Democracy,State,and Industry

Abstract

Brazilian industrial entrepreneurs have shown a high degree of mobilization and political activity in defense of their specific interests since the beginning of Brazilian industrial capitalist development. They have been characterized by pragmatism, support of different governments and political regimes (dictatorships or democracies), and adaptation to the political instability typical of the country from the proclamation of the Republic until the mid-1980s. For almost half a century they have played a prominent role in sustaining the different phases of national developmentalism by joining diverse political coalitions that upheld the industrial order. The past 10 years have been marked by an important reversal of this pattern that is essentially political: the socialization of entrepreneurs in democratic values, rules, and practices. A thread of continuity is represented by an ideological pragmatism characterized by successive adaptations to positions more or less aligned with a more active role for the state.