hegemons also tend to foster an exceptionalist self-image; (2) Projection: they must be capable to project their values and interests; (3) Provision: they must be able to provide public goods, both material and symbolic. Van Langehove, Zwartjes and Papanagnou (2016) consider that a regional leader must fulfill three requirements: (1) willingness, (2) capacity (in material and symbolic terms); (3) acceptance.

Based on that, for this study we will consider that a regional power must meet the following criteria for exerting leadership. They are divided into internal and external components: Internal:

(1) Capacity: Regional powers must possess superior material capacities. These are necessary as the regional power is expected to provide public goods and to take a greater share of responsibility for maintaining regional order. By capabilities we mean material capabilities but also political-institutional ones: states must have sufficient domestic consensus in order to ensure effective and sustained external action.

(2) A self-conception as a regional leader and the explicit manifestation of this aim: a state may be endowed with sufficient resources to institute a regional order, but not be willing to do so (as were first generation middle powers). Therefore, one of the internal requisites for regional powerhood is that domestic actors are moved by a worldview in which the country is regarded as the regional leader.

External: (3) Exclusivity: regional leadership is peculiar because, in an anarchical international

system, no state has final authority over any issue. Therefore, regional leaders face the difficult task of ensuring that they are the most authoritative actor in the region, by successfully blocking other states from intervening. Thus, intervention by extra-regional powers, or challenges by competing regional powers can undermine the leadership project.

(4) Acceptance: the regional power must be accepted by other states as the legitimate leader of the region. Legitimacy means the “adequacy perceived by relevant actors between practices and their shared beliefs, values and expectations” (Mesquita and Medeiros, forthcoming). The regional power’s actions must meet the expectations of the other states to be legitimized. Often, this can mean acting against expectation of the international community and in favor of the local preferences (Prys 2008) 2.3 Followership How do secondary and tertiary states respond to regional power’s claim for leadership? According to Lobell, Jesse and Williams (2015), there are three possible attitudes:

(1) Resistance: in a realist perspective, states will try to balance against a powerful neighbor, either internally (build up its military capacities) or externally (make alliances). This balancing can be done by hard or soft means. Soft balancing is an intermediate strategy that can be deployed by states that do not wish to overtly balance, nor to fully bandwagon the leader. Diplomacy, economics and institutions are some tools that can be used to frustrate or increase the costs of unilateral action on the part of the leader (Flemes and Wojczewski 2011: 6). Moral de-legitimation can also be used to resist leadership claims.

(2) Accommodation: if no threat is perceived, a state can accommodate to the ambitions of the regional power. This can be motivated by instrumental calculations as well as by normative conviction and shared interests.

