The Brazilian Bureaucracy: A Comparison with the BRIC Countries

Brazil, the fifth largest country in territorial extension, has been appointed as one of the countries with the greatest perspective of economic growth, the so-called BRICs: Brazil, Russia, India and China. However, Brazilian companies suffer with state inefficiency, a trait tracing back to the dysfunctions of the bureaucratic model of Weber that hampers competitiveness. This paper analyzes, in light of the bureaucratic and institutional theories, the behavior of the BRICs, regarding the World Bank report indexes on quality of bureaucracy and institutional effectiveness. This is an exploratory, qualitative and descriptive research, based on secondary data, such as the World Bank indicators and the annual reports of the Center for the Study of Foreign Trade Foundation and the Industry Federation of Sao Paulo. Results show that the four BRICs still have a high degree of bureaucracy and that Brazil is in a better position in the ranking only compared to India.