Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Negociando a Reforma: a privatização de empresas públicas no Brasil

1999; UNIVERSIDADE DO ESTADO DO RIO DE JANEIRO; Volume: 42; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1590/s0011-52581999000300002

1678-4588

María Herminia Tavarés de Almeida,

Social and Economic Solidarity

Brazil’s experience in the privatization of public companies belies explanations to the effect that the success of market-oriented economic reforms depends on the existence of an Executive branch endowed with the autonomy to conceive and impose strategies of change opposed by vested interests. The article contends that privatization has moved forward in Brazil despite the clear absence of an autonomous Executive, through a negotiated process of change that is part of an institutional context which multiplies both points of veto and actors holding veto power. As a consequence, success depends upon the interplay of pro- and anti-privatization interests, within institutional constraints, as well as upon relevant actors’ dominant ideas concerning the public sector’s role and scope.