Employment and Development Under Globalization

Globalization has changed the models of development that are open to most states both in the industrialized and less industrialized world. Using the unusual case of Brazilian barbers, beauticians, hotels and restaurants, Samuel Cohn lays out a model of the role of the state and development that is an alternative to more highly visible formulas associated with East Asia. By identifying a number of unjustly ignored government initiatives that substantially increase employment and significantly reduce poverty, he provides a third alternative to the development strategies being put forward by traditional and critical development scholars. The programs for achieving this are cheap, uncontroversial and can be effectively implemented even by governments with fiscal crises and weak administrative capacity. Yet the result is development that reduces social inequality, relieves poverty and insures the more equitable division of well-being.

SAMUEL COHN Professor of Sociology at Texas A and M University, USA.