Urban politics in Brazil and the US: state, economic actors and local development scenarios

Abstract This paper analyses different patterns of articulation between market and state in subnational units in Brazil and the US, and forecasts scenarios that are more or less prone to enhancing development policies locally. Based on a state-centered perspective, the paper argues that institutional grammars such as clientelism and corporatism produce disincentives to the organization and civil engagement of economic actors in Brazil, in the subnational level. The paper stresses that the organizational atrophy of economic actors in Brazil, at the local level, limits the use of urban theories inspired by the North American political economy, such as urban regime and growth machine theories.