(3) Neutrality: a state might seek to preserve an autonomous foreign policy and therefore remain neutral to the regionalist efforts of the power. 3 Research design, variables and hypotheses 3.1 Research design and variables Our study is can be classified as a time-series cross-section, as we will compare two regional powers across time. Based on the previously shown model, we will mobilize the following variables: Independent variables: (1) Engagement of extra-regional power in the region: if an extra-regional power is actively engaged in a region, the emerging power will have less room to assert its leadership. The extra-regional power might be a competing supplier of public goods, thus multiplying the possibilities of balancing coalitions for secondary states, thus increasing the costs of leadership (Lobell, Jesse and Williams 2015). Both of the regions considered (South America for Brazil and MENA region for Turkey) are placed under the influence of a few extra-regional powers, for geographical as well as trade factors. We will consider the US and China as relevant extra-regional players in South America, and the US, China and EU-28 for the MENA region. Their trade with the states in the region will be our measure of their involvement. (2) Regional polarity: if the regional power is much superior than all other countries in terms of material power (unipolar order), followership should be easier, but if there are competing players with similar material capabilities, counter alliances might form and the costs of leadership will increase (Lobell, Jesse and Williams 2015). Regional polarity will be measured by the concentration of regional GDP5. (3) Regional power’s trade flow with the region: one of the ambiguities concerning regional power’s behavior is that, as the most advanced economies in their regions, they enjoy privileged access to markets in the developed world and, since they possess more resources to act unilaterally, they might be tempted to forego regional cooperation and act unilaterally, focusing extra-regional gains (Krapohl, Meissner and Muntschick 2014; Malamud and Rodriguez 2013). Thus, as a measure of the regional power’s actual willingness to lead the region we will monitor their total trade flow with the other countries in the region (as a percentage of their total trade). Traditionally, speeches and official documents have been employed as empirical indicators for leadership willingness (Prys 2008; Van Langehove, Zwartjes and Papanagnou, 2016). As these have already been consistently scrutinized for our regions (see Santos 2005; Mesquita and Medeiros, forthcoming, for Brazil, and Altunışık, 2014 for Turkey) we wish to complement these findings with a liberal indicator, such as trade, which can point out how central the region has become for the regional leader’s fate, without incurring in the matter of rhetoric vs. reality. Also, given that Brazil rise is associated with its role a “global trader” and that Turkey has changed from a “national security state” to a “trading state” (Herzog 2014), the choice for trade as an indicator seems warranted. (4) GDP yearly growth: leaders can lead by example. In interstate society, that means that a country can serve as an inspiring model to others, which will attempt to emulate its course of action (Ikenberry 1996). Brazil and Turkey drew much attention due to their presentation as models for their less prosperous counterparts concerning economic development (Pinheiro and Gaio 2014) and political system (Özcan, Köse and Karakoç 2015). Thus, we hold that robust growth rates should inspire other countries to follow the regional powers. (5) Internal cohesion: sufficient domestic consensus is a necessary requisite for actorness in the international system (Herzog 2014). These countries renewed foreign policies,

5 As this is essentially a realist variable, the best way to measure it would be to use an index such as the Composite Index of National Capabilities (CINC), but this is updated only until 2007, and our studied time period starts at 2008, which is why we focused on GDP instead.

as they present some important shifts in comparison to previous paradigms, require continued political support. We will measure the degree of internal cohesion by the percentage of seats held by the Chief of Executive’s party in the Legislative. For Turkey, which is unicameral, that is the Grand National Assembly, and for Brazil, which is bicameral, we will consider the lower house, the Chamber of Deputies. (6) Regional stability: Brazil and Turkey have opted for soft power as a means of exerting regional power. Sandal (2014) has argued that this should be effective as long as regions remain stable and conflict free. More conflictive environments should be less receptive to this sort of interaction and demand, instead, more hard power means of instituting a regional order. Regional stability will be measured by the regional rankings on the Global Peace Index (GPI), calculated by the Institute for Economics and Peace.

Dependent variable: (7) Perceptions of the regional power: as acceptance is key in all definitions of regional hegemony and leadership, one can only say the Brazilian and Turkish designs have been successful if other countries come to recognize them as regional leaders. Thus, for our study, we will use public opinion surveys carried out in both regions to discover if the regional powers were positively regarded and were recognized as leaders. Positive views are considered a proxy for acceptance of leadership. Due to data availability, we will analyze a rather short time period: 2008-2015 for Brazil and 2009-2013 for Turkey. Our study will also analyze the voting pattern of Brazil and Turkey at the UNGA but only for descriptive purposes. We will seek to verify to what extent they can be considered reformers of the international order, but without trying to explain causality. 3.2 Hypotheses In light of the chosen variables, our hypotheses are the following:

• H1: The greater the engagement of extra-regional powers in the region, the smaller the acceptance of the regional power's leadership.

• H2: The more multipolar a region is, the smaller the acceptance of the regional power's leadership.

• H3: The less significant the region is the regional power's total trade, the smaller the acceptance of the regional power's leadership.

• H4: The smaller the regional power's GDP yearly growth, the smaller the acceptance of its leadership.

• H5: The smaller the regional power's internal cohesion, the smaller the acceptance of its leadership.

• H6: The smaller the regional stability, the smaller the acceptance of the regional power's leadership.

