During the last twenty years or more, relations between Argentina and Brazil started to show some asymmetries that could be interpreted as a path towards a Brazilian hegemony in South America, imposing a new dynamic to their bilateral relations. This trend is not only evident in the quantitative uprise of Brazilian material capabilities vis a vis its southern neighbor, but also qualitatively, in some military and economic aspects of the bilateral relation. Intending to grasp this process, the present article analyzes the concepts of "Hegemony" and "Balance of Power"¹ and evaluates to what extent -and regarding which aspects-, the unipolar relation resembles the former or the later ideal type. After a detailed study of the military and economic dimensions of the bilateral relation, this article concludes that it is only in the economic aspects that the relation is getting increasingly asymmetric, even if still far from a regional hegemony. Finally, the concept of "regional unipolarity with an economic bias" is proposed to better describe the current stage of Argentina-Brazil relations.

A internacionalização do Estado brasileiro tem sido vista como uma consequência de sua ascensão internacional, muito embora também pudesse ser considerada uma das causas de sua crescente liderança e projeção no exterior. Neste artigo, resume-se o debate atual sobre o processo de formulação da política externa brasileira, discutindo o papel do Ministério das Relações Exteriores, da Presidência da República e sua burocracia e do Congresso. Além disso, propõe-se uma comparação original com a atuação de instituições congêneres da Argentina. Por fim, conclui-se que a menor internacionalização do Estado argentino poderia explicar tanto a perda da influência internacional desse país nos últimos vinte anos, como o êxito brasileiro na região.

The Internationalization of the state in Brazil has often been considered an effect of the country's recent rise as an emerging power, even when it could easily rather be seen as the cause of its mounting projection and leadership. This article summarizes the recent Brazilian debate on foreign policy decision-making, analyzing the role of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the President, the bureaucracy and the Congress. It also proposes an original comparative approach to their equivalents in Argentina. The results show that the lower levels of internationalization of the Argentinean state could easily be interpreted as diminishing the country's international influence in the last twenty years, while explaining Brazilian leadership in the region.

This work attempts to analyze the thought of Nicholas Machiavelli from an original perspective, paying special attention to his conception of politics. First, we set out to discover the meaning of politics for Machiavelli, his founding presuppositions and the proper characteristics of what he calls "political". Afterwards, we put forward the hypothesis that this author's moral and anthropological conceptions are intrinsically intertwined with his general ideas about politics and power and are their logical derivatives. This review of Machiavelli's work will allow us to make a comprehensive analysis of the philosophical thought underlying his conceptions and to provide an explanation for his notions of man, power and morality.

El presente trabajo pretende analizar, desde una perspectiva original, el pensamiento de Nicolás Maquiavelo, y en especial su concepción de la política. En un principio, nos propondremos discernir qué es la política para este autor, cuáles son sus presupuestos esenciales y qué características propias tiene aquello que llama "político". Posteriormente, intentaremos poner en discusión, mediante un desarrollo sistemático, la hipótesis de que las concepciones éticas y antropológicas de este autor se condicen plenamente con sus ideas sobre la política y el poder, y son los derivados lógicos de ellas. El desarrollo del trabajo permitirá realizar un amplio análisis del trasfondo filosófico de la reflexión maquiavélica y proporcionar una explicación a su noción del hombre, el poder y la moral.