Changing patterns of state intervention in the Brazilian agro-industrial complex

This paper analyses recent changes in Brazilian agricultural policies, which are seen as linked to new forms of market intervention emerging at the end of the 1980s. Using an institutionalist approach, particularly with regard to forms of governance, we identify three distinct phases that characterize the development of Brazilian agricultural policy over the last thirty years. First, with the formation and constitution of sectorial interests, the state engaged in a sort of 'regulatory fury,' from which modern Brazilian agriculture springs. Later, under the pressure of budgetary difficulties and with the emancipation of relevant social actors, we enter a period of 'controlled autonomy' in the different sectors of the agro-industrial complex. Finally, under the conditions of commercial opening,' the fiscal crisis of the state and the increasing role of foreign capital, decision-making arenas multiply and the state's role in the management of agricultural policy diminishes.373405