Sticks and Stones: How the Language of Development Theory Can Hurt Us

Resumo

ABSTRACT: Brazil is now an important global economic power. The complexity and productivity of its industrialized economy is widely recognized. Along with China and India, Brazil puts Third World economic power at the center of international politics. This change raises the issue of whether it is appropriate to identify Brazil or for that matter other BRIC countries as developing or developed? This essay suggests that to answer this question we need to give attention to the growing economic power of southern countries like Brazil and to a north-south comparative development perspective on democracy and the evolution of human rights. Previous binary, hierarchical conceptualizations of development essentialized both the South and the North and should be reconsidered.

KEYWORDS: Brazil, democracy, human rights.