Liberalismo, direito e dominação da burguesia agrária na Primeira República brasileira (1889-1930)

Abstract

The proclamation of the Republic in 1889 represented a great conquest bythe agro-export elite, whose political initiative had been suffocated by theexcessive centralism of the Empire. The Federal Constitution,promulgated two years later, became one of the principle instruments oftheir domination over Brazilian society. The federal system endowedregional oligarchs with enormous capacity to make policy decisions fulfilltheir interests, which implied the maintenance of certain productionpatterns. One of the principle consequences of this turn of events was thereaffirmation of the Brazilian economy’s “essentially agriculturalcharacter,” serving to complement the process of accumulation in theimperialist countries.