4 Data and analysis 4.1 Brazil and Turkey as contesters of the international order To what extent have Brazil and Turkey sought to contest the US-led international order? In order to evaluate their degree of alignment with the US, we have monitored their voting record at the UNGA. The Voeten (2013) database, United Nations General Assembly Voting Data, was used6. As advised by Bailey et al (2015), we will measure the foreign policy affinity between the US-Brazil and US-Turkey dyads using the “absolute difference” scores 6 Available at http://hdl.handle.net/1902.1/12379

instead of S-Scores. The latter, so they argue, can overestimate divergences between states and fail to differentiate affinities caused by actual preference sharing from those caused by fortuitous agenda changes.

As the data show, ever since the 1960s these countries have been pulling away from US alignment. Brazil’s divergence has been much more pronounced. Amorim Neto (2011) believes this to be caused chiefly by realist factors, namely, Brazil’s growing material capabilities have empowered it to seek a non-aligned stance. Turkey, which during the Cold War enjoyed a closer tie to the US as part of the NATO alliance, was less divergent and also tended to be more stable.

The dataset also allows us to separate between all matters voted at the Assembly from those deemed important by the US, as formalized in the “Voting Practices at the UN” report published by the Department of State7. These reports are available from 1983 on. Thus, in our time series graphs, solid lines indicate voting similarity in all matters at the UN, while dotted lines indicate similarity in issues deemed important.

It is possible to observe that both countries follow similar patterns from the 1990s on: having peaks of divergence in regular votes in 1990, 1996, 2006, and 2012, and troughs in 1994, 2000 and 2013. Concerning important votes, we have peaks in 1994 and 2004-5, and a trough in 2010. It is also significant that, in Turkey’s case, it has been actually much more divergent on important votes than on regular ones. Nonetheless, as this is figure is based on a small number of observations, we wish not to overextend this particular finding. It must be stressed, nonetheless, that this distancing is not exclusive to emerging powers: even close allies such as the UK show a tendency to steer away in this 60-year interval8. As Voeten (2004) argues, the US has become a “lonely superpower”. Figure 1: Brazil and Turkey's voting divergence from the US and the UNGA (1946-2014, measured by absolute ideal point difference)

Source: Voeten (2013) 4.2 Determinants of regional acceptance a Favorable views on the regional power 7 Available at http://www.state.gov/p/io/rls/rpt/index.htm 8 The mean absolute ideal point difference for the UK is 0.61; Brazil is 1.95 and Turkey 1.53.

0

0,5

1

1,5

2

2,5

3

3,5

4

1946 1953 1960 1967 1974 1981 1988 1995 2002 2009

Abso

lute

idea

l poi

nt d

iffer

ence

BR BR imp TK TK imp

Table 1 shows that favorable views of Brazil are majority in South America, but unfavorable views have risen steadily. Table 1: Favorable and unfavorable views of Brazil in South America (%)

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Argentina Favorable 75 56

Unfavorable 10 19 Bolivia Favorable 65 Unfavorable 12 Chile* Favorable 52 65 55 45 41 34 34

Unfavorable 11 12 6 12 7 16 15 Colombia Favorable 56

Unfavorable 16 Peru* Favorable 63 62 65 61

Unfavorable 8 8 13 17 Venezuela Favorable 70 67

Unfavorable 15 24 Reg. Mean Favorable 52 65 55 54 51.5 61.8 54.8

Unfavorable 11 12 6 10 7.5 13.2 18.2

Source: Pew Research Center, Global Indicators Database 2015; BBC GlobalScan 20159

These data are not very representative of South America for the 2008-10 period as it consists only of Chilean responses. Thus, it is useful to check the Latinobarómetro survey which placed a more direct question concerning regional leadership. Figure 2: Answers to the question “Which country has the greatest leadership in the region?”

9 Answers to the question “Please tell me if you have a very favorable, somewhat favorable, somewhat unfavorable, or very unfavorable opinion of Brazil” from the Pew survey, applied from 2011 to 2014. * Data for Chile and Peru refers to the question “Please tell me if you think each of the following countries are having a mainly positive or mainly negative influence in the world (Brazil)” applied by the BBC GlobalScan from 2008 to 2014. Collected answers were “Mainly positive impact”, “Mainly negative impact”. Answers “Favorable” combine results from “Very favorable” and “favorable”, and “Unfavorable” combines “Very unfavorable” and “Unfavorable” (“Mainly positive” and “Mainly negative” in Chile and Peru’s cases, respectively). Pew Research Center, Global Indicators Database. 2014. Available at: <http://www.pewglobal.org/database/indicator/73/>. Access date: 24 Jul. 2015.

