Jeitinho [zhae-’te–n(y)o]: skillful, smart, astute way of achieving something, especially something that seems particularly difficult to most people.
Houaiss Dictionary of the Portuguese Language

CONTENTS

A PRESENTATION by A.W. McEACHERN

PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDITION

Foreword: Five centuries in search of explanations

I: BRAZIL AT A GLANCE

A BRIEF HISTORY

GEOGRAPHY, CLIMATE AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC INEQUITIES

THE REGIONAL DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTHAND POVERTY

THE POLITICAL STRUCTURE

BRAZIL FACTS AND FIGURES

II: THE MOTHERLAND OF IMPRECISION

A NATION ACCUSTOMED TO AMBIGUITY

SOME MISLEADING STATISTICS

SAME NAMES, DIFFERENT REALITIES

THE SYMBOLIC WORLD AND THE REAL WORLD

III: THE BUREAUCRATIC INHERITANCE

RESPECT FOR THE STATE

A PRESENTATION FOR BELMIRO V.J. CASTOR’S
BRAZIL IS NOT FOR AMATEURS

Most humans have limited perspectives from which they re act to and evaluate the accomplishments of others. When an academic colleague asked what I thought of Belmiro’s English translation of his book, I first said it was excellent, then added without thinking that the book was well balanced. It was no surprise to discover that the added accolade was the result of my fixation on decision analysis.

Simply stated, decision making, problem solving and policy analysis have as common elements the identification of valued objectives, and the assessment and selection of alternatives that are most likely to accomplish those objectives. A balanced decision analysis, as distinct from the generally unbalanced assessments of the ideologically confined, makes explicit the multiple values and multiple actors underlying complex social and public problems. Belmiro acknowledges that the developmental model that dominated Brazil since the 1930s has brought Brazil into the twenty-first century as a significant player in the international community. But it has left millions of Brazilians still in poverty, and almost 50% of its economy hidden or informal. Centuries of Portuguese rule was a large factor in the continued presence of a bureaucratic system of governance that is powerful, heavy-handed, and unresponsive to social needs and inequities. The reduction of inequities, inefficiencies and rigidities is the fundamental value guiding Belmiro’s description of Brazil’s options in resolving problems.

Twenty-four years ago Shan and I took part in a master’s program offered by our School of Public Administration in Curitiba, in the state of Paraná. While there, we met Belmiro, who was described by students as the important official who had initiated the program. During that first exposure to Brazil, we visited the area of the Iguaçu Falls, where the Itaipu hydroelectric plant was under construction; São Paulo, a huge metropolis; Porto Alegre and the adjacent enclaves
in the mountains, created and populated by descendants of German and Italian immigrants; and Brasilia, designed for government and automobiles, where walking across a street seemed impossible.

A year or so later Belmiro entered our doctoral program. In one class I remember looking forward to weekly three-hour conversations and debates in which Belmiro and a doctoral student from Jordan tested my decision-theoretic perspective, while the rest of the class looked on, thus demonstrating empirically that teaching in a university is a lifelong learning experience, at least for teachers. I don’t remember seeing Belmiro during our second journey to Brazil a few years later, when we spent most of our time with former students in Florianopolis, some time in Rio and Petropolis, and a visit to Salvador in the state of Bahia. After our two visits to Brazil and many interactions with Brazilian students, their families and friends, we took pride in “knowing” Brazil. Having read Brazil Is Not for Amateurs, I conclude that our earlier assessment of “knowing”
was grossly exaggerated. We might now be characterized as better-informed amateurs.

Who should read this book? I can’t imagine anyone who would not enjoy and benefit from this insightful overview. Obviously, those with current or future business interests in Brazil should read it, as should anyone planning a visit. Students and scholars interested in the politics, governance or administration of any country would benefit enormously from studying Belmiro’s objective and skeptical methodology.

In our increasing global interdependence, this is a good time to enhance our knowledge of the political, economic, and social conditions in this giant of the southern hemisphere. Belmiro’s astute analyses are presented in an optimistic, good-humored style, reflecting a kind of “tough love.” He appreciates and extols the virtues and potential of Brazil, but is not blind to its flaws, and leaves the reader with an intricate, balanced portrait of his lovely, rich and complex country.

