The three branches of government in Brazil have never truly been concerned with Brazilianness – Part I: Law, Formation, and Economy

Brazilianness in law can be understood as the development of legal norms that are genuinely aligned with the country’s concrete reality – laws capable of organizing order and guiding progress according to Brazil’s own historical, social, and regional conditions. It implies not merely adopting external models, but transforming them into something coherent with the lived reality of the nation.

Brazilian law, however, is not merely Brazilian – it is a mosaic of European influences: Portugal (historical origin), France (codification), Germany (theory and philosophy), Italy (criminal and procedural law), and, more recently, the United States (modern constitutionalism). In essence, it is a true patchwork of legal traditions.

The problem does not lie in the origin of these ideas, but in the selective and often inconsistent way in which they have been applied in practice.

Meanwhile, the United States – despite also being a relatively young country – developed a more cohesive and internally consistent legal system, based on common law, with strong reliance on precedent and greater interpretative stability.

Brazil, in turn, upon gaining independence, did not fully establish the legal and institutional foundations necessary to build a coherent and autonomous system of sovereignty. With the establishment of the Republic in 1889, it repeated a similar pattern: a new order was proclaimed without a sufficiently solid and widely legitimized legal framework – an order that, from its inception, already bore the marks of improvisation.

Brazil is not unique in being influenced by foreign models – this is common among many nations. The difference lies less in the number of influences and more in how they were incorporated. In the Brazilian case, these influences were often absorbed without full integration, contributing to structural inconsistencies over time.

This pattern extends beyond law, rooted in Brazil’s broader economic and social formation. During the coffee cycle, production depended on enslaved labor and a subordinate integration into global markets, with strong foreign participation – preventing the emergence of a fully autonomous national project. Far from disappearing, this dynamic persisted across generations and continues to shape the legal system today, producing a framework that is fragmented, often contradictory, and unevenly applied. The “patchwork” character of Brazilian law is therefore not incidental, but the direct outcome of this historical trajectory.

Industrialization, in turn, occurred relatively late and frequently relied on imported models, technologies, and capital goods. Unlike countries such as the United States or China, which, to varying degrees, internalized external influences to build domestic capabilities, Brazil often struggled to transform incorporation into sustained structural development – a factor that helps explain its ongoing difficulties in consolidating advanced industrial sectors.

The naval industry provides a clear example: periods of expansion followed by sharp contraction, with recurring loss of industrial capacity. A cycle of growth and collapse that has hindered long-term consolidation.

At the same time, the construction of Brazilian society involved intense processes of immigration and cultural adaptation, often directed from above, without fully valuing long-established local populations – for example, in the Northeast. In many historical moments, locally rooted elements were subordinated to external references, contributing to persistent regional and social inequalities. This will be addressed in Part II.

Law, industry, and social formation in Brazil were not the result of strategic planning, but of continuous improvisation – a form of managerial activism without a clear leadership vision. Even today, Brazil depends on foreign professionals when it comes to investing in the construction of systems and technologies that involve advanced knowledge, because it never empowered its own population with the corresponding level of education. A significant share of the Brazilian population – often estimated at over half – survives on around two minimum wages per month, reflecting structural limitations in income distribution and economic development. The government continues to keep a large portion of the population dependent on social assistance programs such as Bolsa Família, rather than fully leveraging this enormous human potential to drive and unfold Brazil’s own capabilities.

At the same time, the elites across the three branches of the Brazilian state frequently earn incomes that can reach more than 200 times the minimum wage on which a large share of the population survives.

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