Between Presidential Power and Legislative Veto: The Impact of Polity and Politics on Economic Reforms in Brazil

Doktorarbeit / Dissertation aus dem Jahr 2013 im Fachbereich Politik - Politische Systeme allgemein und im Vergleich, Universität Duisburg-Essen, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: The pace and scope of the Brazilian economic development in the 1980s and 1990s is intrinsically linked to the wide-ranging discussion of political and economic reform projects. In the wake of the crisis of the import-substitution economic model a wide array of approaches and theories revolved around one basic question: When there occurs a crisis in the economy - whatever definition of crisis may be applied in a particular case - which are the best ways of overcoming anti-reform resistances, regain economic growth and promote sustainable and -future-approved- development? In the most general sense a crisis of the political or economic system can be referred to as two-dimensional: on the one hand it means the shattering and dis-equilibrating of a formerly successful status quo, on the other hand it opens up the necessity to find a new status quo (or status quo post) that can be deemed compatible to the new economic, domestic as well as international, circumstances. In fact, the longer a prosperous status quo lasts, the more difficult a subsequent change will get. Path-dependencies develop, stable institutions arise, group interests and organizations take root and expectations about growth, inflation, external trade and other variables cement into place.