Santa Catarina!
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
INR6938 Lecture 6 University of North Florida Master of Public Administration program Course syllabus INR6938 Field experience in International Affairs: Brazil Santa Catarina! Photo source Status quo (as opposed to last class’s ‘revolution’ theme) * Santa Catarina in context Santa Catarina is a rather nondescript state in the Brazilian Federation. It is the smallest of the three southern states, with an area of 37,060 square miles (the 7th smallest of Brazil’s 26 states, and about the size of South Carolina) sandwiched between Paraná to the north and Rio Grande do Sul to the south. The state is wedge-shaped, with a 250 mile Atlantic coast on the east, narrowing as the state progresses inland, to a sixty mile western border with the Argentinean province of Misiones. A narrow coastal plain gives way to a rugged mountain range rising to 5000 feet, which historically inhibited settlement inland. The industrial heartland is located in the northeast, centered on the Itajaí Valley and the city of Joinville, which is the state’s largest. The capital city of Florianópolis is located on the island of Santa Catarina, which is connected to the mainland by a bridge.1 This will be discussed a bit further below, but Santa Catarina is unique in Brazil in that its capital is not far and away the largest city in the state. Santa Catarina was settled relatively late. With the Spanish settlement of Colônia do Sacramento (up the Platte River from present day Montevideo) in 1680, the Portuguese settled what is now Santa Catarina to counter Spanish claims to the region. The region remained unsettled through the mid-eighteenth century, when some 9000 settlers from the overpopulated Azores were brought to the region. Still, the state’s population numbered only 24,000 by 1800. Population growth only took off with European immigration in the mid-nineteenth century, yet the state still had only 200,000 people by 1870. This immigration, from Italy, Poland, and other countries but especially from Germany, gave the state an entrepreneurial class and a skilled, disciplined, modern, and hard-working labor force, which is widely credited for the state’s relative economic 1 Actually two, but the first, the Ponte Hercílio Luz, has been under renovation to be re-opened as a pedestrian bridge since I did dissertation research there in 1997. Page 1 of 8 INR6938 Lecture 6 success. This large influx of outsiders into Santa Catarina, imbued as they were with the ethos of industrializing northwest Europe, had the critical mass to create semi-autonomous societies. Coupled with geographic distance from the established centers of power and a landholding system characterized by small holdings in the areas of densest population, this allowed for modernization and industrialization despite, as some scholars argue, the old clientelistic networks. The state’s population is estimated at about 6.5m, with a per capita income among the country’s highest. Regionalization A unique aspect of Santa Catarina, that will be developed below, is its distinct regions. All other Brazilian states have a dominant capital city, then generally subordinate regions. Catarinense identify six distinct economic regions: The Littoral. Florianopolis (pop. 460,000) is a government, tourism (from Argentina, Uruguay, inland Brazil, etc.) and business center. This coastal region also includes the cites of São José (pop. 200,000), just across the bridge from the island, and Palhoça (pop. 150,000), just south of São José. The Vale do Itajaí (Itajaí Valley) is a textile center (along with other industries). Cities include Blumenau (330,000) and Itajaí (200,000). The North. The Norte includes Joinville (550,000) and the smaller city of Jaraguá do Sul (160,000). The region is known for manufacturing, with a number of domestic firms that are strong in the national market, as well as some of which have become global players. General Motors recently opened a Brazilian assembly plant in Joinville, with BMW joining them. Chapecó and the Oeste (West) focus on agriculture and livestock. Criciúma in the South is a ceramic center. Timber and woodworking dominate in the Serrana (Highland) region and Lajes. Page 2 of 8 INR6938 Lecture 6 Local government Some context. Table 1 provides an overview of the various levels of government in our four countries, as well as two ‘unitary’, non-federal countries by way of context. To tease out one further variable, I’ve also highlighted in red those entities that have no legal rights2 relative to the next higher level. Table 1 Local government compared US Brazil Canada Australia France New Zealand Township Município Municipal Municipality Communes City and district (16,500) (5500) (3700) (129) (36,529) councils (67) Municipal1 Shire Cantons Regional councils (19,000) (255) (1995) (11) County Arrondissements (3034) (others) (323) State State Province State Departments (50) (27) (10+3) (6+2) (96) Regions (13) Federal