Brazilian fourth power State: sub-imperialism as a national development project
Brazilian sub-imperialism; Fourth Power State; Guarantee of law and order; Dependent capitalism; Dependent state.
Based on the debates established from the Marxist theory of dependence on the particularities of dependent social formations, taking the codetermination between capital and the State as a primary assumption, we argue that the particular reproduction and accumulation of capital in dependent countries (belongings to the world economy) requires a particular modus operandi of the State that respects the dialectic between the internal and the external. In Brazil, Ruy Mauro Marini postulates about the Fourth Power State based on the necessity for the armed forces to remain in the Brazilian State even after the post-civil-military dictatorship redemocratization. We argue that, in addition to a need for the armed forces, the Fourth Power State is a requirement of the security-development binomial necessary for Brazilian sub-imperialism, which does not abandon this project even after the dictatorial period - a thesis corroborated by the use of the Guarantee of Law and Order by the Brazilian sub-imperialist State today.