Post-neoliberalism and capital flow management in Latin America: assessing the role of social forces

Abstract

This is a repository copy of Post-neoliberalism and capital flow management in Latin America: assessing the role of social forces.

The Sectoral Politics of Industrial Policy Making in Brazil: A Polanyian Interpretation

“…The drive for social protection that characterizes counter-movements originates from diverse groups such as labour unions, territorial social movements and civil society organizations. This leads to diverse and possibly diffuse political agendas (da Silva, 2023). Aligning with Polanyi's concept, the global ascent of neoliberalism after the demise of the Fordist production regime in the late 20th century marks a shift towards market self-regulation (Sandbrook, 2022).…”

“…Second, the presence of relevant non‐business actors may contribute to industrial policy making by strengthening the monitoring of incentives and increasing the political cost of state–business collusion (Chang, 2009; Schneider, 2015). Third, when governments are willing to be more ambitious in their industrial policy goals, popular mobilization strengthens the hand of policy makers in their negotiations with business leaders (Naqvi, 2021; da Silva, 2023), favouring the imposition of stricter conditionalities and tripartite bargains. Moreover, the existence of bottom‐up pressure has a positive impact on institutional capacity by challenging state managers to meet societal demands and by making embedded autonomy more robust (Bruszt and Karas, 2020; Evans, 1995).…”

“…Secondly, we do not assert that the strength of counter‐movements was the sole cause for different sectoral political economy regimes in Brazil. For instance, as left‐wing administrations have organic ties with popular organizations (Gallagher, 2015; da Silva, 2023), it makes sense to expect that government partisanship will shape the longitudinal evolution of each regime. Additionally, we do not dispute those factors such as the degree of institutional capacity, the legacy of import‐substitution industrialization, and the level of internationalization of business groups that play a part in the evolution of sectoral regimes (Bruszt and Karas, 2020; Döring et al., 2017; Etchemendy, 2011).…”

“…Finally, the third strand covers studies that investigate the extent to which popular forces can shape financial policy making. In this regard, Gallagher (2015), Naqvi (2021) and da Silva (2023) contend that strong labour unions and social movements can use their electoral influence and mobilizational capacity to countervail the different dimensions of the power of financial interests, enabling policy makers to impose stricter regulations. Although these scholars make only marginal references to industrial planning, they show that bottom-up societal pressures can contribute to rebalancing the usually asymmetrical bargains between state and business.…”