Introduction

Brazil’s first national development plan – Primeiro Plano Nacional de Desenvolvimento – (I PND), completed its 50^th anniversary in 2022. It was passed in November 1971 and implemented between 1972 to 1974, at the highest peak of the national planning ever seen in the country (Rezende, 2010), the so-called “Brazilian Economic Miracle.” The average Brazilian growth rates between 1968 and 1973 exceeded 11% per year (Veloso, Villela, & Giambiagi, 2008, p. 222), but the period was also marked by accentuated income concentration (Barone, Bastos & Mattos, 2015; Lago, 1990). The regime’s justification was that the increase in inequality was a “normal” consequence of the process of economic development, as stated by Langoni (1973, pp. 31–32). However, critical authors argue that the income concentration in the period involved the policies of the dictatorial government, such as restrictions imposed on the minimum wage and repression of union activities, in a context of an abundance of unskilled labor (Barone, Bastos, & Mattos, 2015, p. 13). That said, the benefits of the high growth rate were unevenly distributed, with a clear disadvantage for workers (Lago, 1990, p. 287).

This study revisits the I PND after more than 50 years, examining the discourses in the plan’s document, considering the context of President Jair Bolsonaro’s government (2019-2022). During this recent administration, economic planning was outside the public agenda as an instrument of government, and a large part of civil society feared the possibility of a new democratic rupture (Faculdade de Direito da Universidade de São Paulo, 2022; Federação das Indústrias do Estado de São Paulo et al., 2022).

Thus, this article observes and analyzes the linguistic choices made by the military regime while formulating the I PND in this historical context. As for methodology, the research uses French discourse analysis and critical discourse analysis (CDA) from the perspectives of Michel Pêcheux and Norman Fairclough, respectively.

Based on the notion of Fairclough’s (1985) ideological-discursive formation (IDF), the analysis identified the idea of a “Brazilian development model” as the dominant IDF in the I PND’s discourse, leading to the research question: what did the dominant IDF of the I PND’s discourse naturalize? The Brazilian development model was portrayed as a way of organizing the state based on large national companies, growing government influence in the economy, and long-term planning. Also, because development plans are traditionally studied through economics, very few studies adopt alternative perspectives, such as observing the phenomena through the lens of public policies.

The main contribution of this work is to analyze the formulation of a public policy – an economic development plan – from the theoretical lens of the argumentative turn, recognizing that such a plan has relevant discursive aspects. The argumentative turn and, more specifically, the discourse analysis is used to examine public economic policies. Combining these theoretical and methodological choices allowed us to identify the mechanisms of erasure and oblivion present in the discursive choices of the I PND. The investigation was carried out between 2018 and 2022, based on a document analysis of the law that gave rise to the I PND.

This article has six sections, including this introduction. The second section presents the formulation of the I PND in an authoritarian context. The third presents the theoretical and methodological lenses used in data analysis. The subsequent section emphasizes the main characteristics of the discourses and how they are present in the analyzed document, followed by the fifth section with the discussion. The final section presents the conclusions.

The I PND

The I PND was formulated about 50 years ago, at the end of 1971, during the authoritarian government of General Emílio Médici (1969-1974). Brazil had been under a military dictatorship for over seven years, witnessing freedom restriction, cases of torture, politicians being expelled and persecuted, and the opposition and popular movements being repressed. The country had been chronically exploited and underdeveloped, presenting severe social issues and significant inequality.

On October 1, 1970, the document “Metas e Bases para a ação do Governo”(or Government Action Goals and Guidelines) (FGV/CPDOC, 2022) was published. Its first pages stated it was not a “new global plan” (BRASIL, 1970, np), indicating that the programs and projects already approved would remain in force and would not change:

Brazilian public opinion has shown impatience when it comes to new planning documents. This attitude reflects the many unexecuted plans before 1964 [i.e., in the democratic period]; the unrealism and lack of objectivity of certain programs and projects elaborated in some sectors, even in more recent times; and the mismatch between the elaboration of projects and their implementation, in certain agencies, giving the impression of an excess of plans due to poor execution (BRASIL, 1970, np, emphasis added).

