There are many “isms” of national politics. Directly or indirectly, they influenced the development of a national political space, now aborting its birth, now giving it a more private than public character, properly said. Coronelismo, bossiness, patriarchy, personalism, clientelism and even populism (although this arises in republican Brazil and in a way incisive in the Vargas period) are some of the “isms” that have been present in the history of the country's political organization, serving the elites as mechanisms for co-opting, coercing, and legitimizing their power, that is, as an instrument for their access to and maintenance of the command of the State.
They were largely responsible for the deformation that the Brazilian political space would suffer as a result of not only the alteration of the democratic molds of the right to choose (of voting), but also due to the absence of ideologies that aimed at the good public. They represented the manipulation of the electorate, making the people a “mass to maneuver” through the restriction and conduction of public opinion by the political class, which was given through the expansion and perpetuation of the means of economic dependence of a socially and politically excluded class, which at the same time abdicated the active participation of the policy.
The lack of interest or commitment shown by the less affluent majority was motivated by factors such as a taste for private organization, for confinement in its rural universe, as well as the feeling of needlessness of the State, since it was believed that the large latifundium was a structure self-sufficient. On the other hand, it must be considered that, no matter how much interest or engagement shown by the poorest, several established factors served to mark their exclusion. An example of this were the restrictions on the right to vote for literacy or not, for social status (slaves were excluded), by sex (women did not vote), as well as by the amount of dowries (riches). Thus, this would be the context that would foster the idea that politics itself would be a “thing” for the elites, and not for the population as a whole. The family, the rural context of agrarian production in Brazil, the very personal relationships and the private order, in general, would influence the direction of Brazilian society, not remaining within the limits of large property, but reaching the offices and constituent assemblies, reaching the State.
One of the “isms” would be called patriarchy. Within that maxim that the latifundium was sufficient by itself, being self-sufficient, it can be said that a kind of small Republic was established and the figure of the patriarch emerged as the head bigger. All households and slaves who were circumscribed in a certain property, as well as all other individuals in the family (such as the children) owed obedience to this landlord, and his authority was legitimized by the range of factors arising from the attachment to the values of the taste for privatism, for respect for his figure as the head of the family and, in the case of non-family members, for dependence economic.
The land and slave master was the one who centralized all power, not only within his property, but sometimes throughout the entire locality, and his will was the will of all, his orders were obeyed by all, going beyond the farm's fences, demonstrating, in such a way, what is seen as subordination. folks. This was how patriarchalism was characterized, which in the figure of the patriarch and head of the family, personified the law and rule, and at the same time he protected the lives of his households, employees, slaves, in short, his family. Even individuals who provided important services to the farm, such as the flow of production, were also influenced by this power, not so much for the more characteristic dependencies of other cases, but for the exchange of favors that existed between these and the lords of Earth. The form of domain reproduced itself in the form of favor. This relationship would later be taken to electoral control, since the “loyalty” to the patriarch would have to be expressed in the support of his candidates or his own candidacy. To vote against was to show oneself against this moral association that was proposed by the landlord, the patriarch.
Paulo Silvino Ribeiro
Brazil School Collaborator
Bachelor in Social Sciences from UNICAMP - State University of Campinas
Master in Sociology from UNESP - São Paulo State University "Júlio de Mesquita Filho"
Doctoral Student in Sociology at UNICAMP - State University of Campinas
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/sociologia/os-ismos-politica-nacional-patriarcalismo.htm