Federal Federal Federal National Central In this week’s discussion, we especially focus on efforts to create more viable units of local government. The Stepan, and the Andion, Serva et al article looks at attempts to do this in Brazil, while the Canadian report looks at urban amalgamation in Canada. Spatial inequality and Brazil Paradoxically, given the previous discussion, the two Brazilian readings look at attempts to devolve policy down from the state to the regional level, giving the grass roots more involvement in determining what happens... to create regional policy actors, which implies a... consolidation/amalgamation process, not unlike that in Duval/Jacksonville. The reading also discusses various challenges at the local level in Brazil and, I’ll hazard a guess, the local level all over the world, to varying degrees. Economic inequality. When we speak of inequality in the US, we usually refer to race, gender and ethnicity. The logic is that these characteristics often correlate with economic or social disadvantage, and so need to be addressed. Yet ‘space’ is also a variable that correlates with inequality: some regions are wealthier than others, and have more advantages. Think of Flint, Michigan at the moment. 2 With apologies to American ‘Charter Cities, which have been granted (by the state) a Charter (rough equivalent to a Constitution), which gives cities legal authority over their own affairs, without state meddling. Page 3 of 8 INR6938 Lecture 6 ‘Space’. By ‘space’ Andion, Serva and co-authors refer to, well, space. Or geography, perhaps, and they use the term ‘territory’. Just as race, gender, ethnicity, disability status and what have you can correlate with disadvantage, so can geography. As indicated early on, ‘space’ is especially relevant in Brazilian (and I’ll again hazard a guess, most countries’) inequality. Using the subnational level as unit of analysis, the table below provides an illustration of this. The ratio in the right hand column shows per capita income of the poorest state/region, relative to that of the national income per person. So in the United States, incomes in Mississippi are 77% of the national per capita GNP level. In the Brazilian state of Piauí, per capita income was 13¢ for every dollar of income nationwide. Table 2 Regional inequality in international comparison Country Regions Ratio of GNP pc 1990 United States Mississippi 0.77 United Kingdom N. Ireland/ Southeast 0.60 Greece North Aegean/ Central 0.57 Germany S. Holstein/Hamburg 0.53 Spain Extremadura/ Navarre 0.49 France Corsica/Ile de France 0.47 Portugal Madeira/ Lisbon-Tejo 0.46 Italy Calabria/Lombardia 0.44 Brasil Northeast/Southeast 0.35 Piauí/ Brasília 0.13 Source: Candler 2007, Lavinas and Amaral (1996), with the US added from this. Local government and inequality. Local government is especially relevant because small, rural regions often tend to be much poorer than urban (and especially suburban) areas. Inequality and ‘space’ relate at all levels: Global spatial inequality. As this analysis shows, inequality is not just a racial or gender issue, it is also regional. What we would call ‘progressive’ Brazilians have often bemoaned structural inequality in the global economy, with the rich nations of Western Europe and North America the developed ‘center’, while countries of the south are the marginalized periphery. National spatial inequality. Yet this regional inequality exists within countries as well. The cities of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Belo Horizonte (and to some extent the surrounding states) have long dominated Brazilian politics and economy.3 So they have been the center, the rest of the country the marginalized periphery. The Fenwick article especially discusses this, with reference to poverty alleviation. Intra-state spatial inequality. As for countries and the world on the whole, states themselves are not uniform collections of egalitarian folks who, like so many musketeers, follow the motto “one for all, all for one.” We can see this within Santa Catarina, with the coastal areas, especially, being wealthier than inland, rural regions. 3 This is the ‘Southeast’ identified in the table on page 8 of week four’s lecture. Note from this table, as well, that the ‘South’ region of Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul also have higher levels of development. For a summary of these regions, see a more tourist-oriented, and a more business-oriented discussion. Page 4 of 8 INR6938 Lecture 6 Intra-regional spatial inequality. It just doesn’t stop: as for the states, so for the regions within these states, even the poorer ones. Lajes, the major city of the Serra Catarinense region of the state, is much wealthier than the three western municípios identified below. Intra-município inequality. And then within these relatively small municípios, not surprisingly, there are the rich and powerful (who occasionally defraud or otherwise abuse government programs) and the poor and marginalized.