Although it was a planning instrument, the Government Action Goals and Guidelines tried to differ from previous planning documents, which explains the language used, declaring it as an “eminently practical document, more focused on execution” (BRASIL, 1970, np). The text informs that the government’s program would consist of two other documents: a new multi-year (1971-1973) investment budget submitted to the National Congress and subjected to annual revision and the I PND studied in this research, initially called “I Plano Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social” (I National Plan for Economic and Social Development), in force between 1972 and 1974 (BRASIL, 1970).

According to Campos (1975, p. 69), the I PND was an “extension in time” of the Government Action Goals and Guidelines. Instituted by Law 5,727, enacted on November 4, 1971 (BRASIL, 1971a), the I PND’s time horizon was 1972 to 1974. According to Almeida (2006, p. 213), it was prepared under the guidance of the then Minister of Planning João Paulo Reis Velloso. It was focused on large national integration projects (transport and telecommunications) seeking autonomy in basic inputs in the context of an energy crisis. For the author, this explained its emphasis on energy, including the nuclear industry, petroleum research, the ethanol program, and the construction of hydroelectric plants, and foreseeing investments in science and technology.

The I PND presented a “Brazilian development model” as a “Brazilian way of organizing the state and shaping institutions to, within a generation, transform Brazil into a developed nation” (BRASIL, 1971a, p. 14). The plan aimed to create a “modern, competitive and dynamic economy, and on the other hand, carry out economic, social, racial, and political democracy, according to the Brazilian nature” (BRASIL, 1971a, p. 14).

According to Campos (1975, pp. 69–70), suggestively published by the publishing house “Biblioteca do Exército” (Library of the Army), the document had five essential points for the “Brazilian development model”: (1) the incorporation of “modern instruments for the evolution of developed economies,” such as the greater influence of the government through both the expansion of public investments and the use of regulatory instruments, the improvement of “social prosperity” through increased income and long-term planning, allowing for greater coherence and rationality of decisions; (2) the creation of an economy that allowed the country to compete economically and technologically; (3) “private sector vitality,” based on mergers and acquisitions, without neglecting the encouragement of small and medium-sized companies; (4) incentives for the private sector and priority to direct investments in specific sectors (education, housing, energy, transport, telecommunications), creating conditions for modernization and competition; (5) federative arrangement of balance between the union and the states, with the former responsible for defining national strategies and priorities and the latter responsible for carrying out “locally-oriented” works (Campos, 1975, pp. 69–70).

Furthermore, Sandroni (2006, p. 654) places the I PND within the “political-ideological binomial of security and development.” In other words, it is impossible to dissociate the economic context from the repressive and authoritarian environment of the time. In this sense, the plan places “national, internal, and external security” as prerequisites for development (BRASIL, 1971a, p. 15, emphasis added), focusing on national integration, emphasizing the Northeast and the Amazon (BRASIL, 1971a, pp. 19;25-27).

According to Almeida (2006, p. 214), large infrastructure projects were implemented in the country based on the I PND, such as the Rio-Niterói bridge, the Três Marias hydroelectric power plant, the Itaipu dam, and the unfinished Transamazon highway. The author indicates that the resources for implementing the I PND would come from public financial institutions (Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico, Banco do Brasil, and Caixa Econômica Federal), multilateral financial institutions, and the international capital market.

The I PND’s ultimate goal was the country’s economic growth, aiming for Brazil to have the eighth GDP in the Western world and surpass the US$ 500 per capita income barrier in 1974 (BRASIL, 1971a, p. 7). In addition to the per capita growth target, the plan also established a GDP growth target of between 8% and 10% per year and growth prospects by sector (infrastructure sector, primary sector, manufacturing industry, extractive mineral industry, construction, and other services), to reach this level of GDP growth (BRASIL, 1971a, pp. 41–42). In addition to the goals and perspectives for economic growth, the I PND also had sectoral goals (BRASIL, 1971a, p. 43), with baselines in 1970 and goals for 1974, and the respective expected growth for several sectors: education, health and sanitation, agriculture and supply, scientific and technological development, basic industries, mining, electricity, oil, highways, navigation, communications, housing, regional development, transfers to states and municipalities and social integration. Finally, in its second part (BRASIL, 1971a, pp. 45–72), the plan presented the investments and instruments to fulfill the indicated sectoral targets.

