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Democracy, Authoritarianism and Education Finance in Brazil

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2002

DAVID S. BROWN
DAVID S. BROWN
Affiliation:
David S. Brown is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Rice University.
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Abstract

In view of the inconclusive statistical results associated with democracy's impact on economic performance, this article unpacks the dependent variable (economic development) by examining democratisation's impact on education policy. To determine whether democracy compels politicians to provide higher levels of educational opportunity, it traces the process of repression and democratisation in Brazil along with government spending on education. It finds that democratisation has observable effects on education spending on three different levels: 1) the percentage of government spending allocated to education; 2) the distribution of federal funding among different levels of education; and 3) the distribution of funds within primary education among state and local actors.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , February 2002 , pp. 115 - 141
Copyright
© 2002 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

I would like to thank John Ambler, José Antonio Cheibub, Wendy Hunter, David Plank, Michael Wallerstein, Kurt Weyland and the anonymous referees for their comments. Part of the field-work was made possible by the generous support of the Baker Institute for Public Policy. Finally, I would like to thank George Avelino, Edmílson Caminha, Scott Desposato and Argelina Cheibub Figueiredo for their unstinting help in providing contacts and data.