Lawyering in new developmentalism: legal professionals and the construction of the Telecom sector in the emerging Brazil (1980s-2010s)

Abstract

This study explores the changing role of corporate lawyers in the construction and operation of a key area of the Brazilian economy over a 30-year period. The study looks at three periods in the history of the telecoms sector: the fall of state monopoly; the era of global restructuring, neo-liberalism, and privatization; and the recent resurgence of state activism and rise of a “new developmental state”. In each period corporate lawyers played important roles but these have changed as state policy has evolved. In the first two periods, Brazilian corporate lawyers worked to facilitate privatization and create a lightly regulated competitive market for telecoms services that would attract foreign capital. But things changed when the industry was faced with demands created by the new industrial and social policies. In this period, while some corporate lawyers have tried to resist state activism, others accepted the legitimacy of greater state intervention, showed a willingness to operate within the more flexible legal order employed by the new developmental state, and sought to negotiate effective partnerships between their clients and the activist state. This sequence of events encompasses changes in the field of state power, hierarchies in the legal profession, and core-periphery relations, which challenge existing theories about law, lawyers, and capitalist development.

Keywords

• direito
• desenvolvimento
• economia
• profissões jurídicas