Doctoral Dissertation Research: National Integration or Regional Competition? Industrial Policy Debates in a Rising Power.

Clark University, Worcester MA

Investigators

Abstract

This doctoral dissertation project will investigate how contemporary emerging economies (such as the 'BRIC' countries of Brazil, India and China) are mobilizing state actors, institutions, and private firms in order to enhance the quality of their engagement with global markets and to improve the distribution of economic development at the sub-national scale. It will do so by examining recent changes to Brazil's industrial development strategies. Since the 1980s most developing and emerging countries have shifted away from using state-led industrial policy to accelerate and distribute economic growth and facilitate integration into global value chains. Brazil has been an exception to this trend, as the state has targeted strategic industrial development initiatives that can both accelerate the pace of global economic integration while addressing the country's historic imbalance between its Northeast and Southeast regions. This project will analyze the institutional changes accompanying the return of industrial policy with particular emphasis on the imaginaries, ideologies, and networks that support and enable state-led development projects to be devised and implemented. These institutional changes, ideas, networks, and projects will be linked to emerging development outcomes within Brazil's richer Southeast region and its poorer Northeast region. Theoretically, the project draws on contemporary institutional theory, cultural political economy theory, and assemblage theories of regional development to provide critical insights into the ideological factors behind, and contestations associated with, industrial policy formation and implementation within Brazil and how these ideas and policy-making processes influence regional and national development objectives such as growth, poverty alleviation, and global market integration. Two sets of questions are addressed: First, how and why have the policy shifts been achieved, and what institutional and ideological shifts have been central to this reformulation of industrial policy? Second, what do these changes mean for the geographic distribution of industrial and social development within Brazil, and more broadly for the quality of that country's integration into the world economy? To answer these questions the co-PI will analyze government and media documents about the reintroduction of industrial policy and conduct a wide range of in-depth interviews with officials and key informants from relevant policy institutions and research centers. To enable the comparative aspects of the project, the selected institutions and individuals will be drawn from Brazil's Southeast and Northeast regions. The results from this research will contribute significantly to contemporary debates among academics and policy makers about the benefits and drawbacks of state-driven industrial policies. Research findings will be disseminated through a series of scholarly publications, conference presentations, and presentations to the project's participants and policy officials. Through collaboration in this project the PIs will develop durable ties to researchers and policy makers in Brazil and will thus establish long-term pathways for intellectual exchange between the countries. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this project will provide support to enable a promising graduate student to establish an independent research career.