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Under what conditions can central governments control or reverse processes of decentralization? Why do some central governments actually push for certain decentralizing moves, when it would seem this concedes power to subnational governments? In this paper I explore developments in intergovernmental relations in Brazil and South Africa since 1994. I conclude that processes of decentralization over the last decade have not always enhanced, but have sometimes actually reduced the autonomy of subnational governments. In both cases, central governments have increasingly worked through bureaucratic channels to earmark the money that flows to the states (estados) and provinces. Central governments in both countries have also recently placed restrictions on the ability of states and provinces to borrow money. The comparison shows that similar changes in intergovernmental relations can occur across countries with different histories and institutions. In limiting or reducing subnational autonomy, strong presidential leverage within governing coalitions was crucial; this leverage can be wielded either in the legislative arena, or within the executive. At the same time, variations across the cases point to an additional causal factor affecting the outcomes in these countries: economic crisis. The Brazilian president’s successful reckoning with a generalized economic crisis gave him leverage that South Africa’s president did not have, and this enabled the more dynamic set of (re)centralizing changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political scientists have paid little attention to the politics of epidemics. This article begins to fill this gap by taking up the question of why some states have responded to the HIV/AIDS epidemic more aggressively than others, conceptualizing AIDS responses as a form of state-building. We attempt to answer the general question by comparing two countries, Brazil and South Africa, in which we might have expected similar state responses but in which we in fact observe substantially different policy trajectories. Our method of structured comparison tests for covariance between policy outcomes and political causes, and it identifies intermediate and logically plausible steps between cause and effect. We present evidence that Brazil?s response was more aggressive than South Africa?s with respect to bureaucratic development, and was much more aggressive with respect to both the prevention of HIV and the treatment of persons with HIV and/or AIDS. We argue that two factors explain the divergent responses: institutions established more space for policy entrepreneurship in Brazil, and the scope of the national political community, especially as it facilitated a racial interpretation of the virus, hindered the state response more in South Africa. We examine and reject several rival hypotheses that might explain the largely divergent response in the two countries: the nature and timing of the democratic transition, who was infected and when, the relative strength of civil society, the quality of leadership, general state capacity, and international linkages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]