The decade of the 1990s was marked by a global movement for State Reform, primarily in developing countries. In this process, guidelines provided by multi-lateral agencies made themselves felt. A set of liberalizing reforms transferred sectors that had previously been in state hands to private ones. Among these sectors, we give particular salience to the case of energy infra-structure. The electrical sector in Brazil, Argentina and Mexico was consolidated after the Second World War and linked primarily to the State. In the decade of the 1990s, in these three countries, the sector underwent privatizing transformations. The background economic and political plan was very similar in both countries, economic and político-institutional particularities notwithstanding. The hyper-inflation crisis of the 1980s and strong pressures coming from multi-lateral organisms for the realization of market-oriented reforms (privatization and flexibilization, among others) led to changes in the electrical sector in both countries. In this paper, we take a historical, structural and strategic approach. We analyze reforms in the Brazilian electrical sector in connection with those that took place in Argentina and Mexico. We conclude defining the major differences and similarities between the liberalizing policies of the electric sector in Brazil, Argentina and México, specifying the major features of these variations, emphasizing the lack of historical uniqueness in strategic choices and the way development strategies emerge from the conflict between the diverse polítical forces that are present and in action within a particular space (the State) with its national and international variations.
State reform; market; electrical sector restructuring; privatization
