Francisco Campos and the foundations of anti-liberal constitutionalism in Brazil

Abstract

The article analyzes the anti-liberal Constitutionalism of Francisco Campos (1891-1968), Minister of Justice during the Estado Novo, as the legal basis for that regime. The theory focuses on the political mobilization of a mass society, the design of a Caesarist and plebiscitarian dictatorship, and the shaping of institutions anchored in delegated legislation. The text highlights the author's distinction between liberalism and democracy and his sociology of the masses, which ascribes irrationality to the political sphere. To consider Campos a major artifice of the Estado Novo means to reject the conjectures that simplify the understanding of the Vargas government as authoritarian-populist.