A A política do Banco Mundial no Brasil (1990-2002)

Abstract

The aim of this article is to present a characterization and interpretation of the World Bank’s policy in Brazil during the period 1990-2002. We detail the characteristics presented by the political orientation of the agency towards the country and also the main features that assumed its financial assistance during that period. In methodological terms, the work relies on documentary analysis and analysis of the agency’s financial assistance projects. We found that the Bank supported various policies aimed at the poor, such as education, health and infrastructure, and at the same time supported structural reforms. We also find that the agency’s assistance was focused on the north-eastern region of the country and that towards the middle of the decade that same assistance sought to be concentrated at the state level at the expense of the federal state. We interpret the policy of the organization as supporting the state in the face of the imperatives presented to it at that stage: of accumulation -centrally, the restructuring of the domestic market as a way out of the post-war mode of accumulation- and of domination-centrally, the legitimization of one’s own state in the face of the growing contradictions that the restructuring entailed-.