The article deals with the federative relations under the Brazilian authoritarian regime, settled in 1964 by a military coup d'État. Federative relations are studied in diferent phases of the authoritarian period: the first and hardest one which remains untill 1973; the liberalization phase , from 1974 to 1982; and the decadent phase of the military rule , from 1983 untill the beginning of 1985. The article underlines the different features of federative relations (economical, electoral and military). The article also debates usual interpretations of Brazilian federative relations which consider authoritarism the concentration of power in central government and democracy the increased authonomy of the federative states.
Brazil; federation; military forces; authoritarism; democratization; State; crisis; political transition; development