The GDP growth targets were surpassed since growth was 11.3% in 1971, 12.1% in 1972, and 14.0% in 1973 (Abreu, 1990, p. 408). However, the oil shock at the end of 1973 contributed to the end of the so-called “Brazilian Economic Miracle,” interrupting the cycle of double-digit GDP growth. In the following years, under the government of General Ernesto Geisel, Medici’s successor, several economic measures were implemented, including the launch of the II National Development Plan (II PND) for the period 1975 – 1979 (D. Carneiro, 1990 ).

The analysis of the I PND process in the executive and legislative branches gave the appearance that everything occurred regularly and followed democratic processes, even though the country was under a military dictatorship. The executive branch sent the I PND to the National Congress through bill 74/1971 on September 15, 1971 (BRASIL, 1971b, p. 3). The bill was received by the leaders and parliamentarians of the National Renewal Alliance – ARENA (“pro-government”) and of the Brazilian Democratic Movement – MDB (“opposition”), the only parties represented in the National Congress (SENADO FEDERAL, 1971, p. 3). On September 20, 1971, a commission with members from the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate was designated to analyze the bill. MDB only had four members (one senator and three deputies), while the rapporteur responsible for the first analysis was from ARENA, which formed a large majority of the Commission, with 18 members (ten senators and eight deputies) (BRASIL, 1971b, pp. 2–3). The commission received Minister Velloso on October 13, 1971, who gave a presentation on the plan (Velloso, 1972). In a meeting on October 21, 1971, the rapporteur presented a favorable opinion on the bill and 11 of the 63 amendments presented. The bill was approved, although the three members of MDB present in the meeting approved it with restrictions (CONGRESSO NACIONAL, 1971, p. 2). On October 27, 1971, the bill was approved in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate and sent to the president for sanction. It is unclear if the final text was updated with the amendments that received a favorable opinion from the rapporteur. On November 4, 1971, Law 5727 of 1971 was sanctioned by General Médici (BRASIL, 1971b, pp. 1–2).

Although the I PND went through all these procedures typical of democracy, this does not hide the fact that, at that moment, the National Congress was not exactly an independent power and with real capacity to influence or counterbalance the executive branch. Perhaps one aspect that exposes this apparent normality is the speed with which it was processed in the National Congress: just 42 days between the bill sent to the National Congress and the approval in the Plenary. It seems clear that there was a great effort to maintain a democratic appearance when the essence of the political system was a military dictatorship, centralized in the executive and with a figurative National Congress.

This specific observation about the process of formulating the I PND is consistent with the view of other authors about the broader institutional characteristics of the Brazilian military dictatorship. Rocha (2013, pp. 31–32) states that the dictatorial period in Brazil had ambiguous traits. At the same time, the Armed Forces dominated Brazilian politics, and attempts were made to preserve the appearance of democracy and a representative system between 1965 and 1982. Likewise, the party system was artificial, but there was always an opposition party. Finally, the National Congress was mostly open, although with a role of “vocalization and resistance of the parliamentary opposition.”

Theoretical and Methodological Lens

An important part of the literature in the field of public policies focuses on the public policy process as the “interactions that occur over time between public policies and surrounding actors, events, contexts, and outcomes” (Weible & Carter, 2017, p. 6-7). The article examines the I PND focusing on the “formulation stage” of the public policy process. A public policy like the I PND could be analyzed from different perspectives, and the argumentative turn^[iv] was the approach chosen in this study. The argumentative turn recognizes the public policy process as “constituted by and mediated through communicative practices.” It “attempts to understand both the process of policy making and the analytical activities of policy inquiry” (Fischer & Gottweis, 2012a, p. 2). This choice reflects our alignment with the idea of public policies constituted and mediated through communicative practices put forward by the argumentative turn and, more specifically, by discourse analysis.

The argumentative turn presented a new perspective for public policy studies, connecting a post-positivist epistemology with social and political theory. In short, it is assumed that language, much more than reflecting “reality,” can build and shape what we understand as reality. More specifically, the argumentative turn understands the process of formulating public policies as a “discursive struggle” around what constitutes a public problem, the meanings of public policies created to deal with such problems, and the criteria for their evaluation. This new perspective has expanded, using different methodologies and research approaches, including discourse analysis (Fischer & Gottweis, 2012a, pp. 1-2;7-8). Unlike other traditional qualitative approaches that “work to understand or interpret social reality as it exists, discourse analysis endeavors to uncover the way in which it is produced” (Phillips & Hardy, 2002, p. 6). In the next sections of this article, we adopt discourse analysis to examine the I PND’s formulation.

