Foreign Policy of Equal and Near Equals: Insights in Kenya’s Relation with Brazil

Author(s)

Thomas Otieno Juma , Peter Buluma ,

Download Full PDF Pages: 27-38 | Views: 41 | Downloads: 18 | DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.12671486

Volume 13 - June 2024 (06)

Abstract

A number of dispositional factors describe states in international environment; colonized and uncolonized states, small states and big states, economic giants and weak economies, the South – North divide, developing against developed, and superpower versus other states. Whereas some of the descriptions overlap and others lack clear description of state groupings, from the global alignment of states exists equal and near equal states an observation that we enhance as a new concept. This generally sets an unofficial trend of state security in international dealings. In this article, the authors find it necessary to discuss the insights of foreign policy behavior of equal and near equal states with Kenya and Brazil in mind, wherein we argue that there is an affinity developed in such relations. Secondly and finally, we focus on specific socio-eco-political impacts of cooperation between Kenya and Brazil. Within these parameters we interrogated the operations of foreign policy within the conceptual limits in our topic. We concluded that there are merits in relating with equal and near equals but no state should use this framework to close its doors to other global players hence the reason why Kenya and Brazil continue to take the bilateral and multilateral policy directions that they advance within international hemisphere. Suffice to say they cannot move in a single-loop directional foreign policy trajectory but to embrace a multi-loop directional approach. It is of great merit in foreign policy when equal and near equal states promotes bilateral relations, multilateralism, and joint co-operations which Kenya and Brazil have exercised through opening and maintaining fully-fledged missions, an exchange that Vienna Convention on state relations uphold

Keywords

Foreign Policy, Bilateral Relations, Multilateral Relations, North-South States, Low Income Countries, BRICS Diplomacy, Small States Diplomacy, Big States Diplomacy, etc 

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