How can things so old be so new? The revival of debates on the fate of the liberal international order has reproduced discussions about what arguably are philosophical and theoretical tensions that have existed for a very long time. Taking a point of departure in Reinhart Koselleck’s Critique and Crisis: Enlightenment and the Pathogenesis of Modern Society, this thesis aims to contribute with an understanding of how the contemporary crisis can be understood in the context of deep historical tensions, and the implications for the current debate. To fulfil this aim, I ask the question of how Koselleck’s analysis of the structures emerging from modernity can cast light on the tension between modernity and the current crisis of the liberal international order. These structures are used, with an emphasis on the need for historical context and a critical stance towards the attempt to establish universal truths, to analyse selected material from oft cited and prominent scholars of the debate. By analysing their ideas in the light of these structures, I have found that some suggested solutions to these tensions reinforce what creates the tension from the start. Another finding is that the debate, in some ways, is constrained by dichotomies and underlying universal metaphysical principles, which potentially can limit the possibility for potential change. My conclusion is that a continued renewed interest in these historical tensions hopefully can be a pathway to move beyond some of the constraints the current debate revolves around.

[pt] Propõe-se, nesta tese, uma investigação sociológica sobre o reformismo e a gestão na educação. O objeto de pesquisa é a recepção das reformas gerencialistas no Brasil e sua assimilação no campo da educação. Para persegui-lo, o primeiro esforço é o de conceber uma perspectiva sociológica que permita contextualizar o reformismo em questão, a partir de uma discussão mais ampla a respeito da relação da educação com o Estado e a sociedade e suas transformações ao longo do século XX e início do século XXI. Em seguida, pretende-se cercá-lo, de um lado, a partir da análise da incorporação do ideário gerencialista em políticas públicas educacionais implementadas nas primeiras décadas dos anos 2000 por governos estaduais no país, mais especificamente os casos do Ceará e de Minas Gerais e, de outro, com o exame de sua representação no debate acadêmico brasileiro sobre a gestão da educação. Este último movimento é realizado a partir de um extenso levantamento dos principais autores e obras de cursos de formação em gestão educacional e escolar no país. Com isso, foi possível identificar o núcleo duro da bibliografia do campo da gestão da educação, tornando visível que prevalecem duas vertentes distintas, com pouco diálogo entre si. Em seu conjunto, a tese sustenta a hipótese de que a reforma da educação no Brasil tem se beneficiado pouco de um debate público que mobilize uma atenção mais responsiva da academia e da sociologia, em particular. E de que essa lacuna, de algum modo, compromete nossa capacidade de colocar no centro do debate os desafios concretos da escola pública, que certamente vão muito além do que a imaginação gerencialista e sua crítica têm sido capazes de contemplar. / [en] This thesis proposes a sociological investigation of reformism and management in education. The object of research is the reception of managerial reforms in Brazil and their assimilation in the field of education. To pursue it, the first effort is to conceive a sociological perspective that allows us to contextualize the reformism in question, based on a broader discussion about the relationship between education and the State and society and its transformations throughout the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. Right away, we intend to surround it, on the one hand, with the analysis of the incorporation of managerial ideas in public educational policies implemented in the first decades of the 2000s by state governments in the country, more specifically the cases of Ceará and Minas Gerais and, on the other hand, with the examination of its representation in the Brazilian academic debate on education management. This last aspect is explored through an extensive investigation of the main authors and works of training courses in educational and school management in the country. With this, it was possible to identify the core of the bibliography in the field of education management, making it visible that two distinct strands prevail, with little dialogue between them. As a whole, the thesis supports the hypothesis that education reform in Brazil has benefited little from a public debate that mobilizes more responsive attention from academia and sociology, in particular. And that this gap, in some way, compromises our ability to place the concrete challenges of public school at the center of the debate, which certainly go far beyond what managerial imagination and its criticism have been capable of contemplating.

With the aim of contributing to the recent debate on the fate of the liberal international order, this thesis has examined how prominent advocates of the liberal international order explain its contemporary state of crisis. Taking a point of departure in John Mearsheimer’s critical argument of three essential flaws in the liberal order, I have expanded these flaws into three theoretical areas. These theoretical areas highlight fundamental components in the liberal international order that, according to Mearsheimer, endogenously undermine the liberal international order which will eventually lead to its demise. These theoretical areas are the expansion of the liberal order, resistance in liberal democracies and the threat of China. Analyzing the ideas of liberal advocates within these theoretical areas, I have found that they have offered strong arguments on why the liberal international order will not perish. Although the liberal advocates see a crisis of governance and legitimacy in the liberal order, they believe that the order’s beneficial and robustious architecture constrain states from abandoning the international institutions of the liberal international order. However, drawing on previous research, I have discussed the plausible possibility and consequences of an increasingly powerful China rising within the order. I have concluded that the liberal advocates have not satisfactorily explained this threat of China to the contemporary U.S-led liberal order.