The State as Naive Entrepreneur: The Political Economy of Export Promotion in Brazil and Tunisia

Export‐promotion strategies based on the success of the East Asian newly industrializing countries have been proffered in the 1990s to middle‐income countries in Latin America. Africa, and Asia. This article argues that far from untried, export‐promotion policies were attempted in Brazil and Tunisia in the 1960s and 1970s, with only limited long‐term success. The problem of export promotion in these two countries are attributed to the lack of strategic export policies, the political costs of changing policy in a more effective direction, and the reliance on a few products and markets.