Bourgeois state and nature of planning in the Northeast

Abstract

Examining the case of the Northeast, this work seeks to discuss more profoundly
the nature of the modem State in Brazil and the political sense of planning which envelops
its actions. It proceeds from the principle that the question of the “Two Brazils” – which
while no longer a polemical point in purely economic analysis – continues as a controversial
element in the treatment of the national political question, especially with regard to
the Brazilian State. Thus, the idea that the formation of the bourgeoise State in Brazil came
about through an ambiguous coexistence with an oligarchic, conservative, and anti-industrial
State is a tradition that serves merely to confuse our understanding of the particularities
of the constitution of the modem State, social classes, and regional social movements.
Therefore, the recovery of the idea of unity in the study of the formation of the State appears
as a suggestive approach for rediscussing primordial aspects of the national and regional political question and for understanding certain basic elements of the capitalist transformations
which, as evidenced in the Northeast since the end of last century, have assumed sharper
contours during recent decades.

JEL Classification: O15.