This essay tries to understand to what extent the Brazilian political and social thought, while questioning possibilities of setting up a Brazilian civilization, has left some topics to consider a democracy in Brazil. These topics were derived from different kinds of interpretations about the country, sustained in dualities such as tradition and rupture, iberianism and americanism, centralization and decentralization, State control and social autonomy. In order to link these subjects to understand the characteristics of a democratic thinking, we have analyzed the works written from the Empire to Republic by Visconde do Uruguai, Tavares Bastos, Euclides da Cunha, Sérgio Buarque de Holanda and Gilberto Freyre. Futhermore, we have remarked how political science and sociological analysis advocated a demiurgical action of the State on society and developed a sort of understanding about sociability.
Brazilian Social Thought; Brazilian Political Thought; Brazilian Civilization; Democracy; Liberalism