The national policy for regional development under the institutionalist perspective: from the top down policies to the governance premises

Abstract

The aim of the text is to show the evolution of regional and territorial policies in Brazil under the institutionalist perspective, exposing the recommendations this particular view has for regional development and to which point they were included in the National Policy for Regional Development (NPRD). For this, regional planning backgrounds are shown, from the top down practices of the Keynesian years to its crisis in the 1980s; the institutionalist perspective of the regional development and a critic of its neoliberal branch, just as its recommendations regarding the NPRD. The text concludes that, for this particular perspective, elements of cohesion, cooperation and governance are essential to any regional policy, without falling into the localisms that ignore the general economic challenges.