Dados is one of the most widely-read social sciences journals in Latin America. Created in 1966, it publishes innovative works, originating from academic research, by Brazilian and foreign authors. Edited by IESP-UERJ, it aims to reconcile scientific rigor and academic excellence with an emphasis on public debate based on the analysis of substantive issues of society and politics.
Dados vol. 59 n. 3 Rio de Janeiro jul./set. 2016
Abstract
ABSTRACT This article explores the premise of a strict contrast between “utopian” and “organic idealists” among authors who, despite significant analytical and generational differences, are aligned along one of the most prominent canons of Brazilian political thought: Oliveira Vianna, Guerreiro Ramos and Wanderley Guilherme dos Santos. Instead of a rigid dualism, we suggest important affinities between the utopian and organic strands. Sensitive to the subject of political representation, we approach the two intellectual universes in question based on the works of liberals José de Alencar, Assis Brasil and Gilberto Amado, on the one hand, and the authoritarian Alberto Torres and Oliveira Vianna, on the other. In our opinion, the two groups of authors overlap in their diagnosis of the national sociological condition (both clan-like and parental) and also in their imagination of the future (in tune with the expectations of national unity and the State’s political leadership). The unwarranted contrast between the groups is fundamentally based on the different actors and strategies for state involvement: among liberals, parliament fosters a desirable conflict between parties disputing matters of public interest, while among authoritarians, the State’s role is that of a privileged cognoscente, in the form of the governor, whose role it is to imprint unity on the social and political scenes.
Keywords: instrumental authoritarianism, Brazilian liberalism, First Republic, Oliveira Vianna, Assis Brasil
Authoritarian and Liberal Realisms: Features of the Imagination on Political Representation at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
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