The State latin american: theory and history

Abstract

The book by Leonardo Granato, coordinator of the Center for Studies in Politics, State and Capitalism in Latin America (NEPEC) at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), is a necessary and vital work for understanding one of the most neglected topics by Political Science produced in Brazil: the specificity of the State in dependent social formations. The great merit of the book is already evident in the composition and organization of its parts: a) the starting point, in the first chapter, is a competent exposition of the thought of classical liberal authors (Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and Hegel) and socialists (Marx , Engels, Lenin and Gramsci), as well as contemporary political thinkers (especially Althusser and Poulantzas) who approached the modern capitalist State in general, from a European perspective; b) in the following chapter, the critical fortune exposed previously is translated into the recovery of the theoretical debate on the nature and function of the dependent and peripheral State in Latin America.