The rise and fall of land reform in Brazil: a tale in three acts

Abstract

Land reform in Brazil experienced in the early 1960s an initial historical moment of intense political debate without concrete steps to materialize it. But a second and recent moment, from the mid-1990s onwards produced a relevant record in terms of poor families settled and a huge area expropriated under that policy. However, a spectacular process of agricultural expansion and intense technological incorporation was simultaneously observed thus positing an intriguing question - how property rights and a required ‘institutional framework’ directly affected by land expropriation and land invasions by the landless groups did not block that process of agricultural growth? This concrete case exposes the analytical flaws of mainstream literature, which requires institutional preconditions to explain development and/or implementation of national policies. This apparent antinomy constitutes the analytical brackground of this article.