BOLSONARO'S FOREIGN POLICY AND NEO-FASCISM: AN ANALYSIS OF ERNESTO ARAÚJO'S ADMINISTRATION
This research aims to investigate the Foreign Policy of the Bolsonaro government during the administration of former Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo, in the light of an understanding of a possible process of fascistization. To this end, we combine theoretical research on fascism with an empirical analysis of Brazilian demonstrations in international forums. Initially, we carried out a theoretical review of the contribution of the Marxist theorist Nicos Poulantzas about fascism and the power bloc, in order to mobilize the concepts developed by the author and put them in dialogue with other contributions in the area of Foreign Policy that have been used this conceptual apparatus. Through the concept of Fascistization Process we can examine specific characteristics of the infiltration of the neo-fascist movement in Brazilian Foreign Policy manifestations, which contributes to a dialogue between theoretical productions in the field of Political Science and Sociology that characterize the Bolsonaro government as neo-fascist. Next, we went through studies that sought to understand the first years of the Bolsonaro government's foreign policy, with emphasis on its automatic alignment with Donald Trump's United States and a foreign policy mobilization to agitate an agenda sensitive to extreme right-wing movements. Next, we address the centrality of the anti-feminist agenda to neo-fascist movements and to Bolsonaro's Foreign Policy. Finally, we develop an empirical research centered on primary sources produced in international forums in order to understand the changes in Brazilian Foreign Policy after the rise of this government to power in the light of the concept of Fascistization Process. Thus, the central hypothesis of this work is that there is a correlation between the foreign policy of the Bolsonaro government, especially in the term of Ernesto Araújo at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the process of fascistization of the Brazilian state.