Neoliberalismo e Ciência Política: contribuições teóricas sobre a crise da democracia

This article proposes a reflection, systematization, and orientation of a broad international literature on neoliberalism, aimed at working on its political concept and making its use more rigorous, delimited, andregulated in Political Science. With this objective in view, the article inscribes the concept in the historical tradition of liberalism, through an approach grounded in political philosophy. It follows a historical and contextual approach to structure a narrative of the political expansion process of neoliberalism, identifies the rise of neoliberalism as a legitimizing principle of the States and, finally, summarizes the relationship between the predominance of neoliberalism and the legal and constitutional changes in the liberal State. In conclusion, some theoretical contributions that this political concept of neoliberalism can offer for contemporary reflection on the deadlocks of democracy are introduced.