According to the French linguist Dominique Maingueneau (1997, p. 12), the immense field of discourse analysis has become “a kind of ‘wild card’ for an indeterminate set of theoretical frameworks” since, nowadays, all language production can be considered discourse (Alves, Gomes, & Souza, 2006, p. 4). Maingueneau (1997) initially classified the different lines of discourse analysis from two regional traditions:

the French school, [which] privileges the written text and the structuralist tradition of Ferdinand de Saussure, Claude Levi-Strauss, Barthes, and others; the Anglo-Saxon tradition [which] privileges orality, sociology with an interactionist matrix, whose foundations come from George Mead, Herbert Blumer, Howard Becker, Erwing Goffman, and others, and ethnomethodological studies, mainly inspired by Harold Garfinkel (Alves et al., 2006, p. 4).

More recently, Maingueneau (2015, p. 53) considered “a vast current – essentially English-speaking – called ‘Critical Discourse Analysis.’”

In the description of linguist Teun Van Dijk (2001), critical discourse analysis - CDA “is a type of discoursive research that (...) studies how abuse of social power, domination, and inequality are produced, reproduced, and resisted through texts and speeches in the social and political context” (Alves et al., 2006, p. 6). In other words, adopting “critical goals [in discourse analysis] means aiming to elucidate (...) [the] naturalizations, and more generally, to make clear social determinations and effects of discourses which are characteristically opaque to participants” (N. L. Fairclough, 1985, p. 739).

In this sense, for a complete investigation of the observed corpus (the I PND), this study developed a Discourse Analysis anchored in the studies of two recognized theorists in the field: Michel Pêcheux (aligned with the French perspective) and Norman Fairclough (from the current of critical studies – CDA). Despite working with their own conceptions of discourse and subject, both currents deal with language and what is done through language: power relations, molding of social identities, etc. (Alves et al., 2006; Salles & Dellagnelo, 2019, p. 415). In this particular analysis, we focus on the synergy of the two currents regarding the “ideology” factor, considering them complementary. In this sense, ideologies are “significations/constructions of reality (...) which are built into various dimensions of the forms/meanings of discursive practices, and which contribute to the production, reproduction, or transformation of relations of domination” (N. Fairclough, 2001, p. 117).

In CDA, discourse is the “use of language” or “language in use” (Walsh, 2011, p.11), thus configuring “one of the constituent elements of any social practice” (Salles & Dellagnelo, 2019, p. 418). Likewise, according to this perspective, “language as a discourse (...) is not neutral, innocent, or natural, which is why [it is] the privileged place for the manifestation of ideology” (Brandão, 2004, p.11).

For Fairclough, “ideology does not only operate in the solidification of the hegemonic, it is also present (...) in the counter-hegemonic discourse since it is in this that the possibility of social change is present” (Salles & Dellagnelo, 2019, p. 418). Similarly, for Michel Pêcheux – and the French School of discourse analysis – discourse materializes ideology since discourse is the “effect of meanings” between interlocutors (Walsh, 2011, p.10-11). “[T]here is not a single meaning, but a symbolic game in which the subject has always been inserted, occupying discursive positions. These discursive positions are historical, therefore depending on a socially and ideologically defined state of affairs” (Walsh, p. 2011, p. 11). Thus, it generates opacity instead of transparency (Walsh, 2011, p. 11). Discourse is thus “word in motion, language practice: with the study of discourse, one observes the man [woman ] speaking” (E. P. Orlandi, 2005, p. 15).

While the Peucheutian discourse analysis is concerned with observing the hidden element of discourse, the Faircloughian perspective of CDA focuses on the effects of discourse. As detailed below, both factors were relevant in the analysis of the I PND, which justified the choice for these two complementary methodologies.

According to Pêcheux (1995), discourse is a social practice determined by an “ideological formation” (IF) and, at the same time, a place for the elaboration and dissemination of ideology. Pêcheux (1982, p. 111) defines it as “discursive formation” (DF), “that which in a given ideological formation, i.e., from a given position in a given conjuncture determined by the state of the class struggle, determines ‘what can and should be said.’”

