Modernização do atraso: a hegemonia burguesa do CIC e as alianças eleitorais da "Era Tasso"

Abstract

The “Tasso Era” shapes up a unique moment within the political history of the State of Ceara, and one’s understanding of this social phenomenon will also help with an analysis of Brazil today. This work aims at grasping a particular political aspect in this federative state, encompassing late decades, and taking into account the “Tasso Era” as a new cycle of bourgeois hegemony: a historical detailed aspect of politics in the state that anticipates the neoliberal hegemony in Brazil. Leaning on Gramsci, the author approaches that bourgeois hegemonic cycle, considering its “methodological criterion”, to uncover the actual situation in the state as seen in late decades: an experimental period of economic and political modernization, supported by politics of a conservative nature, that gives bodily form to a historical epoch, namely, a conflicting convergence within Brazilian democratic process in the 80’s leading to the country’s insertion in the world of capital dominance seen in the following decades. Starting from a redefining of Gramsci’s theory of Hegemony and his categories of “hegemony”, “passive revolution”, “transformism” and “State”, the author develops a reflection about politics highlighting, not in an exclusive way, its instances of political processes, which allows one to configure the “Tasso Era” as a political, cultural and economic hegemonic cycle of major electoral force. Electoral alliances that were established by CIC’s entrepreneurial elite and give support to the “Tasso Era” are, therefore, the leading thread for this work. By means of research of documents and newspapers, the several electoral campaigns of the hegemonic cycle (1986, 1990, 1994 and 1998) are presented by the author, and the inner workings of alliances, the political-party behavior of representatives associated with the entrepreneurial elite and the resisting force of state political family groups were captured. It remains evident that the new elite is trying hard to present itself as a political option not only to backward sectors of the political spectrum but also to left-wing parties and social movements that once opposed it, thus consolidating its strength on growing supporting from oligarchic sectors that derive their power from local political tradition. The author analyses classical works, such as Faoro and Leal, as well as contemporary studies that have approached this general aspect of the political Brazilian reality. Therefore, the “Tasso Era” presents itself as a new hegemonic cycle that shaped itself from a “change from above” and renewed the political process in the state of Ceara and at the same time reestablished several elements of traditional politics: a new hegemonic cycle that promoted a reshape of forces within the dominant classes at a time of huge social mobilization.