The Political Economy Of Upgrading Regimes Brazil And Beyond

In his wonderfully researched and tightly argued book, Michael Schedelik explains why the Brazilian development strategy of significantly raising the level of technological development in order to be less dependent on raw material exports was not successful. A must-read for students of innovation processes in emerging economies for many years to come. Andreas Nölke, Professor of Political Science, Goethe University Frankfurt Innovation in Brazil has been a topic of extensive research, but rarely before Michael Schedelik's book has it been done as comprehensively with such a wealth of empirical evidence. Ben Ross Schneider, Ford International Professor of Political Science and Director of the MIT-Brazil Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology This is a path breaking contribution to the study of comparative political economy of development in emerging economies. It is a provocative must read for those who strive to avoid simplistic structural and facile political explanations of upgrading development. Antonio José Junqueira Botelho, Professor of Comparative Political Economy, IUPERJ Universidade Candido Mendes, Rio de Janeiro Today's middle-income countries tend to be locked in a middle-income trap, unable to transition to higher income levels due to rising costs and declining competitiveness. While there is a broad consensus that upgrading these economies towards innovation-led growth is imperative, countless institutional and political economy obstacles remain. This book brings together analytical perspectives from comparative political economy, innovation studies, and development economics for the study of technological upgrading. Its distinctive contribution is the development of an innovative theoretical framework, named upgrading regimes, combining and extending the comparative capitalism and innovation system perspectives. It explores the usefulness of this approach by providing an indepth assessment of the political economy of upgrading in Brazil under the Workers' Party governments. As the politics of technological upgrading will be one of the crucial research areas in the years to come, this book promises to become a key reference point in this debate. Michael Schedelik is Lecturer and Research Associate at the Institute of Political Science at Goethe University Frankfurt. His research focuses on the politics of growth and innovation in developing and emerging economies.

Today’s middle-income countries tend to be locked in a middle-income trap, unable to transition to higher income levels due to rising costs and declining competitiveness. While there is a broad consensus that upgrading these economies towards innovation-led growth is imperative, countless institutional and political economy obstacles remain. This book brings together analytical perspectives from comparative political economy, innovation studies, and development economics for the study of technological upgrading. Its distinctive contribution is the development of an innovative theoretical framework, named upgrading regimes, combining and extending the comparative capitalism and innovation system perspectives. It explores the usefulness of this approach by providing an indepth assessment of the political economy of upgrading in Brazil under the Workers’ Party governments. As the politics of technological upgrading will be one of the crucial research areas in the years to come, this book promises to become a key reference point in this debate.

The transition from authoritarian to democratic government in Brazil unleashed profound changes in government and society that cannot be adequately understood from any single theoretical perspective. The great need, say Graham and Wilson, is a holistic vision of what occurred in Brazil, one that opens political and economic analysis to new vistas. This need is answered in The Political Economy of Brazil, a groundbreaking study of late twentieth-century Brazilian issues from a policy perspective. The book was an outgrowth of a year-long policy research project undertaken jointly by the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, both at the University of Texas at Austin. In this book, several noted scholars focus on specific issues central to an understanding of the political and economic choices that were under debate in Brazil. Their findings reveal that for Brazil the break with the past—the authoritarian regime—could not be complete due to economic choices made in the 1960s and 1970s, and also the way in which economic resources committed at that time locked the government into a relatively limited number of options in balancing external and internal pressures. These conclusions will be important for everyone working in Latin American and Third World development.

This book examines a range of policy areas, such as inflation targeting, growth, public debt and fiscal policy. It contributes to the rich and ongoing debate on the economic policy reforms of the past decade in Brazil.

The development model followed by the military regime that came to power in Brazil in 1964 is one of the most controversial among the less developed countries. The regime's authoritarian structure, combined with a GNP growth rate that is one of the highest in the world, raises extremely disturbing yet fundamental questions about the relation between political authoritarianism and economic dynamism. In this book, social scientists from three continents assess the major political and economic characteristics of the Brazilian model. Because events there have important implications for other countries, throughout the volume there is a deliberate search for new conceptual frames of reference to help put the Brazilian process in a larger comparative perspective. Because of the important normative issues raised by the Brazilian style of development, there is also an attempt to be explicit about what values the regime promotes and what values it denies. Each of the contributors is a distinguished scholar in his field. They are Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Alber Fishlow, Juan J. Linz, Samuel Morley, Philippe C. Schmitter, Thomas E. Skidmore, Gordon W. Smith, and Alfred Stepan. From their different perspectives, they help us to understand how political repression and economic boom have gone hand in hand in this important Latin American country.

Complementarities between political and economic institutions have kept Brazil in a low-level economic equilibrium since 1985.