Relações de poder e práticas políticas no município de Pereiro-CE

Abstract

The thesis analyzes power relations and political practices of local power elites in the municipality of Pereiro situated in the Jaguaribe Valley in the state of Ceará, between 1936 and 2012. It withdrew its main theoretical references from the works of Maria Isaura Pereira de Queiroz on “mandonismo local” (local despotism) and Victor Nunes Leal on “coronelismo” (political bosses). In addition, it surveyed recent studies by anthropologists, historians, political scientists and sociologists on the state of Ceará politics. From the review of theory and literature, it established a typology of local political power to guide qualitative field research. Through observations, and extended interviews, it described the exercise of municipal power and struggles for leadership between different factions of local political elites. It highlighted how mayors sustained different cycles of power through election. It also showed how changes and economic disruptions at the state and national levels replicated in the municipality, influenced the rise and fall of local elites. Based on these insights, it established that the municipality had gone through several political cycles. From its founding in 1842 until 1930, the first colonizers composed of farmers and officials of the National Guard ruled Pereiro. The 1930 revolution gave birth to a new ruling elite formed by a mixture of barristers, landowners and merchants. From 1936 to 1988, two political bosses representing two distinct extended local families alternated in power. However, national and state political democratic changes disrupted the oligarchic rule when it affected the traditional landownership system and forced transition to a business-based social relation. The conclusion made the case against the thesis of the survival of traditional politics. It argued that the “coronéis” lost prestige to new groups composed of liberal professionals and businesspersons. Consequently, new forms of economic domination and symbolic violence replaced violence and coercion that characterized traditional politics. Since then, money and economic influence replaced guns and bullets as the means of political domination in the state of Ceará.