ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the rise of corporatism in Brazil and Portugal in the 1930s and 1940s from the perspective of the jurists and legal theorists who set out to design the ‘third path’. Legal arguments and examples circulated between Brazil and Portugal in defence of corporatist constitutionalism and corporatist law. One of the most important legal conversations to connect Portuguese and Brazilian jurists during the interwar decades was the rise of corporatist constitutionalism. Legalism has deep roots in Luso-Brazilian contexts, but it was mobilized and invigorated in the interwar decades. Corporatist constitutionalism and corporatist law expanded the powers of the executive branch and the powers of courts to serve political ambitions. For Brazil, it is impossible to understand the appeal of corporatism without reading the legal and sociological writings of Oliveira Vianna. The 1933 Portuguese Constitution and the 1937 Brazilian Constitution were united by the government institutions announced to facilitate the corporatist economy.
