Consensual Hegemony: Theorizing Brazilian Foreign Policy after the Cold War

Conventional approaches to hegemony emphasize elements of coercion and exclusion, characteristics that do not adequately explain the operation of the growing number of regional projects or the style of emerging-power foreign policy. This article develops the concept of consensual hegemony, explaining how a structure can be articulated, disseminated and maintained without relying on force to recruit the participation of other actors. The central idea is the construction of a structural vision, or hegemony, that specifically includes the nominally subordinate, engaging in a process of dialogue and interaction that causes the subordinate parties to appropriate and absorb the substance and requisites of the hegemony as their own. The utility of consensual hegemony as an analytical device, especially for the study of regionalism and emerging market power foreign policy, is outlined with reference to Brazil's post-Cold War foreign policy, demonstrating both how a consensual hegemony might be pursued and where the limits to its ideas-based nature lie.