coronelism of Victor Nunes Leal and the conservative modernization

Abstract

The Brazilian State has, in its formation, peculiar characteristics that somehow can still be detected. Among them, there is patrimonialism, i.e., the disregard for the separation between public and private. In spite of the current understanding that this form of State was superseded with Getúlio Vargas, this paper proposes an understanding that signs of patrimonialism persist and can be related to the category of conservative modernization. One of the celebrated works of the Brazilian sociopolitical thought that concerns patrimonialism is Coronelismo, enxada e voto: o município e o regime representativo no Brasil, by Victor Nunes Leal. By this book, there could be further investigation on how it is possible to apprehend the process of conservative modernization. The methodology was literature review, reaching, at the end, the understanding that Leal’s work is revealing in the way Brazil was modernized and how the State was consolidated.