The aim of this article is twofold: first, it seeks to address the question of why the competitive knowledge economy orientation that emerged in certain economically advanced states as a response to the crisis of Fordism came to be embraced by the Indian and the Brazilian states from the late 1980s onwards. Second, it aims to elucidate the manner in which the goal of becoming competitive knowledge economies has been articulated and implemented locally, especially from the mid-1990s onwards, by key fragments of the Indian and the Brazilian states. Drawing on insights from the competition state, regulation school, knowledge economy literature and that on India and Brazil, attention is paid to the context- and conjuncture-specific domestic and international factors that have contributed not only to the adoption of the competitive knowledge economy orientation, but also to the necessarily distinctive ways in which it found expression in practice in India and Brazil.
