Abstract

Regional powers are often assumed to place diplomatic emphasis on their surrounding regions. Yet few systematic comparisons have been carried out to empirically verify this assumption. Do regional powers tend to devote more attention to their neighbours or to more influential global partners instead? This article attempts to bridge that gap by comparing the amount of diplomatic attention that Brazil, South Africa and Turkey have devoted to their regions, ie South America, Africa and the Middle East/North Africa region, respectively. Relying on data on presidential diplomacy and diplomatic presence from the Rising Powers Diplomatic Network (RPDN) data set, we verify which destinations were prioritised by these three countries from 1995 to 2018. Results indicate that South Africa is the most regionally committed regional power. Turkey shows the least significant regional engagement, while Brazil occupies an intermediate position.

摘要

人们通常假定地区大国将外交重点放在其周边地区。然而，几乎没有进行系统的比较以凭经验证明这一假设。区域大国是否倾向于更多地关注邻国或更具影响力的全球合作伙伴？本文试图通过比较巴西，南非和土耳其分别对南美，非洲和中东/北非地区的外交关注程度来弥合这一差距。依靠崛起大国外交网络（RPDN）数据集上有关总统外交和外交存在的数据，我们核实了这三个国家从1995年到2018年优先考虑的目的地。结果表明，南非是区域承诺最多的区域大国。