Based on the notions of “discursive formation” (Pêcheux, 1982, p. 111) and “ideological formation” – from Althusser (1971) and retaken by Pêcheux (1995) – Fairclough (1985) elaborated the concept of ideological-discursive formation (IDF), which recognizes the direct relationship between the ways of expressing oneself and the ways of seeing the world (N.L. Fairclough, 1985, p.751). According to the author, social institutions have dominant ideological-discursive formations (N. L. Fairclough, 1985). Thus, the naturalization of ideologies is connected to IDF. By using the discursive norms of a certain IDF, people are often unconsciously acquiring the ideological norms of IDF. Initially, they will seem like norms of the institution itself, and later they are presented as techniques to be mastered so that people become competent institutional subjects. This process leads to naturalization and opacity (E. P. Orlandi, 2006).

This diversity of ideological formations is a consequence of, and a condition for, struggles between different forces within the institution: that is, conflict between forces results in ideological barriers between them, and ideological struggle is part of that conflict. These institutional struggles are connected to class struggle, though the relationship is not necessarily a direct or transparent one; and ideological and discoursal control of institutions is itself a stake in the struggle between classes (N. L. Fairclough, 1985, p. 751).

All elements in CDA (including the contexts where data was generated) are sources of information, as are the issues of hegemony, ideology, power asymmetry, class, gender, race, and interests, among others (Van Dijk, 2001, p. 354). According to Alves (2002), since discourses are related to ideologies and power distribution issues in the social world, discourse analysis cannot be restricted to mere descriptions of the linguistic contents of speeches and texts. The discourse may be understood as a sequence of statements in a context (speaker who enunciates, the one the speech is addressed to, a discourse that precedes and follows, time and place). Thus, the discursive genre is not outside spatial and temporal dimensions.

As an analysis protocol, we made a joint critical reading of the document to identify two aspects. The first was to identify the characteristics of the discourses and show how they were present in the I PND. The second was to reveal the naturalized discourses and absences in writing the I PND without losing perspective on the prevailing non-democratic context.

Characteristics of the discourses and their presence in the I PND

For the Russian linguist Mikhail Bakhtin (2006), each particular statement is individual, but each field of language use elaborates its relatively stable types of utterances, called discourse genres (here highlighted as one of the characteristics of discourses).

Inadvertently, we could consider the I PND to belong to the discursive genre of laws. However, the I PND has a different character from most laws, so perhaps it could be fitted into a discourse genre of a comprehensive discursive matrix of economic development, more specifically as part of a discourse “subgenre” of “development plans.” We could try to trace the characteristics and limits of this discursive genre, but that is beyond the scope of this study.

We highlight two aspects: the materiality of the discourse – discourse has material effects on things and the world. In the case of the comprehensive discursive matrix of economic development, it is a discursive genre with the primary goal of objectively and consciously influencing reality. The second aspect is the observation that, at a given moment, national development plans start to be formulated, and these same plans cease to be produced after a few years. In other words: at a certain moment, the development plan as a discursive subgenre comes into existence, and at another moment, it falls into disuse.

The I PND, as an example of a discursive genre, has a time and place: Brazil in the 60s and 70s, when the dominant IDF gave great importance to long-term planning, the active role of the state, support for large companies and large undertakings, incentives to national companies, etc. When this IDF ceases to be dominant, it no longer makes sense to promote discourses on national development plans, which then cease to be produced. From the “concrete” point of view, there is a substantial increase in inflation rates, which come to dominate the debate and the public agenda, and an increase in the influence of liberal ideas, with a different conception of the state’s role in the economy. Therefore, development plans are somehow replaced by other discursive subgenres such as “economic plans” and “stabilization plans.”

Complementing the notion of discursive genres, other characteristics of the discourses explored in this analysis of the I PND deal with polyphony and dialogism. According to Bakhtin (2006), human beings can only be understood in their relationship with the other, which characterizes their discourse as dialogical.

A discourse always refers to another discourse, present or not, depending on the bivocal relationship between sender and receiver. The discourse with which the I PND dialogues is absent, but it can be inferred: it is the opposition’s discourse (often physically silenced), given that Brazil lived under a military dictatorship. That said, the I PND is a discourse about “the transformation of Brazil into a developed nation” “in just one generation;” it is about a great Brazil, stability, optimism, “democracy,” integration, harmony, “distribution of income for the workers,” as presented in more detail below.