Source: Latinobarometro (2009, 2010, 2011, 2015)10

Respondents were asked which country had the greatest leadership in the region. It is possible to see that Brazil is clearly the predominant state in the respondents’ view, followed by Venezuela by a substantial gap. Though there is a four-year gap between 2011-15, it is possible to see that Brazil’s rating suffered a slight drop. The second contender for regional leadership, Venezuela, suffered a much more significant drop. Argentina also had, like Brazil, a more modest drop.

The 2015 Latinobarómetro had another specific question concerning Brazil’s leadership: it asked respondents how much confidence did they have on Brazil’s capacity to solve Latin America’s problem. The majority of valid answers was positive (“Very confident” = 10%, “Somewhat” = 33.1%, “Little” = 25.6%, “Not at all” = 12.3%). It is possible thus to assert that Brazil is still considered as a legitimate leader in the region, though its acceptance has been shrinking in recent years. Positive perceptions of Turkey reached their peak in MENA countries in 2010 and then dropped quickly to an all-time low in 2013. The drops were most acute in Syria and Egypt, precisely those countries that had been targeted by Ankara to receive greater diplomatic attention. Table 2: Favorable views of Turkey in the MENA region

2009 2010*** 2011 2012 2013 Egypt 72 86 84 38 Jordan 82 81 72 71 Lebanon 76 78 63 63 Palestine 87 89 81 75 Saudi Arabia 77 89 77 76 Syria 87 44 28 22 Iraq 69 74 55 67 Iran* 71 59 69 Tunisia** 91 80 74 Gulf Country** 76 77 65

10 Data from Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela, applied to a total of 43200 respondents in the four waves Corporación Latinobarómetro. Latinobarómetro 2015. Available at: http://www.latinobarometro.org/latContents.jsp

25,5%

11,7%

5,6%3,0%

7,2%

27,1%

10,8%6,9% 5,9% 4,3%

31,6%

11,4%

6,4% 6,7%3,4%

30,2%

3,6%7,3% 6,4%

3,6%

0,0%

5,0%

10,0%

15,0%

20,0%

25,0%

30,0%

35,0%

Brasil Venezuela Chile Argentina USA

Which country has the greatest leadership in the region?

2009 2010 2011 2015

Yemem** 79 74 76 Libya** 93 90 79 Reg. weighted average 75 85 78 69 59

Source: TESEV’s The Perception of Turkey in The Middle East (2013, 2010, 2009)11. The same pattern is present in more specific questions about whether Turkey should play a bigger role in the MENA region and if Turkey can be considered a model for MENA countries. Table 3: Views on Turkey’s role in the region (%)

2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Turkey should play a bigger role in the MENA region (RWA) 77 78 71 66 60 Turkey can be a model for MENA Region countries 61 66 61 53 51

Source: TESEV’s The Perception of Turkey in The Middle East (2013, 2010, 2009)12. b Intra vs. extra-regional trade flow The greatest share of Brazil’s trade, considering imports and exports, has been extra-regional. During the time period analyzed, Asia has been the privileged partner, growing from a 23% to 33% share in Brazilian trade. The EU-28 countries followed in second, while South America came in third. As Figure 3 shows, the gap between Asia and other regions has been widening, indicating other partners, among which South America, have not grown in centrality for Brazil. Figure 3: Participation of different regions in Brazil’s total trade

Source: MDIC/AliceWeb

11 * Iran not included in the 2009 survey ** Tunisia, Gulf Countries, Yemem, Lemem and Lybia not included in the 2009 and 2010 surveys *** The 2010 TESEV survey did not present regional data disaggregated per country Available at: tesev.org.tr 12 * For 2009, the question was “in the Arab World” Available at: tesev.org.tr

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

PARTICIPATION IN BRAZIL'S TOTAL TRADE (IMPORT + EXPORT)

