ABSTRACT. This contribution focuses on the political economy of the Brazilian welfare state, combining the theoretical frameworks of historical institutionalism and the strategic-relational approach. It engages with the renewed “developmentalist” discourse in Latin America, which began to evolve by the end of the 1990s: in opposition to the neoliberal mantra of a contradiction of social and economic policies, social development became to be seen as a prerequisite of economic development. Brazil is analyzed as the most prominent example of a regime transition from “inclusive liberalism” to “inclusive developmentalism.” While the first results of this transformation in the beginning 2000s were promising, more recent developments point at symptoms of a crisis of “inclusive developmentalism,” albeit less exacerbated than in the European examples of “social investment states.” pp. 62–89

Keywords: Brazil; developmental welfare; welfare state; strategic-relational approach; historical institutionalism; distributional regime

How to cite: Leubolt, Bernhard (2015), "From Inclusive Liberalism to Inclusive Developmentalism: The Recent Transformation of the Brazilian Distributional Regime," Geopolitics, History, and International Relations 7(1): 62–89.