Suchergebnisse

Several distinguished scholars have contributed previously to this debate and I have been privileged to consider their arguments. In doing so, I have been mindful that the realities of life frequently pierce the armor of high-minded principles. An important caveat on my views is that the debate is about senior officer resignation in the U.S. armed forces. A distant observer might therefore miss some of the important nuances at play, but it is difficult not to conclude that the U.S. armed forces exercise significant political influence in their own right and collectively through the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They are certainly major cogs in the formidably complex machinery of both government and politics.

This paper argues that the effects of the food price crisis of 2007-08 put pressure on two variables that are of central importance to the Brazilian government: inflation and social inclusion. We describe how political institutions in Brazil in the past 25 years have given rise to a policy-making process where fiscal stability and social inclusion are the overarching priorities, irrespective of the party in power. In this scenario one would have expected that the food price crisis would have led to significant reactions by the government to safeguard those two central policy objectives. However, the reaction of the government and social groups was relatively subdued, compared to that in most other countries. We explain this apparent puzzle by showing that the negative impacts of the food price increases on consumers was partly counterbalanced by the benefits from agricultural production, given that Brazil is a major exporter of commodities. Also, before the crisis the country already possessed a series of programmes and mechanisms that offered social protection to the poor that could be easily and quickly adjusted. Brazil was therefore well-placed to deal with the impacts of the crisis.