Bakhtin (2006) could elaborate his theory of polyphony ( Alves et al., 2006) based on the definition of dialogism, whereby discourse is composed in a game of several complementary, competing, and contradictory voices. These voices “speak” simultaneously, without a preponderance of one over the other: polyphonically. According to the French linguist Oswald Ducrot (1987), polyphony exists when multiple speakers can be distinguished in the same utterance.

Likewise, the I PND discourse can be characterized as polyphonic since there is an alternation of voices: it is possible to identify a “technical” voice in most of the statements. It is a voice concerned with reporting Brazil’s situation at that time in various sectors and the outcomes that would be “inevitably” accomplished. Another voice that appears in the document is one concerned with justifying and defending the “revolution,” as in the statement: “The revolution came to build,” and the presentation of the list of accomplishments forecasted for its first, second, and third governments (BRASIL, 1971a, p. 13).

Ducrot (1987) also argues that often what is not said is of fundamental importance in the construction and characterization of the meanings of a discourse. Eni Orlandi (2007, p. 68-75) states that silence can be understood as the “imminence of meaning” and classifies it into constitutive silence, founding silence, and local silence. It is worth highlighting some of the silences regarding the I PND:

The first is, again, the use of the word “revolution” (16 occurrences) throughout the document to characterize the civic-military coup of April 1, 1964. In this case, it is a constitutive silence because one word or expression replaces another, as in this excerpt: “Throughout the three governments of the revolution, development constituted a great experience of growth and transformation, manifested in the exceptional performance of the quantitative indicators” (...) (BRASIL, 1971a, p. 14, emphasis added).

The second silence that draws attention is the use of the word democracy and the expression democratic regime: “This model must (...) democracy, social, racial and political democracy, according to the Brazilian nature” (BRASIL, 1971a, p. 14, emphasis added) and development presupposes “(...) political stability, to carry out development under a democratic regime” (BRASIL, 1971a, p. 15, emphasis added).

Thus, there is a relationship between the word democracy in absentia (Saussure, 2006) and its opposite, “dictatorship,” which characterizes a founding silence since the meaning can always be different. The use of the words “democracy” and “democratic regime” means something else in a context where the last direct presidential election occurred more than 11 years before.

It is important to explore the meaning of the expression “according to the Brazilian nature,” which seems to dialogue with some absent discourse that there would be other “foreign” ways of thinking about “economic, social, racial, and political democracy.” Perhaps the missing discourse here is communism, seen by Brazilian conservative sectors as a foreign ideology, not consistent with the national culture (Oliveira, 2004, p. 186). In the same way, “carrying out (...) racial democracy” refers to the visions enshrined in the myth of racial democracy (S. Carneiro, 2003).

Local silence refers to the “prohibition of saying” (E. P. Orlandi, 2007, p. 74), the prohibition of saying in a certain context, a feature present in many public documents given there are political interests for a filter of presented information. In this specific case of the I PND, it is transversal to the entire text, also due to the political censorship experienced by the country at the time.

In a complementary way, the French current of discourse analysis also analyzes what is said and what is not (silence), i.e., what is implicit. Thus, a hidden element that draws attention in the writing of the I PND is that of citizens as active subjects in the development process. As a result, people are reduced to consumers or sellers of their workforce, without any autonomy, not even to decide where to be located geographically in the country: “(...) policy to take advantage of the country’s human resources (...) as a production and consumption factor” (BRASIL, 1971a, p. 8) and “(...) reorientation of surplus labor flows in the Northeast” (BRASIL, 1971a, p. 28). Thus, there is silence in the participation of citizens in the joint construction of a vision and a national development plan and in defining the nation’s direction.

Discourse in the I PND

The CDA considers that texts (N. Fairclough, 2001; 1985) are permeated by relations of power and ideology. One of the main concerns of this approach is identifying how language is used to maintain or challenge such relationships (Alves, 2002; Alves et al., 2006). Using Fairclough’s (1985) framework, we consider that the discourse subjects (the institution’s members with institutional roles and identities) are the high-level bureaucrats of the executive branch at the time the I PND was produced. However, the plan appears “naturalized,” as if a superior entity had created it. Therefore, “The list of national achievements for the period 1972/1974 offers a global view of what the Nation dictated to itself as a basic task” (BRASIL, 1971a, p. 7, emphasis added). Thus, the discourse in the plan is presented as if the plan was something created by the “Nation” instead of a proposal put forward by the executive branch’s bureaucrats, i.e., there is extreme naturalization.

