ABSTRACT
Introduction: conceptions of Brazilian foreign policy According to Celso Lafer (1987), jurist and former Minister of Foreign Relations in Brazil, all foreign policies come from the effort put into making internal needs compatible with external possibilities. In this equation, there are some immutable data such as the geographical location of the country, the availability of natural resources etc., which, together with longer-lasting external factors such as the structuring of power on a global scale, would explain certain lines of continuity that commonly characterize foreign policy. Lafer (1987) states that, as a result of this, there would be a relative stability in the ways a country can insert itself in the international system and it would be these possibilities that would put basic interests on the agenda, expressed in the coherence and continuity of its foreign policies.
