The political economy of neoliberalism in Brazil: towards a Polanyian approach

Abstract

This article relies on a Polanyian-inspired theoretical framework to compare political economy strategies adopted by Brazilian governments after democratisation. Responding to competing interests from the financial sector, the manufacturing industry, and the working class, these governments have chosen between disembedded neoliberal, embedded neoliberal and neocorporatist strategies, facing different challenges and crises. After the short-lived adoption of disembedded neoliberalism in the early 1990s, embedded neoliberal governments were able to conciliate economic liberalisation and orthodox macroeconomic policies with political stability and social cohesion, while compensating the manufacturing industry and the working class for some of their losses. In the late 2000s, however, discontentment within these social groups with regard to insufficient economic growth opened the way for the emergence of neocorporatism, which eased the commitment to liberalisation and macroeconomic orthodoxy in order to expand industrial policies, social protection and labour market regulation. The crisis of neocorporatism, which culminated in the 2016 impeachment, provided a new opportunity for disembedded neoliberalism, putting the interests of the financial sector at the centre of policy formulation.