Advanced Institute of Brazilian Studies (ISEB)

Created by Decree 37608 on 14 July 1955, the ISEB was devoted to the study of Brazilian development problems. Part of the Ministry of Education and Culture, ISEB had its roots in the private Brazilian Institute of Economics, Sociology, and Politics (IBESP). The ISEB was designed as a vehicle through which leading academics could address issues of development and industrialization by pursuing research and providing training courses to Brazilian government officials. From its beginning at the start of the Juscelino Kubitschek presidency, the ISEB supported the nationalist-developmentalist policies of the administration. The ISEB included among its scholars Hélio Jaguaribe, Cândido Mendes de Almeida, Roberto Campos, Nélson Werneck Sodré, and Roland Corbisier. Plagued by internal divisions and political disputes, the ISEB was reorganized in 1959 and many of its members resigned. The institute became increasingly nationalistic in its views on development and foreign investment, and broadened the political scope of its activities to establish ties to student groups, syndicalists, the Communist Party (PCB), and various nationalist groups. The military government that seized power in 1964 closed the ISEB and opened an investigation into the activities of its members and the political leaders who had supported it.

See alsoCampos, Roberto (de Oliveira); Kubitschek de Oliveira, Juscelino.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Thomas E. Skidmore, Politics in Brazil (1967).

Israel Beloch and Alzira Alves De Abreu, eds., Dicionário histórico-biográfico brasileiro, 1930–1983 (1984).

Additional Bibliography

Sodré, Nelson Werneck. A ofensiva reacionária. Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand Brasil, 1992.

Toledo, Caio Navarro de. Intelectuais e política no Brasil: A experiência do ISEB. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Revan, 2005.

                             William Summerhill