Policy, planning and governance of regional development – quo vadis?

Abstract

Although it is early to evaluate the recent political and institutional changes that have taken place in Brazil, especially at the level of the State at federal level and the Federal Government, it does not seem risky to work with the hypothesis that obstacles that have already delayed approval and implementation of the National Development Policy Regional, PNDR II, elaborated from 2012, tend to increase and may ultimately lead to the abandonment of this policy. In these circumstances, the proposal advocated in this paper, the discussion on regional development policies could rescue the regional development agenda at other scales and through new institutional formats. Ultimately, this essay intends to present an argument that supports this perspective by four steps. First, a deeper understanding of the meaning of the apparent “impossibility” of creating a national regional policy will be developed. To support this analysis, the following discussion of politics, planning, government, and governance follows a particular conception of the (capitalist) state, coming from the articulation of three main authors, Poulantzas, Offe, and Jessop. In opting for an understanding close to Gramsci’s thoughts it becomes possible, in the next step, to understand the term governance critically. Finally, the article is devoted to a critical appreciation of the conditions to concretize this neo-Gramscian conception of governance. It concludes that the “feasibility” of governance that requires the “real” inclusion of underprivileged social forces may depend on the scale at which it is being pursued. It may be a promising path to think of a “dialectical overcoming” of local power to rescue regional agendas.