Brazilian Political Science Review

8-33

Authors: Adriano Codato

This article describes the legislative process of the Administrative Department of the state of São Paulo (DAESP) during the Estado Novo dictatorship and seeks to answer three questions: i) what were its real attributions? ii) what was its place among the state-level government agencies? iii) what was its role in the dictatorial regime’s public decision-making structure? Ordering and interpreting information on the DAESP’s deliberative process will allow us to establish whether or not it exercised power (understood as the capacity by those who controlled it to impose their preferences), what was the magnitude of this power, what type of power was exercised, over what and whom. The frequency of its meetings, the coordination of the agendas of the dictatorial State’s apparatuses involved in the decision chain, the activism of each councillor of DAESP and a sample of the legal opinions produced by it between 1939-1947 were all analysed. The findings can be summarised into three propositions: i) DAESP was not a decision-making arena per se as it did not make important decisions, but instead produced a huge amount of decisions regarding the formal aspects of the decree-laws issued by the Interventoria Federal (appointed governors); ii) therefore, the president of the DAESP did not have greater political or bureaucratic power than the interventor, and iii) although the Department mimicked some legislative routines, it cannot be considered a substitute of the state legislature.

58-79

Authors: Daniel de Mendonça

This article is a reflection on normativity in the field of political theory, with the ontological dimension found in Ernesto Laclau’s discourse theory as a presupposition. We base ourselves on the premise that, as a political theorist (rather than a political philosopher), Laclau has developed a political theory with great analytical applicability, which is also significantly useful for thinking about the role and limits of political normativity. We sustain that the normative, widely understood as a set of precepts or politically desirable situations, has a limited place in the area of discourse theory. In order to carry out our proposal, this paper is divided into five parts. Firstly, we deal with the post-foundationalist position found in Laclau’s thought. Following that, we present him as a political theorist. We then analyse the notions of ideology and discourse, central to the political ontology present in discourse theory. Following that, we discuss antagonism and dislocation, categories used to explain the incompleteness of social meanings, according to Laclau. Lastly, in the light of the ontological presuppositions presented, we seek to establish the possibilities and limits of political normativity, bearing in mind the discourse theory developed by him.

109-126

Authors: Álvaro de Vita

In Elements of a Critical Theory of Justice, the Uruguayan political philosopher Gustavo Pereira (2013a) does an admirable job of combining, in an original theoretical formulation, contributions for reflection on the nature of justice in a democratic society, deriving from two distinct traditions of contemporary political philosophy. One tradition is the “Critical Theory” of society, as expressed in writings by the contemporary heirs of the Frankfurt School, especially Jürgen Habermas, Karl-Otto Apel and Axel Honneth. Let me call the other tradition “post-Rawls theories of justice”. At least for the aims of the present article, this latter broad category can include the theoretical formulations of authors who have significant differences with Rawls, such as G. A. Cohen, Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. The idea is to propose a “critical theory of justice” or, we might say, a conception of “critical social justice.” The basic elements of this conception are extracted from theoretical perspectives that belong to these two traditions and are then articulated “in a new and systematized fashion, in such a way that the new theory can overcome the shortcomings of the original theories and express a higher commitment to application” (PEREIRA, 2013a, p. 05). The intellectual ambition of this effort can hardly be underestimated. Regardless of how one appraises the success of this project by judging it according to its most ambitious aspirations, the discussion developed by Pereira to specify the “elements” of his conception of critical social justice makes this book highly relevant for students of normative political theory, especially those concerned with social justice issues.