Decadent Developmentalism
The Political Economy of Democratic Brazil

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

Matthew M. Taylor (Author)

9781108827553, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 14 April 2022

383 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.563 kg

'Taylor has produced a book of immense value for scholars seeking to make sense of the most complicated country in Latin America. His analysis is impressively thorough and well documented as it unpacks in rich detail the driving forces that have shaped the commanding heights of the Brazilian state, the political class, the private sector, and the many interlocking connections that reinforce the continuation of the country's elite cartel. Decadent Developmentalism should become an essential contribution to the broader debate in Latin America on the largely disappointing outcomes of the region's democracies …' Alfred P. Montero, Latin American Politics and Society

Brazil features regularly in global comparisons of large developing economies. Yet since the 1980s, the country has been caught in a low-level equilibrium, marked by lackluster growth and destructive inequality. One cause is the country's enduring commitment to a set of ideas and institutions labelled developmentalism. This book argues that developmentalism has endured, despite hyperactive reform, because institutional complementarities across economic and political spheres sustain and drive key actors and strategies that are individually advantageous, but collectively suboptimal. Although there has been incremental evolution in some institutions, complementarities across institutions sustain a pattern of 'decadent developmentalism' that swamps systemic change. Breaking new ground, Taylor shows how macroeconomic and microeconomic institutions are tightly interwoven with patterns of executive-legislative relations, bureaucratic autonomy, and oversight. His analysis of institutional complementarities across these five dimensions is relevant not only to Brazil but also to the broader study of comparative political economy.

1. Introduction
Part I. Complementarities in the Economic Sphere: 2. The macroeconomic foundations of the developmental state
3. Continuity through change: ideas as ballast for the developmental state
4. The developmental hierarchical market economy
Part II. Economic, Legal and Political Control of the Developmental State: 5. Coalitional presidentialism and defensive parochialism
6. Rents, control and reciprocity
7. The autonomous bureaucracy and incremental change
8. Conclusion
References
Endnotes.

Subject Areas: Economic systems & structures [KCS], Microeconomics [KCC], Comparative politics [JPB]