Brazil and Argentina: foreign politics towards Latin America in recent times

From the beginning of his administration, President Lula da Silva has been seeking a deeper & more active role in Latin America, continuing with the former administration's policy. The Brazilian concerns with the security situation in South America identified with democratic stability, comes articulated to its intention of creating a leadership in the region. In this process, Brazilian diplomacy is increasingly assuming a leading role. Argentina, in turn, looks for its own space of performance regarding South American topics that could limit an autonomous Brazilian projection. The search, for Argentinean diplomacy, of an own space towards the region, is occupying a key role in the country's external performances. The aim of this article is to examine these two behaviours comparing them, taking into account the possibilities/difficulties of a joint action of both countries regarding third States of the region. With this purpose, the article is organised in four parts with some remarks at the end. The first and the second parts present features of Argentinean and Brazilian foreign policies that influenced the behavior of both towards the region, in a historical perspective. The third one moves to Argentinean and Brazilian foreign policies on the region, while the fourth one examines specifically these behaviors during current governments.