Fairclough (1985) deliberates that institutions impose “ideological” and “discursive” restrictions so that some people can be qualified as subjects. By acquiring the way of expressing oneself from a given subject position, one also acquires (unconsciously) the way of seeing the world and the ideological norms adjacent to that discourse. It is possible for a subject to occupy an institutional position incompatible with their political or social beliefs without becoming aware of the contradiction (N. L. Fairclough, 1985). In the case of the I PND formulators, they were qualified as subjects when complying with the restrictions imposed by the prevailing ideological norms when producing the discourse of the I PND. On the other hand, by producing this discourse, they contributed to reinforcing and naturalizing the prevailing ideological norms.

The public of the I PND – the people who must interpret the messages under the norms defined by the institution – was formed of medium and low-level civil servants and the private sector. The public employees were responsible for executing the programs and projects arising from the plan, while the private sector made its economic decisions considering the government’s plan.

According to Fairclough (1985), ideological practices can become distant from the social base and the interests that generated them and appear “naturalized” or become common knowledge, not linked to class or other interests. These naturalized ideologies become a “knowledge base” activated in the interaction between people. In this sense, CDA aims to reveal/“denaturalize” the role of discourse in the (re)production of domination, revealing the connection between the discourse performed and the speaker’s worldview (N. L. Fairclough, 1985). According to Van Dijk (2001), this (re)production of domination consists of the exercise of the social power of the elites through the circulation of ideologically constituted texts that, when incorporated by the consumers of the texts, naturalize positions making the social processes of subjection invisible.

The first aspect to be denaturalized in the I PND is the certainty that everything will happen exactly as proposed. As a plan, we assume that many things can happen in an unexpected way and that the goals set will not necessarily be fully met and/or within the period established by the plan. However, the I PND uses the expression “list of national accomplishments for the period 1972/1974” (BRASIL, 1971a, p. 7) to present the objectives of the plan. The word “accomplishments” (realizações) gives the impression that these are past events. Therefore, we already know exactly how they occurred. However, the section is about the future. It demonstrates the confidence that the plan will be executed; once executed, it will achieve the expected outcomes. In other words: there is a technicist and positivist ideology. There is no possible outcomes other than those planned.

A second aspect that should be highlighted is that in the wording of the I PND there are no social conflicts in the Brazilian context: “integration, with a harmonious connection between Government and private sector, Union and States, between developed and developing regions, between company and workers” (BRASIL, 1971a, p. 7, emphasis added) and “The revolution wants to harmonize the policy of social integration with the maintenance of current growth rates” (BRASIL, 1971a, p. 40, emphasis added).

According to the I PND, it is possible to harmoniously integrate the government and the private sector, developed and developing regions, capital and work, “social integration” with growth rates, etc. Thus, the possibility of integrating these instances harmoniously appear as a naturalized element, as “common knowledge.”

Behind the naturalization observed in the I PND there is an ideology, a vision of the policymaker’s world where capital and work are not necessarily opposed. It is a vision that disregards class struggle, disregards the understanding that developed regions are developed precisely by exploiting the “developing” regions, and considers that the public and private sectors always have common interests to be explored jointly. As alerted by the CDA, discourse plays a role in the (re)production of domination based on the connection with the enunciator’s worldview (N. L. Fairclough, 1985).

However, the great theme to be denaturalized in the I PND refers to revealing the idea of the dominant IDF about the “Brazilian development model,” which is a “Brazilian way of organizing the state and shaping institutions to, within a generation, transform Brazil into a developed nation” (BRASIL, 1971a, p. 14).

The assumption, therefore, is that there are many ways to organize the state and shape institutions. The Brazilian model is among them. It is possible to see throughout the text the opposition between national vs. international and national vs. foreign company. Examples are:

(1) “this alliance between the government and the private sector will strengthen the national businesses so they can compete with foreign companies on equal terms” (BRASIL, 1971a, p. 17, emphasis added);

(2) “national companies that wish to associate with foreign ones, (...) always based on national interest and security” (BRASIL, 1971a, p. 21, emphasis added);

(3) “increased participation of foreign companies in the national effort to conquer foreign markets” (BRASIL, 1971a, p. 36, emphasis added).

Therefore, this is a Brazilian model, as opposed to foreign and external influence, to strengthen the national company so that it can compete with foreign companies on an equal basis. There would be the possibility of an association between national and foreign companies, but in very specific cases and subject to national interest and security. A role that is given to foreign companies is the opening of foreign markets for national companies.

