This paper analyzes the contradictory impact of democratization on the Brazilian state. The return of democracy initially reinforced the efforts of clientelist politicians and "special interest" groups to win influence inside the state. Yet the resulting corrosion of state autonomy and capacity exacerbated Brazil's severe economic problems, which discredited established elites. In this crisis situation, democratic elections produced a renovation in political leadership and allowed determined

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... ormers-first Fernando Collor, then Fernando Henrique Cardoso--to win office and try to rebuild the state, for instance through tax reform. Under democracy, the initial deterioration of state capacity thus triggered efforts to jump-start economic development and strengthen the state. How does a country's transition to democracy affect its state? This question is of great importance, 1 given the crucial role that the state has played in the economic, social, and political development of most countries affected by the "third wave" of democratization. Yet this topic has received insufficient scholarly attention. In fact, definitional assumptions may make this question appear as 2 a non-issue: Because the state is regarded as more permanent than a political regime, which can change with disturbing frequency, democratic transitions are often assumed to leave the state unchanged. Latin America's "politicized states" (Chalmers 1977; Power 1991), however, lack institutional stability. Given the fluidity of state structures in the region, democratization may have a profound effect upon the state: It may help institutionalize the state and turn it more autonomous from established social forces, or by contrast, it may further corrode the internal unity and undermine the strength of the state. Since the state has assumed an enormously wide range of responsibilities in Brazil, this country constitutes an especially good case for analysis. 3 At the outset, a clarification of key concepts is in order. Following Weber (1976: 29), I define the state as the territorially based institution that "successfully claims the monopoly of legitimate physical coercion for the execution of its orders". The core of the state--and the focus of the following analysis--is the complex bureaucratic apparatus dedicated to administration, coercion, and fiscal extraction. To the extent that the state "formulate[s] and pursue[s] goals that are not simply reflective of the demands or interests of social groups, classes, or society" (Skocpol 1985: 9), state autonomy prevails. State capacity, in turn, denotes the state's ability to attain these goals and implement its decisions; the more institutionalized state structures are, the more the state can sustain this ability. Finally, state strength is the combination of state autonomy and state capacity. 4