8 - Conclusion

Summary

The institutional complementarities of that marked Brazil’s political economy between 1985 and 2018 period were placed under considerable strain by the recession, fiscal crisis, corruption investigations, and political upheaval that culminated in the 2018 election of Jair Bolsonaro. An open question was whether the multiple and overlapping crises of the 2010s would destabilize the institutional equilibrium that had prevailed over the previous generation. To evaluate this question, this chapter summarizes the contributions of this manuscript to our understanding of Brazil’s political economy under democracy. It then describes how past reform efforts failed to move the political economy away from the status quo equilibrium, and the ways in which institutional complementarities shaped the pace and scope of change. It concludes with an evaluation of the “stress test” posed by the Bolsonaro administration, pointing to the importance of changes in the political realm for resolving Brazil’s long-term economic developmental challenge.