ASIA (EXCLUSIVE ORIENTE MEDIO) UNIAO EUROPEIA - UE

AMERICA DO SUL AMERICA DO NORTE

Turkish trade is still chiefly oriented towards the EU-28, though its participation has decreased steadily in favor of Asian and the MENA Region13, which are becoming more important trade partners. Figure 4: Participation of different regions in Turkey’s total trade

Source: Turkstat c Engagement of extra-regional powers For South America, we have compared the total trade flow, in absolute terms, of the US, China and Brazil with the other 11 South American countries. All three powers experienced a drop in 2008-09, due to the global financial crisis, recovering steadily all the way until 2014, when trade again declined. Brazil and the US ended the series with a smaller overall trade with the region than in the first year of the series. Only China escaped this pattern, ending the series with a volume of trade 63.8% greater. This is indicative that the presence of extra-regional powers has increased in the region, giving South American countries more partnership choices and a way to reduce dependence from Brazil. Figure 5: US, Chinese and Brazilian total trade with South America (absolute value in current USD)

13 The following countries were considered: Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Cyprus (except for EU28 calculations), Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen.

0,0%5,0%

10,0%15,0%20,0%25,0%30,0%35,0%40,0%45,0%50,0%

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

PARTICIPATION IN TURKEY'S TOTAL TRADE (IMPORT + EXPORT)

A-European Union (EU 28) 4-North American Countries

8-Other Asian Countries MENA Region

Source: United States Census Bureau (http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/historical/index.html), UN Comtrade (http://comtrade.un.org/data/) and MDIC/AliceWeb The EU-28 is the most relevant economic actor in the MENA region. China has surpassed the US’s engagement in 2009 and is growing its presence steadily. This is therefore also indicative that great power involvement is increasing in the region. Most importantly, it is worth underscoring that the most significant development in the region, the Arab Spring and ensuing regional instability (2011-), cannot be properly captured by trade stats: civil unrest, armed conflicts and the rise of ISIS have brought great powers into regional politics and made hard power politics the current language of the area. Figure 6: US, EU-28, Chinese and Turkish total trade with the MENA region (absolute value in current USD)

Source: Turkstat, United States Census Bureau, UN Comtrade d Regional polarity

0,0020,0040,0060,0080,00

100,00120,00140,00160,00180,00200,00

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

Bi

TOTAL TRADE WITH SOUTH AMERICA

Brazil China USA

0,00

100,00

200,00

300,00

400,00

500,00

600,00

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

Bilh

ões

TOTAL TRADE WITH THE MENA REGION

Turkey USA EU28 China

Between 2008 and 2014, regional polarity has not changed dramatically. In comparison to other relevant economies in the region, Brazil consistently accounted for over half the regional GDP. Its highest point was in 2011 (59%), and it has been dropping in the last years of the series. Colombia and Chile have seen modest increases in their share of regional GDP, while Venezuela has undergone the sharpest decline, dropping to nearly half in just seven years. Thus, Brazil still retains material dominance in the region, and its previous contender for regional leadership has become considerably incapable of competing now. Table 4: Share of South American GDP for selected countries (%)

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Argentina 13.1 12.4 11.9 12.6 13.5 14.0 12.6 Brazil 54.8 55.0 57.0 59.0 55.0 56.1 56.5 Chile 5.8 5.7 5.6 5.7 5.9 6.3 6.0 Colombia 7.9 7.7 7.4 7.6 8.3 8.7 8.8 Venezuela* 10.2 10.9 10.2 7.1 8.5 5.3 5.9

Source: World Bank, IMF World Economic Outlook 201614 Turkey’s share of regional GDP was the highest in the beginning of the series and it has dropped since then, while that the immediate second, Saudi Arabia, has increased. Here, like in extra-regional power’s participation, hard power metrics could be more explicative of polarity than GDP alone. Table 5: Share of MENA region GDP for selected countries (%)*

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 United Arab Emirates

9.4 8.6 8.3 8.7 8.7 8.9 9.4

Egypt, Arab Rep. 4.9 6.4 6.4 5.9 6.4 6.6 7.1 Iran, Islamic Rep. 11.9 13.5 13.6 14.7 13.7 11.7 10.0 Israel 6.5 7.1 6.8 6.5 6.0 6.7 7.2 Saudi Arabia 15.6 14.6 15.3 16.6 17.1 17.1 17.8 Turkey 21.9 20.9 21.2 19.3 18.3 18.9 18.8

