A cidade imaginada: a elite empresarial carioca e a construção de projeto para a cidade do Rio de Janeiro nos anos 1990

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to investigate the influence of the local business elite over the political alternatives for Rio de Janeiro city in the 1990`s. It is extremely important to understand the role of the carioca business elite in the process of creating a political project to Rio de Janeiro city, due to the fact that this elite is a key element to the projection of the city, since it exerts influence over the state and municipal Executive and Legislative powers. This research is also based on the fact that the municipal managers took into consideration the local businesses, with the intention of having them as partners, when the city's political project was idealized. This way, our research aims at analyzing the ideological and political aspects which lie behind such partnerships. This influence presented itself in different forms throughout the process: projects which were led by carioca enterpreneurs, positions in the Executive power and the creation of local business counselling committes responsible for dealing with some specific problems of the city.