Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 06/2013

Skill Formation, Governance, and Democracy in Brazil: The State of the Art of a Public Policy

Marta M. Assumpção-Rodrigues

February 2013

The Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies

Abstract

By focusing on the interface governance–public policy–democracy in Brazil, this piece seeks to further our understanding of how governance works in contexts where private sectors shape and dictate public policies in specific policy areas. It argues that governance with nondemocratic characteristics favors an environment in which, instead of executing “collective goals,” public policies are produced to respond to particular demands of dominant actors. This point is illustrated by an examination of the Vocational Education and Training (VET) policy in Brazil. The paper concludes that the Brazilian VET policy designed and adopted by Getúlio Vargas administration in the 1940s did indeed increase the capacity of the country to compete in a globalized world, but it did not contribute to improving political accountability or democratic governance.