Politics within the State: Elite Bureaucrats and Industrial Policy in Authoritarian Brazil

by Ben Ross Schneider

Overview

Brazil was one of the most successful examples of state-led industrialization in the post-1945 era. Yet, on the surface, the Brazilian bureaucracy appears highly fragmented, personalized, and ad-hoc. Ben Ross Schneider looks behind this façade to explain how the Brazilian bureaucracy contributes to industrialization by analyzing career patterns and appointments which structure incentives and power more than formal organizations or institutions. Politics and personalism, of the right sort, Schneider argues, can in fact enhance policy effectiveness and state capacity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780822985365
Publisher:	University of Pittsburgh Press
Publication date:	02/15/1992
Series:	Pitt Latin American Series , #349
Edition description:	1
Pages:	366
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Ben Ross Schneider is professor of political science at Northwestern University.

Editorial Reviews

This lively and important book is an account of the triumphs and failures at the vanguard of Brazilian policy-making represented by the steel and mining sectors. . . . The book is fun to read. Schneider writes suspiciously well. . . . Politics with the State brings us closer to placing the terrible enigma of Brazil in comparative perspective.”
—American Political Science Review


“In this admirably written analysis of bureaucratic politics in Brazil, Ben Schneider seeks to understand that country's impressive state-led industrialization drive under the military regime (1964-85). . . .It is a tribute to the richness and comprehensiveness of Schneider's analysis that, although the logical progression of his argument is clearly discernible in the book's organization, these sections also stand on their own. . . . One closes this book feeling that the author has delivered not only what he promised, but more.”
—Industrial and labor Relations Review


Schneider has made a major contribution to the study of Brazilian politics and comparative administration. This book provides a promising approach to analyzing the possible links between bureaucratic careers and types of policy outputs.”
—Journal of Developing Areas

From the Publisher

Using a survey of the careers of 281 high officials and case studies of four major industrial projects in the 1970s and 1980s, Schneider (politics, Princeton U.) analyzes career patterns and appointments which structure incentives and power more than formal organizations or institutions, and which can, in fact, enhance policy effectiveness and state capacity. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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