Contemporary Brazil is a critical case for world-systems theory. Of the semi-
peripheral states with hopes of achieving core status, Brazil, along with Mexico,
remains the most integrated into the world system in terms of foreign ownership of
firms and financial institutions, foreign influence on local capital markets through the
vehicle of international debt, and a conciliatory stance of the state towards foreign
investors, international lending institutions and the American government.
In thinking about economic growth in any nation, it is wise to consider world-
systems, agency and conjunctural factors. World systems forces are those variables
that operate at an international level to determine national incomes – with only
limited room for maneuver. Military intervention by core nations, overt imperialism,
and participation in local governance by powerful transitional state organizations can
be world-system-level forces. In the economic sphere, unequal terms of trade,
capital flows related to debt repayment, and multinational penetration through
neoliberalism are particularly important. (Chase-Dunn 1998)
Even if world system based forces are present, it is still possible for national
actors to weaken or even subvert these tendencies by defensive action at the local
level. Furtado (1976) emphasized the role of the state in tempering world-systemic
forces, an argument echoed by Peter Evans (1979). Agency forces are typically
what allow nations to rise from the periphery to the semi-periphery and then to the
core, since international capital by itself tends to attempt to maintain the stability of
imperialist relationships of dependency in order to reproduce favorable international
flows of resources.
Furthermore, some nations can change their status from peripheral to semi-
peripheral or core based on purely conjunctural circumstances – considerations of
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Convention