The Open Political Science Journal

2008, 1 : 59-74
Published online 2008 November 21. DOI: 10.2174/1874949600801010059
Publisher ID: TOPOLISJ-1-59

Critical Junctures? Privatization Policy in Brazil and Argentina at the Start of the Century

John Hogan and David Doyle
Dublin Institute of Technology, Aungier Street, Dublin 2, Ireland.

ABSTRACT

This paper uses the critical junctures framework developed by Hogan and Doyle (2007) to determine if there were critical junctures in privatization policy in Brazil and Argentina at the start of the 21st century. The framework constitutes a rigorous approach to the identification of crisis, ideational change, and policy change. It is used to examine the economic disasters in Brazil in 1999 and Argentina in 2001. Previously, we would have had to wait decades before making such an assessment, as there were few tools with which to identify critical junctures, and these were usually only effective long after the event.

Keywords:

Critical junctures, macroeconomic crisis, ideational change.