US Power and the Social State in Brazil：Legal Modernization in the Global South

The book analyzes the elite-led efforts to transform the Brazilian legal order in the period between 1930-1975 and how US Power played a major role in such a process. Besides the global circulation of ideas and institutions, the book discusses the Brazilian institutional development in the period. A profound "Crisis of Civilization" marked the first decades of the century: the references of space and time vanished with the vertiginous expansion of cities and industries, while a myriad of immigrants and former slaves were alleged to be threatening the country's traditions.

Brazilian elites blamed liberalism for such a "Crisis". Based on a decade of research, this book centralizes Brazilian history in liberalism and offers a genealogy of the jurisprudential and institutional struggles to correct the culture of laissez-faire. Using archival sources, it shows the direct US influence on Brazilian thought and development.

Recasting the history of legal ideas in the twentieth-century and providing novel interpretations on major political processes, it offers a rigorous and fresh look at the development of liberalism in the country. Covering five decades of history and offering a transnational approach involving the U.S. hegemonic role in Brazil, this book will be of interest to scholars and students of law, US foreign policy, area studies and international relations.