A cultura política e a construção do conceito de igualdade no Estado Novo

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the construction of the concept of equality in Brazil during the Estado Novo. In Western political thought, from antiquity to the nineteenth century, we find innumerable distinct ways of grasping the meaning of the concept of equality. In Brazil, in the middle of the modernization process of the 20s and 40s, the polysemy of the concept became evident when authors of the most varied political spectra demanded different ways of conceiving it. The rejection of political thought identified as liberal, characteristic of the period, motivates the refusal of political representation mediated by the universal suffrage that instituted political equality among citizens. In the period of Estado Novo the government made a great effort to spread its ideology through the press and propaganda. At the heart of this system was the Department of Press and Propaganda (DIP) responsible for the edition of the magazine Cultura Política. The publication was edited with the collaboration of personalities, who were among the great names of the Brazilian intelligentsia at the time, and many members of the state bureaucracy. Cultura Política has played a central role in the ideological machine of the regime, and so the examination of its articles provides important clues for understanding a particular view of equality. This analysis is based on the hypothesis that the incorporation of liberal political equality was incompatible with the principles of the new regime and therefore it was necessary to give a new meaning to the concept in order to assume an authoritarian government with a democratic dress. The research on equality seeks to broaden the understanding of a part of the trajectory of this political concept in Brazil, in addition to other works inscribed in the fields of political science, sociology and history that sought to explain how the ideologues of the Estado Novo reinterpreted concepts in order to legitimize their political project for the country.