Framing foreign policy in India, Brazil and South Africa: on the like-mindedness of the IBSA states

This book analyses the India, Brazil, South Africa Dialogue Forum(IBSA), focusing on the communalities and differences in the way foreign policyis conceptualized in its member states.

Utilizing 83 interviews with foreignpolicy makers and experts, as well as the analysis of 119 foreign-policyspeeches, the author traces key shifts in official foreign policy discourse.

Inorder to evaluate the degree of support for key IBSA Dialogue Forum conceptswithin national discourse, the author also examines the interplay betweenofficial and broader societal discourses on foreign policy.

This analysiscombines political science factors (foreign policy role conceptions) withlinguistic factors, thus enabling a qualitative and quantitative comparison ofdifferent framings of foreign policy.

Extensive empirical material collectedduring six months of field research in India, Brazil and South Africa allowsthe author to present a differentiated account of their alleged like-mindedness.