Until the appearance of Victor Nunes Leal’s Coronelismo, Enxada e Voto: O Município e o Regime Representativo no Brasil in 1949, this uniquely Brazilian system of one-man political rule had been dismissed as a subject unworthy of scholarly investigation. Due to the pathbreaking nature of the work it has since been heralded a classic and is now finally available in English. A coronel was a political boss who skillfully transformed the socioeconomic dependency of the masses into electoral and political power. As a predominantly political institution, not always rurally based, coronelismo reached its apogee during the First Republic (1889-1930) and functioned as a parallel and often hostile government that rivaled the power of the state. Its inception dates from colonial times and its influence still Ungers in some parts of the Brazil of the 1970s.
Aside from being the pioneer on the subject, Leal contributes to the study his incisive analysis of the legal-administrative aspect of coronelismo, that is, the relationship between the município and its higher authorities. But this is only a part of the whole. As a local and at times regional institution, coronelismo cannot be studied in a national and legalistic context alone. Its truer hues are better observed in local and even personal settings. Thus, several points that Leal raised in 1949 have become anachronistic: that coronelismo was basically a rural phenomenon (p. 136), that it was a “pro-government political system” (p. 138), and that a coronel was a loyal pawn of a dominant political party (p. 138).
The research accomplished since Leal’s study has demonstrated that coronelismo exhibited contrasting regional variations; that the influence of some coronéis extended beyond the confines of a single município; and that coronéis in the northeast, for instance, often sought to challenge the state government and some even succeeded in overthrowing it, while still others superseded it and dealt directly with federal presidents. Leal’s coronelismo on the other hand is more representative of a south-central variety such as would be found in Minas Gerais.
It is unfortunate that this book, appearing three decades after the original, fails to include an introductory update of the more recent research findings. Furthermore, the English text is marred by some historical inaccuracies as well as careless translation.
