Abstract
This article aimed at studying the reception of Edmund Burke's thought in the Brazilian nineteenth-century political debate. The presented evidence intends to reveal the varied and intelligent way Brazilian readers considered Burkean arguments, taking into account their particular political agenda and the differences between Brazilian and British societies. The semantic density of the conservatism concept is seen: there was not only a single and coherent conservatism, there were many ones: enlightened absolutism, State conservatism, cultural conservatism, and tactical conservative liberalism. Finally, the article reflects on the problematic nature of conservative ideology in a peripheral country, which is seen by its politicians as backward and in need of modernization. Therefore, the hegemonic Brazilian conservatism tended to assume typical contours of orderly modernizing ideologies that combine constitutionalism and authoritarianism.
Keywords:
Burke; Political Theory; History of Concepts; Brazilian Political Thought; Brazilian Social Thought; Conservatism