Introduction
Scholars from a wide range of theoretical backgrounds have given a central role to economic players within various local hierarchies and ruling coalitions throughout the history of urban politics and community power research in the United States. From the earliest elitist/pluralist debates (Dahl, 1961; Hunter, 1953; Polsby, 1963) on the nature of power within the community to the later and more influential research path framed by a political economy perspective (Molotoch, 1976; Peterson, 1981; Stone, 1989), the role of business has been not only under constant scrutiny, but also acknowledged to play a significant, if not determining, role in the fortunes of cities and regions. It is not an exaggeration to say that elitist, neo-pluralist, and political economy theories on cities and regions are based on two related assumptions: a) business has played a significant role in the fates of US cities; and b) a central issue of the research agenda is to define and measure the nature and extent of business power within communities.
Whereas the first generation of research into community power was limited to the United States, studies inspired by the political economy perspective – particularly urban regime and growth machine theories – successfully crossed the Atlantic, laying the groundwork for what can be considered the first wave of European studies on local urban power and development. Recent years have seen a successful transfer of US urban theories to Latin American political science and urban studies departments, challenging the outdated Marxist-structuralist approaches.
Similarly to the path taken in Europe Latin America’s attention to more recent US theories in the field of urban politics is largely due to state transformations brought about by globalization
With profound changes observed in the relationship of mutuality between cities and regions (Taylor, 1995) on the one hand, and the state on a national level on the other. State rescaling (Brenner, 2004) in Latin America and elsewhere refers to the process by which subnational units, such as cities and regions, are given greater structural relevance and autonomy within each territorial state’s administrative hierarchy. Globalization processes have triggered a wide range of adjustments in the organization of the Fordist-Keynesian state, which has been in existence since the 1930s (Brenner, 2004), and these changes have impacted Latin American regions and nation states to varied degrees. Different institutional bases and mutuality between cities and nation states have led to major differences in state rescaling procedures for increasing autonomy across the continent.
Concerning the impact of the globalization process on the structure of the Brazilian state, it is worth noting that global pressures for state rescaling have not only corresponded with current domestic state decentralization processes in the country, but have also supported them.1 The democratization and neoliberal reforms that were set in action in Brazil during the 1980s
On the one hand, the withdrawal of state intervention in important economic sectors and the delivery of significant welfare provisions has resulted in a decentralization process that has empowered subnational units, particularly municipalities, in terms of both fiscal resources and new constitutional attributions. In conclusion, as a result of the combined effect of global and internal processes, Brazilian cities and city areas have gained ground as autonomous players, paving the way for new capital flows.
A movement in the academic agenda in Brazil has occurred in the context of substantial change in the relative position of cities and the state at the national level, with the former acquiring growing autonomy. It has shifted from being almost exclusively concerned with national governance systems to focusing on modalities of governance at the subnational levels of cities and regions. Because of these changes, it is not impossible to imagine that assessments of various subnational models of governance will be at the forefront of Brazil’s academic agenda in the next years. It goes without saying that carrying out this new agenda necessitates a deep dialogue with second generation US literature on city politics, particularly in terms of growth machine and urban regime theories, as well as an assessment of the limits and possibilities afforded by these.
The goal of this study is to take the first step in this approach by examining the role of economic actors in Brazilian municipalities and city areas from a comparative standpoint.
Brazilian towns display certain evidence of civic life, such as participatory budgeting, but economic actors do not take an active role in local urban development like they do in US cities. If this is the case, the application of urban regime and growth machine theories to the Brazilian setting will require significant adjustments.
This study employs both neo-institutionalist and state-centered perspectives to explain Brazil’s underdeveloped business structure and the near-complete absence of civic participation by economic actors at the local level. It is argued that the two main institutional frameworks that have underpinned local governments throughout the country’s history – state corporatism and clientelism/patrimonialism – are at the root of strong incentives encouraging economic actors not to organize or act collectively: a) while prioritizing the production of distributive goods at the expense of regulatory and redistributive politics, patrimonialism and clientelism encourage business to foster individual, short-term Without an ongoing push from above, the corporatist structure risks collapsing and being replaced by a plethora of parochial and opposing entities. As a result, it is argued that the nature of the Brazilian state has thwarted the autonomous organization of business at a local level from different and opposing directions, making cities and city regions in Brazil less likely to pursue the type of developmental policies described in the political economy literature.