Abstract
Under the administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the Brazilian state has advocated the use of Free/Livre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) throughout the public sector. How did FLOSS adoption gain traction as a developmental strategy across a large federal bureaucracy that had embraced information technology policies supporting export-oriented growth and market liberalization during the 1990s? In a historical case study, I argue that the FLOSS agenda emerged as a result of the actions of a network of insurgent experts working within elite political, technical, and educational institutions. I trace the history of this mobilization and show how a dedicated network of experts brought about conditions for institutional transformation that contradicted prevailing neoliberal policy proscriptions. The Brazilian FLOSS insurgency offers insights into the means by which a group of elites endeavored to reframe debates about technology-driven economic growth around questions of state-led access to source code and knowledge.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 253-272 |
| Number of pages | 20 |
| Journal | Journal of Information Technology and Politics |
| Volume | 8 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jul 2011 |
Funding
The author would like to thank João Cassino, Marcelo Branco, Mario Teza, and especially Sérgio Amadeu da Silveira and Bianca Santana for their kindness and hospitality. Thanks also to Professors Peter Evans, Marion Fourcade, Laura Enríquez, and Ananya Roy, as well as to Christina Knight, Abigail Andrews, Rafael Evangelista, Johan Söderberg, the anonymous JITP reviewers, and the attendees of the JITP 2010 “Politics of Open Source Conference” for their thoughtful comments, feedback, and encouragement. This research was supported the UC Berkeley Department of Sociology, The Andrew W. Mellon Summer Fellowship for Latin American Sociology, the Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship, and the University of California Office of the President Labor and Employment Research Fund. Unless noted, all translations of interviews, quotations, and texts from Portuguese are by the author.
Keywords
- Brazil
- Expertise
- Free and open source software
- Politics
- Technology
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Computer Science
- Sociology and Political Science
- Public Administration
