Brazilian Political Science Review E-ISSN: 1981-3821
[email protected] Associação Brasileira de Ciência Política Brasil Kalil Mathias, Suzeley; Vasconcelos Cruz, Eduardo de Lucas Defence and regional integration: the Case of the Brazilian Weapons industry Brazilian Political Science Review, vol. 3, núm. 1, 2009, pp. 40-57 Associação Brasileira de Ciência Política São Paulo, Brasil Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=394341993002 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative brazilianpoliticalsciencereview ARTICLE Defence and Regional Integration: The Case of the Brazilian Weapons Industry Suzeley Kalil Mathias State University of São Paulo (UNESP, Franca campus), Brazil Eduardo de Lucas Vasconcelos Cruz State University of São Paulo (UNESP, Franca campus), Brazil This paper discusses the relationship between technological development and the weapons industry in Brazil, stressing the dependence of the latter on the former. It shows how changes in the arms trade have meant that the production of small arms for export is currently prioritized. The conclusion is that maintaining projects of this nature is only feasible by taking advantage of the remaining industrial base for dual-use production, i.e., to meet both civilian and military demand. Lastly, the possibility that the defence industry may work as a regional integration mechanism is raised. Keywords: Armed Forces; Weapons; Economic development; Defence; Security. Introduction he construction of the concept of Human Safety, also known as “multidimensional Tsafety”, to replace that of National Security — formulated during the Cold War and the trigger for much disagreement between neighbours — has integral and holistic development as one of its main principles.