A. W. McEachern
Professor Emeritus of Public Administration
University of Southern California
August 2002

PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDITION

The first edition of this book was published in Brazil in June 2000 and received an encouraging welcome. A second printing is currently in process and O Brasil Não É Para Amadores: Estado, Governo e Burocracia na Terra do Jeitinho is now part of the basic bibliography of several Brazilian courses of Administration and Management.

The interest expressed by many foreigners was a pleasant surprise. Between 1997 and 2002 more than US$140 billion of Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) were made in Brazil, fostered by privatization of public-owned companies and the opening of the economy to foreign capital. This has resulted in both a growing number of expatriates
living in Brazil and an increase in the interest of financial and corporate planners in participating in the Brazilian economy. When I received invitations to speak to expatriates and learned that some foreign companies had translated parts of the book to provide newly arrived executives with a different glimpse of Brazilian economy and society, I decided to publish an English language edition.

This book intends to provide readers with some useful keys to understanding what Brazil really is, as distinct from the easy stereotypes and superficial analyses common among foreigners and even within some Brazilian intellectual circles. After all, it can’t be easy for a conventionally oriented expatriate, or Brazilian for that matter, to understand a country that in sixty years has had seven different currencies, three written national Constitutions, inflation rates between 4% per year and 4,500% per year, and that has part of its ethos solidly anchored in the eighteenth century in social terms while the other part pulses with the latest advancements of technology, habits of consumption and styles of life.

Brazil is not for amateurs because amateurs believe in appearances, in visible manifestations. Nothing can be more deceiving and misleading than what is visible in our country. To understand Brazil, one has to go beyond formal titles and nomenclatures in practically all areas and disciplines. What Brazilians call and practice as market economy is far different from what Americans, Europeans or Asians mean and practice. The dominance of governmental units in the operations of representative democracy is much greater in Brazil than in many other parts of the world. Similarly, the unemployment rate and other economic and social indicators have different meanings in Brazil and in the United States, despite the fact that in both countries, statisticians claim to use the same technical procedures for their estimates. And so on. Official and published statistics must be viewed with caution because in many cases what they hide is as important as what they purport to show.

A second objective of this book is to provide readers with some useful clues to understand the anatomy and functioning of the Brazilian government and its public and quasi-public bureaucracies. No one can understand Brazil without understanding how public bureaucracies operate and their dominant role in society. To succeed in business in Brazil it is necessary, even a priority, to understand the bureaucratic ethos of the country and to learn how to cope with the legendary capacity of Brazilian bureaucrats to make the whole society depend on their goodwill and favorable decisions and to create difficulties for anyone who threatens their authority or interests.
During the last decade, the Brazilian public sector has been through a process of fiscal impoverishment and loss of institutional and operational capabilities whose causes may be found in the perverse effects of inflation on public revenues and in political cronyism. As the quality and the quantity of public services have declined further, the population seems to take revenge for the centuries of arrogance, dissipation and privileges of the state, by observing the dismantlement with indifference or elation.

With the prescience of his superior intellect and helped by a clear and concise writing style, the Brazilian sociologist Alberto Guerreiro Ramos (with whom I had the privilege of studying as a graduate student at the University of Southern California) once defined Brazil as someone who prepared himself with care and elegance to attend a banquet, but who – against his will and facing a series of obstacles – missed the last transportation that would take him to the place of the festivity. And then, concluded Ramos, this person, opulently dressed, had to change his attire for a simpler one, in order to be taken seriously by those who saw him (1980:4). Back in the ‘seventies, Ramos was one of the first scholars to understand that the developmentalist model guiding Brazil since 1930 was rapidly exhausting its utility and losing its social and economic feasibility and he was among the first to advocate that a new model be designed and implemented. This new model would be characterized by a more frugal state that loses in pompousness and prestige but retains its powers to implement changes in the balance of social and economic forces. The overarching purpose of the new model would be to build a more egalitarian and just society for all. It would be a state modeled according to what the French sociologist Michel Crozier called the “Modest State” or l’État Modeste (1989:10). The “Modest State” is defined as one which substitutes for “an arrogant, omnipresent and omni-competent [State which] is impotent so far as its acts are based only on abstract principles and general visions” (1989:15).

I hope that, after reading this book, many of the things that puzzle a foreign observer can be better understood. Understanding the subtleties and intricacies of the Brazilian economy and society is the first step to recognizing an inexhaustible cornucopia of opportunities that lies beneath the visible and sometimes deceiving parts of this beautiful country.

Belmiro V.J. Castor
August 2002