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In this paper, we highlight some of the key findings from our forthcoming book, From Amsterdam to Amazonia: A Sociological Inquiry into How Matter, Space, and Technology Shape Globalization. We examine the financial, technological, and political dynamics that have globalized the world economy since the beginnings of capitalism over 500 years ago through the prism of the world?s largest iron ore mine, Carajas in the Brazilian Amazon. Our goals in this paper are a) to understand the profoundly local characteristics of Carajás, an enormous and very local hole in the ground, in pristine jungle remote from industry, dug by enormous machines to extract huge volumes of raw material to send to industrial centers half-way around the world in huge trains and ships; b) to explain how local processes?driven by capital, shaped by matter and space, and mediated by technology?are materially intensified and spatially expanded toward globalization; and c) to examine the local and global consequences of these processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thinking in economic sociology about the relationship between the state and development has gone through three phases. In the "heroic" phase, the state was seen as the great engine of development against adverse forces of backward social structure or multinational predation. In the "nostalgic" phase, heroic policies were seen as no longer possible, since the state had been gutted by globalization or by inadequate class or institutional structures. This paper recommends a third phase - "positive incrementalism" in which state contributions are viewed not as dramatic transformations from peripheral to core but as the capacity to raise employment or development to levels not expected from market forces. By imposing a "better than market forces" interpretation on state action - a whole host of otherwise invisible state actions become valid subjects of analysis whose contribution to improving human welfare can be demonstrated.In this paper, econometric models are constructed for three industries in Brazil. Residuals from these models are examined to see which state policies are most effective in raising employment above market levels. Building infrastructure and financing vocational education are shown to have strong robust effects in increasing employment above market levels. State direct investment in enterprises was less effective - - notably because the sectors discussed here were not suffering from any particular capital market failure. Tax cuts had no effects at all.Overall, economic sociologists can teach macrosociologists some lessons about the effective conceptualization of state policies - and re-establish a credible role for the state in economic development. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of compulsory licenses has become increasingly commonplace in the developing world for the purchase of essential medicines marketed by transnational pharmaceutical companies. The use of this legal instrument outlined by the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) has been particularly prevalent for anti-retrovirals, medicines used to treat AIDS/HIV, due the epidemic's high visibility and demands from organized civil society groups. This paper argues that the TRIPS accord represents an institutional shift in terms of the regulatory aspects of globalization that directly impacts social policies in the developing world. But normative pressures concerning the legitimate use of compulsory licenses have changed as a result of waning US hegemonic power. A case study of Brazil's use of compulsory licenses in the purchase of AIDS medicines provides evidence to support these assertions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the technological infrastructure for global trade and production, information and communications technologies are central to the politics of globalization. Since the 1970s, Brazil has played a key role in struggles by the Global South to engage those technologies in strategies to develop alternatives to the dominant form of neoliberal globalization geared to opening markets around the world to global capital. In the 1980s and again in the early twenty-first century, the Brazilian government used software policy as a focal point for those struggles. In this paper, I explore the complex, shifting ways that the Brazilian government engaged in what I call "software politics," using software policy as part of a broader strategy in the politics of globalization. I focus on the Lula administration's innovative approach to software policy that shifted government agencies to open source systems and developed programs to promote digital inclusion of historically disenfranchised groups. I highlight two main aspects of this policy and the ways that they counteracted neoliberalism. First, the open source strategy addressed Brazil's history of dependence on foreign investment and technology by fostering technological autonomy. Second, the emphasis on digital inclusion counteracted neoliberal globalization's tendency to subsume local needs and interests to the interests of global capital. It marked a significant expansion of the goals of Brazil's earlier software policy by focusing not just on the development of local Brazilian firms but on spreading the social and cultural benefits of software technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on bilateral trade and investment between Brazil and China. Brazil exchanged its industrially farmed soybeans for light manufactured goods from China. The two countries have been connected with container ships. Commodity production, transformation, and consumption have resulted in "socio-ecological division of labor." This division of labor results in destruction of human, animal, and plant habitat, and cuts the livelihood of small farmers in Northwest China. It also results in irreversible land use changes, and investments in physical infrastructure, which can be commercially useful only if the prices of hydrocarbon fuels remain low.

The prospects for Brazil rising from the semi-periphery are bleak. This is due to both world systems considerations based on international indebtedness, penetration of foreign capital and fiscal crisis within the state - and agency considerations based on political and social factors within Brazil itself. The key to rising into the core is developing local proprietary technology which could created pro-Brazilian favorable terms of trade. Debt induced high interest rates are limiting economic growth and investment reducing local capital's ability to generate such technology. Increased foreign ownership of Brazilian companies is leading to a reduction of research and development actitivies. An alternative road to a locally controlled science would be development of basic science at the university level. Brazilian universities are hampered by low salaries, poor facilities, very low graduation rates, and unwieldy administrative structures that prevent universities from rewarding star researchers. These factors stem less from debt-induced fiscal crisis within the state and more of political considerations within Brazil that lead to the misallocation of scarce educational resources. Agency attempts to overcome these handicaps are having mixed results. The new anti-globalization social movements coming out of Porto Alegre are having impressive results in improving municipal governance - but face too many political obstacles to have a chance to produce a national Brazilian state willing to confront international capital. There are however positive developments in less glamorous areas. The economic wing of the Porto Alegre movement - the Economia Solidaria - is producing impressive increases in employment and reductions in poverty in Brazil - using an explicit nationalist anti-globalization strategy. Furthermore, routine social and economic policies such as support for small business are confronting for the first time disarticulation in Brazil and producing a more balanced distribution of economic incentives and government benefits. These developments by themselves will not propel Brazil into the core. However there is one conjunctural factor that could make a difference ..... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State led development continues to be viable - even in states that are heavily indebted. However, debt changes the calculus of viable state programs by either requiring stringent cost controls or very rapid short term results. Since the point of state led development is to permit "patient" long term initiatives - in most cases, the management of costs is now a critical parameter. This is difficult to manage in democratic societies where demands for expenditures are hard for states to resist. This is illustrated by an analysis of Prodetur - a joint effort of the Banco do Nordeste and the Interamerican Development Bank to create a tourist economy in the Brazilian Northeast. The program was a model of transparent, ecologically oriented, sustainable development - and produced substantial increases in employment and in quality of life. However these gains were not so rapid as to permit ignoring cost considerations altogether. Brazil incurred over $300 million in debt to participate in Prodetur - when viable alternative plans existed that would have produced nearly all of the same advantages for $0 in debt. The political forces that caused the more expensive option to be chosen are considered. The lesson is that globalization has not killed the developmental state - but has made stringent management procedures more important. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]