The article, based on a prosopographic analysis of a small group, describes the emergence of a new political type during the period of the Brazilian Estado Novo (New State), and how it is not associated with the professionalization of the public bureaucracy, but with the way the profile and political hierarchy of the governing classes are redefined. The author examines the political itineraries and social characteristics of the political class that took on the task of managing the state of Sao Paulo in the aftermath of the 1930 Revolution, as well as the failed revolution of 1932 and the advent of the 1937 dictatorship. He discusses the rise of a group having a more technical and les traditional conformation, with juridical knowledge as its prime social resource, and how this leads to a sort of "Republic of Lawyers" which comes to replace the old "Republic of oligarchs". Finally, the article proposes an interpretation of the three dimensions through which the shift in the Sao Paulo state political class is manifested during the 1930's and 1940's: social, professional, and symbolic.
Political class; Lawyers; Estado Novo; Getúlio Vargas; Sao Paulo
