RAILWAYS, STATE, AND TERRITORY

the dispute over the future of Rio de Janeiro and the 2026 elections

Abstract

This paper is grounded in the idea that the crisis of the railway system in the state of Rio de Janeiro is an expression of a historical pattern of territorial organization subordinated to the logic of capital circulation. Drawing on political economy and economic geography, it argues that Brazilian railways have been progressively specialized in the transportation of commodities, to the detriment of population mobility and regional integration. In the recent period, this logic is evident both in the degradation of the urban railway system – marked by the recent crisis of SuperVia – and in the design of projects such as EF-118, primarily oriented toward export activities. The West Metropolitan Region of Rio de Janeiro is presented as an emblematic space of these contradictions, where efficient technical networks for capital coexist with the precariousness of everyday mobility. The paper contends that this configuration results from the weakness of the State in planning and coordinating the territory in an integrated manner, articulating railway, industrial, urban, and regional policies. In light of this scenario, it proposes repositioning railways at the center of the 2026 electoral debate as a strategic axis of development. Ultimately, the text frames a dispute over the very role of railway networks: their continued function as mere support for commodity exports, or their transformation into instruments of territorial integration and the guarantee of rights in the state of Rio de Janeiro.