Public-private re-alignments: the role of structural economic transformations in spurring the joint international engagement of agribusiness and the Brazilian State

Resumen

The article focuses upon how changes in global agricultural markets and the transformation of the Brazilian economic model from the 1990s have redefined relations between the state and agribusiness, and affected the country´s international strategy. The central objective is to evaluate the causal impact of structural factors at the global and the national level upon the dispositions and preferences of the group of actors examined. Public-private cooperation is analyzed through institutionalist IPE and liberal IR theory, in combination with a neopluralist perspective. The article concludes that changes in global food markets and the economic liberalizations of the 1990s have spurred an export-oriented consensus between the agricultural sector and the state, with strong repercussions within the country´s international engagement.