The success of political efforts to create a more open economy
in Brazil over the past decade has depended crucially on support
from the industrial sector, which long enjoyed the benefits of
protection by the state from economic competition. Why businesses
previously so sheltered would back neoliberal reform, and why
opposition arose at times from sectors least threatened by free
trade, are the puzzles this book seeks to answer.
Drawing on more than one hundred interviews with industrialists
and business association representatives, as well as a wide range
of other sources, Peter Kingstone argues that the key to
understanding the behavior of industrialists lies in the impact of
four factors on their preferences for reform: the effect of
economic crisis on industrialists' perception of the viability of
the earlier development model; the sectoral location of their firms
in the economy and the advantages historically accruing therefrom;
the adjustment options available to them given their position in
the market; and the credibility of the government's promises about
reform and its tactical choices for getting them implemented
through the political system.
The mix of these four factors, Kingstone shows, left business
preferences relatively malleable and thus available for support of
reform, even in the face of potentially high costs. Whether such
support was forthcoming depended on industrialists' perceptions of
the ability of government leaders to deliver on their promises.
Widespread resistance to reform occurred when leaders lost their
credibility. Under Fernando Collor's leadership, that credibility
was never recovered; under Fernando Henrique Cardoso's, it was
recovered through increasing concessions to industrialists on the
character of the reform program.
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