The concept of the political in Roots of Brazil

Abstract

This article approaches changes to Roots of Brazil, the classic essay by Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, from the perspective of its critical dialogue with the work of German jurist Carl Schmitt, especially with The Concept of the Political. It argues that, in its first edition (1936), the book adopts Schmitt’s premise of a link between anthropology and political doctrine while affirming that Brazil is a peculiar case in which the Schmittian politics of friend vs. enemy does not hold due to the cordial pattern of national character. From the second edition (1948) onward, cordiality is redefined by Buarque de Holanda as both amity and enmity, whereby that exceptionalism no longer applies, and social antagonism can generate progressive politics. In the history of Roots of Brazil, cordial identity and progressive history are successive and incompatible emphases.