Who’s to blame for the Brazilian nuclear program never coming of age?
João Paulo Nicolini Gabriel & Dawisson Belém Lopes
What the paper says
Abstract The article examines Brazil’s attempt to establish a national nuclear industry during its military regime (1964–85), focusing on the 1975 nuclear agreement with West Germany. Based on extensive document analysis and interviews, this study reveals that despite the agreement’s goal of reducing dependence on US technology, it reinforced Brazil’s reliance on foreign sources and highlighted flaws in its Science and Technology strategy. The technocratic elite, or “nucleocracy,” prioritized rapid development over nurturing domestic research, sidelining academic and industrial stakeholders. The article employs the National Innovation Systems framework, particularly the triple helix model, to demonstrate how insufficient collaboration between academia, industry, and government hindered the establishment of a self-sufficient nuclear sector. The findings underscore that international scientific collaborations, while intended to foster technological autonomy, can paradoxically entrench dependence when domestic capacity-building is neglected.
2 citations
Evidence weight
Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40
| F · citation impact | 0.25 × 0.4 = 0.10 |
| M · momentum | 0.55 × 0.15 = 0.08 |
| V · venue signal | 0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03 |
| R · text relevance † | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.