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This text examines efforts to make Brazil's economy more competitive, its politics more democratic and its social structure more equitable. It also considers the implications of Brazil's reform process for the future of bilateral relations between Brazil and the United States.

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CHOICE Review

Four establishment figures, three affiliated with the Council on Foreign Relations, evaluate the reformist administration of President Cardoso after his first two years in office. Editor Roett begins with a primer on Brazilian politics, arguing that the 1988 constitution, the weak and decentralized political parties, the congress, and the electoral system all militate against needed reforms. Although taxation, social security, and administrative reforms have barely proceeded, and privatization has moved slowly, Albert Fishlow praises Cardoso's educational policies and believes that Brazil is not in danger of repeating the Mexican crisis of 1994-95. Brazilian scholar Amaury de Souza admirably summarizes Brazil's staggering social problems, including a social security system that "tends to perpetuate rather than reduce social inequality." Editor Purcell concludes with an insightful essay on the recent trend toward more positive US-Brazil relations. Using the rational actor model, she indirectly illustrates how geoeconomics has supplanted geopolitics in the region. The burning issues today are not military alliances or democracy, but rather the respective advantages of different free trade agreements--principally MERCOSUR, NAFTA, and the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Recommended for upper-division and graduate classes and for scholars/practitioners. R. E. Hartwig; Texas A&M University-Kingsville