The olive-green leviathan: the state centralization of the military regime and its impact on the electricity sector of Espírito Santo

Abstract

In this paper, we explore the influences of the military regime on the expansion of the Espírito Santo electrical system. It was carried out based on doctoral investigations in social sciences by PUC-Rio, it centrally considers the weight of the dictatorial national state (1964-1985) in politics and regional economic development, the regional elites played an important strategic role in the planning, negotiations, and implementation of industrialization in the state of Espírito Santo. It seems to us that national industrial development, regional political forces and electricity seem to reveal dimensions that take their final form under the coordination of the dictatorial developmentalist national state, impacting in a characteristic way the dynamics in a federative environment, with deep regional inequalities. A situation that historically shows to have benefited the co-option of political groups from the less developed regions of the federation, such as Espírito Santo, to design a set of actions for national economic policies.