Estruturas sociais do poder corporativo brasileiro: organizações, elites e política econômica

Abstract

Several studies have pointed to the emergence of new configurations of economic elite power in the early twenty-first century. After a long period marked by the dominance of liberal logic, successive financial crises reshaped elite positions and stimulated the reorganization of large corporations as strongholds of economic power, whether through the reconfiguration of structures or through the growing influence of finance over business models and their decision-making centers. This dissertation investigates the social structures of power by analyzing the social spaces of Brazilian economic elites through a Bourdieusian lens. Drawing on the concepts of field, habitus, and capital, it examines elite trajectories using prosopography methods and Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) to identify patterns, homologies, and cleavages that organize the social space of economic power in Brazil. The thesis is composed of three articles that explore distinct dimensions of elite action within the country’s largest economic organizations, using the list of the 100 companies with the highest gross revenues as an empirical reference. The overarching goal of the dissertation is to understand how the social structures of economic power are shaped by elite positions and by the disputes that arise over the legitimate definition of the top of the economic field. Each article contributes to this aim by examining, from different angles, the homologous relations between organizational spaces, forms of capital, and spheres of power. The first article analyzes the configuration of power among major business groups operating in Brazil. It highlightssymbolic disputes surrounding the competitive advantages of Brazilian capitalism, the various modes of state involvement, and the processes of financialization that shape firms’ political influence and generate distinct forms of capital that structure their positions in the economic field. The second article employs the concept of structural homology to examine the trajectories of Chairpersons and Chief Executive Officers of major corporations. The analysis identifies three fractions of the economic elite: one associated with state and political capital, characterized by high academic capital; a second linked to economic and entrepreneurial capital, often rooted in family dynasties; and a third composed of representatives of international capital, marked by professional and academic credentials acquired through international experience. These fractions illustrate ongoing struggles for control of strategic positions and for the definition of legitimate criteria of authority within the Brazilian economic field. The third article shows that the upper echelon of economic power is concentrated in banking conglomerates and demonstrates how their connections to the leadership of the National Monetary Council shape the social space of monetary power in Brazil. A comparison between 2011 (Dilma Rousseff’s administration) and 2022 (Jair Bolsonaro’s administration) reveals that, despite divergent economic policy orientations, there remains a relatively rigid structure of competition among bureaucratic technocrats, financial elites, and economists, whose authority is legitimized both scientifically and politically. Nonetheless, the comparison suggests an increasing symbolic influence of financial protagonism, driven by regulatory pressures and transformations in contemporary financial markets.