Invention et (dé)stabilisation d’un espace politique singulier: Brasilia un demi-siècle après la fondation

Abstract

Resume The instability of political life in the Federal District is a curious research problem from a scientific standpoint. This article attempts to unveil the paradoxes underlying the difficulty of stabilizing this space of relations and competences. In so doing, it looks into the processes that led, in the mid-1980s, to the specialization of a political sphere peculiar to Brasilia and to its rapid but low-key institutionalization. The invention of a local political space appears as a process deeply marked by the specificities of the territorial problematic specific to the Brazilian urban configuration. The author’s point of departure is the hypothesis that, in spite of its institutionalized rules and agencies, the political space of the Federal District tends to produce a more flexible structure than the political spaces found in the other units of the Brazilian federation.