This paper analyzes the theory and practice of development in Brazil within two specific contexts of developmental approaches. The first is located in the 1930s to 1950s and reaches its apex with the Goals Plan. The second emerges when developmentalism once again takes hold as neoliberal ideas face a crisis, of which the major example is the Growth Acceleration Program (GAP). Upon reviewing the literature and documents, we found the state’s proposed avenues of action, i.e. public policy, theoretical grounds, and concrete development-inducing actions. Classic developmentalism emerges from the crisis in the exporting agrarian model. It is based on positivist, nationalist, paperbacking, and industrialist ideas. From the Goals Plan, it received important input from ECLAC’s structuralism, Keynes’ ideas, and the theory of modernization.
This paper analyzes the theory and practice of development in Brazil within two specific contexts of developmental approaches. The first is located in the 1930s to 1950s and reaches its apex with the Goals Plan. The second emerges when developmentalism once again takes hold as neoliberal ideas face a crisis, of which the major example is the Growth Acceleration Program (GAP). Upon reviewing the literature and documents, we found the state’s proposed avenues of action, i.e. public policy, theoretical grounds, and concrete development-inducing actions. Classic developmentalism emerges from the crisis in the exporting agrarian model. It is based on positivist, nationalist, paperbacking, and industrialist ideas. From the Goals Plan, it received important input from ECLAC’s structuralism, Keynes’ ideas, and the theory of modernization.