Racism In Brazil

Social cultures, governmental structures, and institutional strength vary based on the country in question. Generalizations cannot be made about the world because each state has a unique and formative history, which lays a path on which the country tends to continue. In Hacker’s article, which explored health care systems around the world, he touched on the idea of path dependence. Once policies have been enacted, the state must oblige by them. He describes path dependence as implying that “seemingly small, even happenstance, changes at one point in time may have large eventual consequences through self reinforcing processes of societal response” (Hacker 77). His view of the importance of history stands above most other factors as an explanation

Brazil serves as an example to complicate the theory of the idea of historical significance in relation to political futures. He says that “if the historical record contradicts the thesis of early tolerance, Brazil’s later racial order was not so preordained. Instead, the past was reconceived into a benign image, unlike elsewhere… Brazil’s distinctiveness did not then rest upon less historical discrimination” (Marx 8). However, historical legacies in the United States and South Africa of institutionalized racism and official exclusion created legitimate systems of “difference” and undeniably led to deep social cleavages and cultural solidarities between racial groups (Marx 6). Because of Western Europe’s “white nationalist” idea, which in essence claimed that God created white people as a dominant group of people, societies did not change even after scientists affirmed race as having no scientific base (Marx 7). Perhaps this means that history matters, but it does not function as the only factor. It matters when it benefits the majority group, and offers a sustainable path of

In that way, history is of the utmost importance. The authors argue that becoming democratic is a process, and a certain sequence of events, including shifting from a traditional to a rational society, are essential in order for democratization to occur effectively (Inglehart and Welzel 5). As a country develops economically, a middle class emerges, life expectancies increase, education becomes more widespread, and highly educated groups of people become accustomed to thinking for themselves (Inglehart and Welzel 6). Modernization does not cancel out a country’s history; in fact, the authors note that “although the publics of industrializing societies are becoming richer and more educated, that is hardly creating a global culture. Cultural heritages are remarkably enduring” (Inglehart and Welzel 5). In a similar way of thinking to Hacker, Inglehart and Welzel accept that each state has had a unique experience on the world stage and internally; therefore, though history certainly lays the tracks for the train, it does not make derailment