La place de la diplomatie culturelle dans la politique africaine du Brésil et du Venezuela

Abstract

Lula’s Brazil (from 2003 to 2010) and Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela (from 2005 to 2013) have both used cultural diplomacy to support their rapprochement with Africa. This article analyzes the strategies of these South American countries in order to demonstrate that, while Venezuela tried to promote a critical vision of the international system, Brazil adopted a more complex, even if self-interested, position due to its historical, racial and linguistic ties with the African continent. Cultural diplomacy also allows highlighting the African roots of both countries’ national identities, which exalts the links between foreign and domestic policies. This study is based on two complementary approaches: on the one hand, the identification of a conceptual dimension that focuses on the interests of cultural diplomacy’s actors, and on the other hand, a structural focus that aims to identify these actors.

Keywords

• diplomacy
• culture