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Brazil Science and Technology
IN THE 1970s, BRAZIL undertook a major effort to establish a strong
scientific and technological base that would make the country self-sufficient
economically, powerful militarily, and better able to withstand
international pressures and constraints. Heavy investments were
made in the country's infrastructure for the production of steel,
machine tools, energy, communications,
and transportation.
A few high-technology projects with expected civilian spinoffs were
started in atomic energy, aeronautics, and space research. Universities
were reformed along the so-called United States model of graduate
education
and departmental organization, although they also retained strong
European characteristics of separate faculties. Financing agencies
for science and technology were set up and endowed generously. Several
hundred graduate programs were organized, and several thousand fellowships
were awarded each year for study
at universities in the United States and Europe. Brazil's effort
to strengthen its scientific base attracted international attention
and was considered an example of how a country might move from underdevelopment,
poverty,
and international dependency to economic
growth, better living standards, and self-reliance.
During the 1980s,
however, Brazil's fast-growing economy lost momentum and entered
a period of stagnation. The investments in science and technology
of the previous years were insufficient to ward off the forthcoming
debt crisis and uncontrolled inflation. The crisis resulted from
a combination of factors, including the outmoded pattern of domestic
economic growth through import-substitution industrialization (see
Glossary), the increase in international interest rates and oil
prices, and the uncontrolled increase in public expenditures resulting
from decentralization of government and extensive patronage. Key
questions for the 1990s are what went wrong, and how the capabilities
created in the 1970s can best be used to regain economic growth
and improve social conditions in a profoundly transformed international
context.
Modern science and technology are products of Western culture and
tradition and are not transposed easily to other societies and cultures.
Nevertheless, the examples of Japan, the Republic of Korea (South
Korea), and Taiwan show that this transposition is possible. A comparison
between Brazil and the Asian countries points to important differences
in the two experiences and possible explanations for the different
outcomes of their science and technology policies.
Science and technology in Western Europe, and more recently in
the United States, developed along two parallel and mutually reinforcing
lines: as part of a broader scientific culture, linked to education,
the development of modern professions, and a growing and prestigious
scientific community; and as part of the increasingly effective
industrial and military establishments. The term science is usually
applied to the first, while technology is used for the latter, with
the assumption that they are two sides of the same coin.
The Asian countries, however, followed a strikingly different path.
They introduced modern technology but little of modern science in
their universities and other similar institutions; and most of their
investments in technology were made in industrial firms, rather
than in large, isolated governmental agencies, including the military
sector. Brazil, by contrast, developed most of its scientific capabilities
in universities, while investments in technology went to a few large-scale
government projects under the military and to a handful of state-owned
corporations.
The assumption in Brazil was that science and technology eventually
would spill over from higher education and sophisticated technological
projects into society as a whole. In practice, the introduction
of scientific research and graduate education in universities happened
at a time of rapid expansion of higher education enrollment, leading
to declining quality in scholastic standards. The consequence was
that, while a handful of universities and departments reached levels
of quality similar to those in the developed countries, most higher
education institutions, private and public, lagged behind. In technology
the large military-based projects in atomic energy, space research,
and aeronautics helped in the development of a few, highly qualified
networks of local suppliers and partners, but they did not enhance
the quality and competence of the industrial system as a whole.
In the early 1980s, the policy of technological nationalism and
self-sufficiency had narrowed to the computer sector, where protective
legislation tried to shield the Brazilian mini- and microcomputer
industries from foreign competition. Here again, the policy allowed
for the growth of local industry and a few well-qualified firms,
but the effect on the productive capabilities of the economy as
a whole was negative; and the inability to follow the international
market in price and quality forced the policy to be discontinued.
There are other features found in the Asian countries that did
not exist in Brazil and that help to explain the different outcomes
of their development drives. These features include an emphasis
on basic and secondary education, leading to a competent and well-educated
manpower base; lower levels of social inequality, thereby strengthening
the internal market for local products; a sustained effort toward
international competitiveness that requires high levels of industrial
efficiency and quality control; and competent and powerful public
bureaucracies working in close association with a few large and
well-endowed private firms.
Data as of April 1997
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