The Political Economy of Development and Democracy in Brazil

Abstract

Modern Brazil (in the early years of the second decade of the 21st century), as the tenth biggest economy of the world and the second biggest country to attract foreign investment and also as a member of the third generation of newly industrialized countries (NICs), is treading the path of development and progress. One of the important issues in Brazil has been the relationship between economic development and political development in the past decades. This relationship has grown in importance, especially since the 1960s, when the military people gained political power through a coup d’état, and for a short time brought about an economic growth, mostly referred to as ‘the Brazilin miracle’. The uneven process of development in the late 1970s during the debt crisis, the formation of the elective, democratic government in the mid-1980s and the relatively sustainable development in the 1990s and 2000s, add considerably to the significance of the relation between political development and economic development. The present article mainly aims to study these trends and relationships analytically and historically. The main idea in this article is that the trend of the economic development of Brazil has been inconsistent and unsustainable due to lack of political development, and that a relative balance between political development and economic development would result in a more sustainable development and stability in both arenas.

Keywords

• economic development
• political development
• the brazilian miracle
• debt crisis
• military government
• elective government