A ministry of industry and commerce. Inclusive institutions and the creation of MIC, 1945-1961

Abstract

This paper conveys the results of an inquiry into the creation and first year of operation of the Brazilian Ministry of Industry and Commerce (MIC), the predecessor of the current Ministry of Development, Industry, Commerce, and Services (MDIC). We argue that the establishment of a specific high-level institution focused on industrial and commercial policies stemmed from the reopening of political channels after the 1945 democratization, which offered renewed connections between the productive sector and the political sphere, particularly the National Congress. It is a historical study built over primary sources, such as records of the processing of draft laws, newspapers from the time, and documents released by the 1945 and 1949 National Conferences of Productive Classes (Conclaps). We analysed the sources and articulated our explanation in the light of a historical institutionalist approach and the referred bibliography. In particular, we employed the notions of inclusive and extractive institutions, defined by Acemoglu and Robinson (2012).