ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses many of the obstacles and the ways in which they affected economic policy during the past three decades. It focuses on the Argentine plans under Alfonsin and Menem to further clarify the analysis of the Brazilian case. The failure of the Cruzado Plan, following the euphoria it had raised, combined with the widespread blame placed on President Sarney and the politicians of the government's Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), had vast repercussions. The adoption of reform plans arising from events during the period between the 1989 presidential elections and the inauguration in 1990 faced serious sociopolitical obstacles. The euphoria of the Cruzado Plan was never repeated, and frustration in the interim with three other failed plans influenced Collor's plan and its implementation. In Argentina, crucial policies and events occurred during the Radical Party government of Raul Alfonsin—the first president following redemocratization—and the Peronist Party government of Carlos Menem.
