How are political systems likely to shape the choices, uses, and
effects of technological progress? This important new book
addresses that question in a case study of Brazil's national
alcohol program, Proalcool. Proalcool's stated goals are economic
growth, and the reduction of personal regional income disparities,
through the production of alcohol as a substitute for petroleum
fuels used in internal combustion engines. Established by
presidential decree in 1975, the program sought to save Brazil's
floundering sugar industry and today can be counted as one of the
world's largest and most advanced alternative energy experiments.
To better understand how Brazil's political system has shaped this
technology, the author investigates the prograM's actual social and
economic consequences. He then seeks explanations for these
outcomes focusing on the systemic or structural reasons that
determined the development of Proalcool's technology. He concludes
that the program is best understood as an agent and as a product of
an authoritarian political regime, and goes further to analyze its
potential role in Brazil's nascent democracy.
The book offers an evaluation of the ways in which the new
democratic regime in Brazil is likely to shape the choice, use and
development of technologies with the potential for profound and
lasting changes on the Brazilian economy. By comparing and
contrasting the essential features of a democratic regime with a
bureaucratic authoritarian one, the author outlines the ways in
which the new Brazilian regime--and other Latin American
regimes--are likely to shape their technological choices and the
futures of their citizens.
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