Maucio Font and Laura Randall's The Brazilian State: Debate and Agenda provides a fascinating multi-leveled examination of Brazilian political institutions and policies. Bringing together leading Brazilian and North American scholars in this field, the book provides a depth of insights rarely found in other English-language texts on the state and policymaking in Latin America's largest country. This volume makes important contributions to the debate on political institutions in Brazil and to issues in Latin America more generally.

Desmond Arias, John Jay College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York

The Brazilian State: Debate and Agenda is an up-to-date analysis of the state in the "new developmentalism" of Brazil. It provides us with excellent research on the political, social, economic, and cultural evolution of Brazil, especially since 2005. This highly readable book is well edited by noted authors Font and Randall and will serve as a classroom text and also will be suitable for a general audience. To understand Brazil today and to speculate about its future, this book is essential.

Kathleen Waldron, President of William Paterson University

This timely volume explores how Brazil avoided the extremes of left and right to become a pragmatic model of democratic development. Brazil's success in combining macroeconomic stability with economic growth and expanded social programs is an inspiration to a world that is rejecting extremist nostrums and authoritarian excuses. These well researched essays show how the Brazilians did it, and what remains to be done, both in Brazil and throughout the developing world.

Ted Goertzel

The Brazilian State has several distinctive attributes....Thomas Trebat extends the scope of the book by examining Brazilian foreign policy, and the extent to which the BRazilian state represents an alternative, in matters of global governance, to what he calls the 'transatlantic community'.

Journal of Latin American Studies