This Brazilian development model basically has two pillars: the “growing influence of the government in the management of the economic system” and “long-term planning” (BRASIL, 1971a, p. 17).

In the text, it is possible to notice a strong component of creation/construction: “The revolution came to build” (BRASIL, 1971a, p. 13). But the plan does not refer to any type of construction or scale. The I PND always refers to making things “larger,” “bigger.” For example:

(1) “in fact, everything became bigger in Brazil” (BRASIL, 1971a, p. 14, emphasis added).

(2) “create the large national company” and “lead the Brazilian company to participate in large scale undertakings” (BRASIL, 1971a, p. 21, emphasis added).

Elements of resource distribution and social justice appear in the discourse, as in the excerpts “participation of all social categories in the outcomes of development [processes]” (BRASIL, 1971a, p. 9, emphasis added) and “wide dissemination of the outcomes of economic progress, reaching all income classes and all regions” (BRASIL, 1971a, p. 15, emphasis added).

Finally, based on Fairclough (1985), it is important to note the naturalized specific lexicon used in the I PND (a “neutral code”) to express the dominant IDF. For example, as observed in the previous section, the words “revolution” and “democracy” are widely used. As it is an official document produced during a repressive period, there was no room for “anti-languages” or “anti-lexicon,” such as “military coup” and “dictatorship,” respectively, which could only arise from divergent ideological positions. Thus, the emergence of alternative IDFs was impossible, even if subjugated by the dominant IDF.

Conclusion

This article analyzed the discourses present in the formulation of the I PND based on the linguistic choices made by the military regime in Brazil at the time. Considering the analysis conducted in the previous sections, this conclusion resumes the research question: what did the dominant IDF of the I PND’s discourse, i.e., the “Brazilian development model,” naturalize?

First, it is essential to emphasize that the I PND reflected a particular notion of development related to “capitalist development.” Although, with the strong participation of the state and planning, it is clear that we are talking about a development in a market-based and privately owned economic system.

A second aspect is that the development model was a GDP per capita growth model. This means there was a concern with the average GDP per inhabitant, regardless of inequality among individuals. Even more importantly: it did not include political and expression freedoms and the possibility for citizens to discuss and influence the country’s direction as development objectives.

Since the critical discourse analysis considers the information from contexts, the description of the anti-democratic context around the elaboration and approval of the I PND reveals the document’s hidden and/or silenced elements. Therefore, the study emphasized the “unsaid” in the text of the I PND, i.e., information silenced by the plan’s formulators, such as the non-democratic context in the country at that moment, the lack of citizens’ participation as active subjects of national development, and the linguistic choice for words such as revolution, democracy, and the “Brazilian nature.”

The I PND presented the Brazilian development model as a harmonic model that would benefit everyone equally. It is presented as something of “general interest,” as common knowledge, and consensual. Hence its opacity – naturalization. If it is common knowledge, in the general interest, and it benefits everyone, how can one be against it? How can one criticize it?

However, the proposed model clearly benefits very specific groups, notably large business groups. An example is its tendency to facilitate income concentration, which was confirmed in studies about the Brazilian Economic Miracle, such as Lago (1990).

Additionally, there was a whole movement of repression against workers, aiming to “control” them and reduce them to mere “consumers” and “sellers of their workforce.” Thus, the objective conditions for workers to claim better wages and consequently greater participation in the social product diminish, which also benefits the large national business groups, lowering their costs and increasing their profit margins.

Thus, the I PND reproduced the domination of the big national bourgeoisie over the workers and the military regime’s power over the opposing groups through an ideologically constructed document. The text was presented as reflecting something natural, as if the I PND was the only Brazilian development model, an expression of the “Revolution,” “democratic,” and beneficial to all Brazilians equally. This naturalization and acceptance of the document as common knowledge erase clues of the existence of such domination.

The main limitation of the research is its focus on the formulation stage, without including how the discursive aspects pointed out in the research influenced the implementation process. Thus, a possible future research agenda would be to go deeper into the plan’s implementation and verify how the discursive elements analyzed here were translated into concrete elements. Another possibility would be to apply the critical discourse analysis to the II PND discourse and compare the results with this study to observe patterns and differences.

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Notes