Source: World Bank15 e Yearly GDP growth For both countries, GDP growth has, like the trade pattern, dropped early in the series, recovered in 2010, and dropped again, though Turkey managed to finish the time series above its initial figure, unlike Brazil. Figure 7: Brazilian and Turkish annual GDP growth

14 * Data for Venezuela 2014 is an estimate from IMF World Economic Outlook 2016, available at: <http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2016/01/weodata/index.aspx> 15 * Syria and Yemen’s GDP were not considered for calculating regional GDP as there was no data available on those countries.

Source: World Bank f Internal Cohesion PT started with 83 out of 513 seats in the 2006 elections, increasing slightly to 86 in 2010, and dropping to 70 in 201416. The most relevant development, nonetheless, took place outside this timeframe: Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment marked the government’s sheer loss of support both in the Legislative and in public opinion, effectively indicating that internal cohesion in Brazil has been spiraling down ever since the end of the Lula era.

In Turkey’s case, the AKP decreased from 341 out of 550 seats to 132 in 2015. The last elections resulted in a hung parliament, after which new elections were called. The AKP regained majority, obtaining 57,6% of the seats, though at a smaller share than in the beginning of the series.

Figure 8: Percentage of seats held by the chief of Executive’s party in the parliament (Turkey) and lower house (Brazil)

16 It is noteworthy that in Brazil’s highly fractionalized party system, no single party can ensure majority, which is why coalition-forming is a necessary practice.

-6

-4

-2

0

2

4

6

8

10

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

GDP ANNUAL GROWTH (%)

Brazil Turkey

0,0%

10,0%

20,0%

30,0%

40,0%

50,0%

60,0%

70,0%

2006/2007 2010/2011 2014/2015

PERCENTAGE OF SEATS OF THE CHIEF OF EXECUTIVE'S PARTY

PT AKP AKP(Nov15)

Source: Folha de S. Paulo17 g Regional stability South America is characterized as a security-abundant environment. Nonetheless, some episodes took place from 2008 on that could have potentially offset the region’s stability: diplomatic tension between Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela (2008); a separatist crisis concerning Bolivia’s Media Luna department (2008); the bilateral US-Colombia deal foreseeing US usage of military bases in Colombian soil (2009); deposition of the Paraguayan president (2012). Yet, these events do not seem to have delegitimized Brazilian leadership, as the country was actually able to act coordinately with other South American leaders via Unasur and successfully defuse the Bolivian and US-Colombian cases (Tussie 2016). The greatest source of instability seems not to emerge from the diplomacy field but from the electoral one. By the mid 2010s South America’s left-turn began receding, with Executive and Legislative defeats for the hitherto hegemonic leftist parties in Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela. Bolivian president Evo Morales also saw his ambitions of further extending his term blocked by public opinion. In Brazil, and more so in Venezuela, political polarization and stress has led to acute outcomes. The effect of this political re-orientation is a loss in legitimacy of the leadership model that bore a strong mark of left-leaning governments and ideology. For the Middle East, the Arab Spring was the most relevant regional development and the greatest source of instability. As summarized by Oguzlu (2016: 60), Ankara miscalculated its ability to impact on the region’s fate:

Thinking that its capabilities would allow it to fulfill its expectations, Turkish rulers have long failed to see why the virtuous “zero problems with neighbors” policy has fast given way to a notorious “zero neighbors without problems” nightmare. The hope that the Arab Spring would soon pave the way for Turkey’s transformation into a global power through the institutionalization of a Turkey-friendly environment in the Middle East seems to have encouraged Turkish rulers to get actively involved in regional disputes, most of the time putting ideology and sectarian attachments at the center of their policies. Adopting a highly buoyant rhetoric of overconfidence beyond Turkey’s hard and soft-power capabilities, Turkish rulers were not afraid to take sides in regional conflicts, provoking some to claim that Turkey has been after a neo-Ottomanist imperial strategy.

