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Fernando Henrique Cardoso, president of Brazil from 1995 to 2002, was exiled from his homeland under the military government and won fame as a sociologist and creator of dependency theory before he entered politics. As finance minister under President Itamar Franco, he became the architect of the real plan which defeated Brazil's killing hyperinflation and rode to the presidency on the strength of that accomplishment.

As president he sought to implement market reforms domestically and to integrate Brazil to the emerging neoliberal global economy. But his successes were mixed: By the end of his term the real had been devalued by two thirds, the public debt had doubled as a percent of GNP, the country was strapped by financial conditions imposed by the International Monetary Fund, and economic growth was mediocre. He nevertheless won extravagant praise from many foreign observers.

The articles in this issue examine his achievements in office and find that they were as much a response to unforeseen circumstances as exercises of a planned program. Gabriel Ondetti shows that agrarian reform was a response to an upsurge of protest and land occupations, not an conscious attempt to redress rural poverty. Fiona Macaulay argues that the justice sector had low political priority, producing policies that were fragmentary and reactive, largely due to fiscal austerity.

The Cardoso administration essentially maintained the foreign policy of its predecessors. Gaspare Genna and Taeko Hiroi highlight Brazil's contribution to strengthening Mercosur, while Tullo Vigévani and Marcelo Fernandes de Oliveira argue that although Cardoso sought to integrate Brazil with the world economy in order to stimulate economic growth, that promise went largely unfulfilled. Domestic liberalization led to a fiscal crisis during Cardoso's term, according to Matias Vernengo, and the resulting external debt prevented any significant social expenses or improvement in income distribution.

The analyses by Jawdat Abu-el-Haj and Armando Boito make divergent claims about the ultimate beneficiaries of Cardoso's reforms, for Abu-el-Haj the national bourgeoisie, for Boito finance capital and international capital. Boito further argues that Lula's economic policy serves the same interests. The issue concludes with Geisa Maria Rocha's appreciation of the life and career of Celso Furtado, whose dedication to national integration and improvement in the quality of life for all Brazilians she contrasts with Cardoso's policies.

Taken as a whole, these articles show that Fernando Henrique Cardoso's policies brought financial disaster and failed to produce the economic growth that might have made possible the more equitable society to which he claimed to aspire.