| dc.description.abstract | 1. Field of Research
The purpose of the thesis is to explain why the state petroleum monopoly in Brazil was flexibilized in the mid-1990s. The federal monopoly was institutionally cemented in 1953 and the state-owned enterprise Petrobrás was created as the operational unit of the monopoly. For more than four decades Petrobrás enjoyed autocratic privileges to explore, purchase, produce, and refine oil in Brazil. Given the perennial permanence of the state oil monopoly, the 1990s constitute a real watershed for the historical trajectory of the Brazilian oil policy. In 1995, a constitutional amendment was elaborated by the Cardoso administration, envisaging a liquidation of Petrobrás monopoly. Through congressional imprimatur in 1997, the amendment was transformed into law nº 9478. In Brazil, the shift in oil policy is referred to as a flexibilização. This flexibilization , or strategic relaxation, implies that the Federal Union still beholds a monopoly over the subsoil resources, but Petrobrás is no longer the sole executor. Petrobrás has to compete with private enterprises to obtain concessions from the National Petroleum Agency (ANP). In addition, Petrobrás is now allowed to create joint ventures with private enterprises; a pratice previously reserved Petrobrás myriad subsidiaries.
2. Methodological and Theoretical Approach
In order to detect the modus operandi in the oil reform and to illuminate to what extent the new oil policy constitutes a radical departure from earlier practices incorporated in the state-dirigiste model, the study performs a controlled comparison of two historical periods. The 1957-90 period, when a protectionist oil policy was institutionalized and maintained, constitutes the first case, whereas the adoption of a liberal oil policy in the 1990-97 period is its adverse case. Methodologically, thus, the study is organized in conformity with a most similar design, albeit heuristic and interpretative techniques are included. Endeavours are made to refute covariation at the control variables to isolate the critical covariation between one independent variable and the dependent variable, defined as Brazilian oil policy.
An eclectic theoretical approach is adopted due to the lack of theory explaing the impelling forces in public sector reform. This framework is buttressed on theories on structural reform and privatization policies, as well as on the distinction between state-centred and society- centred approaches. Three independent variables are identified (political regime, economic context, and political culture) and their respective monocausal hypotheses are inferred. These hypotheses question whether the Brazilian oil reform can be interpreted as an outcome of incremental political liberalization (H1), as an ad hoc exigency given pressing economic problems (H2), or as the practical result of an adherence to the neoliberal orthodoxy (H3).
3. Empirical Findings
The analysis rejects that there was one isolated cause that triggered the strategic relaxation of the oil monopoly. The oil reform proved to be a mixture of necessity and ideology on the one hand and a recognition of fundamental shortcomings in the state-dirigiste model on the other. The democratic transition in 1985 enfeebled the military perception of a monopolized oil sector as the sine qua non for the national security. Simultaneously, the myriad economic crises made an oil reform not only more politically desirable but also more politically feasible by increasing the autonomy of the political leadership. The analysis denounces the conventional proposition that presidential systems are prone to produce institutional deadlocks. On the contrary, the oil reform verifies that the Brazilian political system inheres built-in mechanisms that induce cooperation between the executive and the legislature.
The evidence suggests that there has occurred a paradigm shift in Brazil, both within the state apparatus and at the partisan arena. The institutional inertia in the early 1990s was overcome by adopting a new policy model; economic nationalism was substituted with a context-related pragmatism. The new paradigm has affinities with the neoliberal orthodoxy in terms of policy prescriptions, but has a different motivational basis. When the reformist cadres warranted the oil reform, it was never an issue to dismantle the remnants of the dirigiste strategy and replace them with true laissez faire. The oil reform was part and parcel of a structural reform agenda portraying a revitatlization of the state. The regulatory capabilities of the state were to be fortified by reducing the state s entrepreneurial role and the level of autarchy of the Brazilian economy was to be reduced. Simultaneously, it was imperative to make a credible reform that convinced the world community that Brazil was committed to a new liberal economic regime and thereby attract an increased level of foreign investments to the Brazilian economy. | nor |