Daniel Buarque Rev. Carta Inter., Belo Horizonte, v. 18, n. 1, e1291, 2023 1-23 Burning bridges: The paths to increase Brazil’s international status and Bolsonaro’s ‘new foreign policy’ Destruindo pontes: Os caminhos para aumentar o status internacional do Brasil e a ‘nova política externa’ de Bolsonaro Destruyendo puentes: Las formas de aumentar el estatus internacional de Brasil y la ‘nueva política exterior’ de Bolsonaro DOI: 10.21530/ci.v18n1.2023.1291 Daniel Buarque 1 Abstract Brazilian foreign policy has historically held the ambition to achieve higher prestige for the country. Status, however, depends not on one’s aspiration, but on how a state is perceived by others. This paper analyses the foreign perceptions about Brazil’s search for status and contrasts it with the country’s diplomacy under Bolsonaro’s administration. It is based on a reflexive thematic analysis of primary data from 94 interviews with the foreign policy community great powers. The article argues that Bolsonaro eroded the main paths powerful nations see as serving for the construction and expansion of Brazil’s international prestige. Keywords: Brazil; Brazilian Foreign Policy; International status; Prestige; Jair Bolsonaro. 1 Pesquisador do programa de pós-doutorado do Instituto de Relações Inter- nacionais da USP (IRI). Doutor em Relações Internacionais pelo joint PhD programme King’s College London/USP. (dbuarque@usp.com). ORCID: http://orcid.org/ 0000-0002-1266-9022. Artigo submetido em 25/07/2022 e aprovado em 19/03/2023. ASSOCIAÇÃO BRASILEIRA DE RELAÇÕES INTERNACIONAIS ISSN 2526-9038 Copyright: • This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original author and source are credited. • Este é um artigo publicado em acesso aberto e distribuído sob os termos da Licença de Atribuição Creative Commons, que permite uso irrestrito, distribuição e reprodução em qualquer meio, desde que o autor e a fonte originais sejam creditados.