Content analysis is an investigative and descriptive approach to content of agents’ discourse, not neglecting the social, political and economic influences, as well as the historical and geographical context in which the official speeches are published. This is a heterogeneous and pluralistic approach to content analysis that can be applied in various theoretical and epistemic perspectives, and to different thematic fields of foreign policy. Under this project conducted by LABMUNDO researchers, content analysis is applied to convert textual materials into quantitative data and to analyse them qualitatively for the sake of logical deductions for hypothesis verification, confirmation or refutation, for question raising as well as building of new hypotheses.

This analytical, quantitative and qualitative perspective enables researchers not only to provide empirical material to support denser causal, explanatory, interpretative or descriptive arguments, but also to identify frequencies, occurrences and co-occurrences of topics/categories and to know the elements that are included or are set aside in the foreign policy formulation process.

To date, ACPOLEX has a bank of official pronouncements that has collected official speeches of Brazilian Presidents from José Sarney to Bolsonaro (1986-2020) and the speeches of the ministers of the MRE (from 2001-2020). We use NVivo analysis software through which the selection, coding and analysis of pronouncements are made, according to the objectives of each individual or collective research project.

Results so far

ACPLOEX has already generated articles and doctoral theses that applied the methodology of content analysis in the analysis of Brazilian foreign policy. Project members and researchers formerly affiliated with LABMUNDO have developed papers presented in various seminars and congresses, among them: the IX Meeting of the Brazilian Association of Political Science (2014); the 5th National Meeting of the Brazilian Association of International Relations, which presented a complete panel composed of papers from the project (2015); and the 9th Latin American Congress of Political Science (2017). For the future, three avenues of research are being developed: (i) the integration of official speeches by foreign ministers; (ii) the opening of a bank of official speeches from other regional powers; (iii) a thematic bank of official (presidential and ministerial) speeches on climate change (in partnership with the Climate and Society Institute).

List of publications that were results of this project:

Aplicação metodológica da análise de conteúdo em pesquisas de análise de política externa
Danielle Costa da Silva e Lorena Granja Hernández. Revista Brasileira de Ciência Política, nº 33, 2020, p.1-48. DOI: 10.1590/0103-3352.2020.33.218584.

A Análise de Conteúdo como método analítico no campo da Política Externa
Danielle Costa da Silva. In: 9th Latin American Congress of Political Science, 2017, Montevideo. Proceedings of 9th Latin American Congress of Political Science, 2017. v.1. p.1–31.

A agenda de direitos humanos na política externa brasileira e a participação das ONGs no seu processo de formulação
Danielle Costa da Silva. Doctoral thesis defended by the Graduate Program in Political Science at the Institute of Social and Political Studies of the State University of Rio de Janeiro. 2016.

A análise de conteúdo de pronunciamentos oficiais como metodologia interpretativa da política externa brasileira
Danielle Costa da Silva, Renata Albuquerque Ribeiro and Tássia Camila de Oliveira Carvalho. Revista Eletrônica de Ciência Política, vol. 6, nº 2, 2015.

Política externa brasileira de direitos humanos do governo Dilma Rousseff (2011-2014): análise de conteúdo de discursos oficiais
Danielle Costa da Silva. In: 5th ABRI National Meeting, 2015, Belo Horizonte. Proceedings of 5th National Meeting of the Brazilian Association of International Relations, 2015. v.0. p.01 – 25.

Análise de Conteúdo de Discurso: Interpretando a Política Externa Brasileira na fala de seus líderes políticos
Danielle Costa da Silva, Renata Albuquerque Ribeiro and Tássia Camila de Oliveira Carvalho. Proceedings of IX Meeting of the Brazilian Political Science Association, Brasília, DF, August, 04-07, 2014.

Política Externa Brasileira de Direitos Humanos: Analisando a trajetória dos Direitos Humanos após a redemocratização por meio da análise de conteúdo de discurso
Danielle Costa da Silva. Proceedings of IX Meeting of the Brazilian Political Science Association, Brasília, DF, August, 04-07, 2014.

Contributions from previous members:

A política externa brasileira pós-transição democrática: A análise de conteúdo dos discursos
Tássia Camila de Oliveira Carvalho and Renata Albuquerque Ribeiro. In: 5th ABRI National Meeting, 2015, Belo Horizonte. Proceedings of 5th National Meeting of the Brazilian Association of International Relations, 2015. v.0. p.01 – 25.

Análise de conteúdo de discursos dos Ministros de Estado dos Governos Lula (2003-2010) e Dilma (2011-2014) a partir da diplomacia pública
Pablo Victor Fontes Santos and Alana Camoça Gonçalves Oliveira. Conjuntura Austral. Revista do Núcleo Brasileiro de Estratégia e Relações Internacionais da UFRGS, v. 6, p. 77, 2015.

Diplomacia pública e diplomacia midiática – um panorama comparativo dos Governos Lula (2003-2010) e o Governo Dilma (2011-2014) a partir da Análise de conteúdo de discursos oficiais de Política Externa Brasileira.
Pablo Victor Fontes Santos and Alana Camoça Gonçalves Oliveira. In: 5th ABRI National Meeting, 2015, Belo Horizonte. Proceedings of 5th National Meeting of the Brazilian Association of International Relations, 2015.

Política Externa Brasileira e Eleições 2014
Taísa Rezende Soares and Juliana Pinto.In: 5th ABRI National Meeting, 2015, Belo Horizonte. Proceedings of 5th National Meeting of the Brazilian Association of International Relations, 2015. v.0. p.01 – 25. v.0. p.01 – 25.

Responsible team:

Dra. Danielle Costa da Silva, Coordinator.
Beatriz Triani, Student in International Relations and SI scholarship.
Contact:
discursoslabmundo@gmail.com