The regional trends of instability can be seen in Figure 9 below, where a higher score at the GPI indicates more instability. It is visible that the MENA region grew much more unstable after 2011, while South America reached a peak in 2010 and has since then seemed stable, though it ends the series more unstable than it started. Figure 9: Global Peace Index Scores (Regional averages)

17 Avaiable at: <http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2014/10/1528106-camara-tera-em-2015-o-maior-numero-de-novos-deputados-desde-1998.shtml>

Source: Institute for Economics and Peace (www.economicsandpeace.org)18 5 Conclusion By analyzing variables, we arrive at the following table: Table 6: Agreement between independent and dependent variables for selected cases

Intra vs. extra-

regional trade flow

(%)

Engagement of extra-regional powers

(China trade, bi USD)

Regional polarity (% of regional

GDP)

GDP yearly growth

Internal Cohesion

Regional stability (GPI)

Favorable views/Belief in leadership

BR09 0.184 46.749 0.550 -0.126 0.162 2.10 0.255 BR10 0.185 71.387 0.570 7.529 0.162 2.14 0.271 BR11 0.183 93.628 0.590 3.910 0.168 2.10 0.316 BR12 0.176 105.055 0.550 1.915 0.168 2.09 0.515 BR13 0.179 104.017 0.561 3.015 0.168 2.10 0.618 BR14 0.176 106.330 0.565 0.103 0.168 2.09 0.548 TK09 0.148 129.268 0.209 -4.826 0.620 2.32 0.75 TK10 0.155 174.881 0.212 9.157 0.620 2.34 0.85 TK11 0.155 239.952 0.193 8.773 0.620 2.39 0.78 TK12 0.197 265.686 0.183 2.127 0.595 2.46 0.69 TK13 0.177 284.724 0.189 4.193 0.595 2.47 0.59

Source: author’s elaboration

We have considered that, among the selected extra-regional powers (US, China and EU-28), China was the only one that displayed a varying behavior, increasing its participation in both regions. Thus, other major players’ trade with the regions were discarded due to their relative constancy. For Brazil’s favorable views, we have considered data from the “Which country has the greatest leadership in the region?” question for 2009-11, and the “Favorable

18 The Institute for Economics and Peace presents regional averages on their yearly reports. As the regions that they use are based on the Economist Intelligence Unit’s definitions, the group of countries they class as belonging to the MENA region is different from ours. The GPI averages we present in this graph for the MENA region include all the countries listed in footnote 13.

2,00

2,10

2,20

2,30

2,40

2,50

2,60

2,70

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

GLOBAL PEACE INDEX: REGIONAL AVERAGES

South America MENA Region

opinion” question for 2012-14, as the data for the latter question is not representative prior to 2012.

Regional trade displayed an unexpected behavior: views on Brazilian leadership were not higher when South America represented a greater share in Brazil's exports. Likewise, Turkey increased its relative exports to the MENA countries, but Turkish approval decreased. Overall, variation in regional trade was perhaps too small to produce a significant effect on public opinion.

For both Brazil and Turkey, competition from Chinese presence in their regions increased steadily. Both countries experienced a drop in their approval ratings in the last years of the series, a moment when Chinese trade with the region was the highest. One the one hand, this could indicate that extra-regional influence is significant. On the other hand, we must point out that, Brazil, for instance, still enjoyed an ascending curve for most of the series, unaffected by the growth of China-South America trade. As for Turkey, the effect seems more direct, though here it is most probable that hard power variables explain the variation.

Regional polarity seems to be positively related with followership, particularly for Turkey, since the years when it held the greatest share of regional GDP coincided with its highest favorable view ratings. Internal cohesion also seems significant: the years with the most favorable views also register a greater share of government party seats for both nations.

GDP yearly growth seems to yield mixed results: the highest rates for Brazil are prior to the increase in favorable views. For Turkey they are simultaneous. The 2012 drop in Turkish GDP coincides with a drop in favorable views, but the ensuing rebound does not reverse the declining public opinion.

Regional stability, as expected, appears to be inversely related to favorable views: higher scores (meaning greater instability) coincide with less favorable views.

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