The Production of Liminal Spaces in the Liberal International Order: An Analysis from the Perspective of Brazil’s Non-Alignment Towards the War in Ukraine
The Production of Liminal Spaces in the Liberal International Order: An Analysis from the Perspective of Brazil’s Non-Alignment Towards the War in Ukraine

Summary/Abstract: Brazil’s position towards the War in Ukraine sheds light on fundamental ambiguities of Brazil’s contemporary self-representations. While Brazil has traditionally defined itself in relation to its identification with the West, it has simultaneously recognized and often claimed its significant place in the “Global South”, either as a Latin American country or as part of coalitions balancing against a western-centric order, such as BRICS. These multiple self-representations have favoured foreign policy analyses that emphasize the country´s ambiguous stance in the international order. This article proposes to take Brazil´s non-alignment as an analytical prism to reflect on the in-between spaces and categories that emerge from polarizing narratives of the liberal international order. By adopting the theoretical lens of liminality in International Relations (Rumelili, 2012), the article shows how the narrative on the “new Cold War” in the context of the war in Ukraine (re)produces liminal spaces as different actors, such as Brazil, are unsuccessfully forced into established social categories, which in turn exposes the very instability of polarities in international politics, such as West and East or North and South, and of the liberal world order itself.

• Details
• Contents