O momento, os desafios e possibilidades da análise territorial para o planejamento do desenvolvimento nacional

The article aims to contribute in overcoming the challenges regarding the analysis capacity and the political performance addressing regional and territorial development. For so much, the paper discusses the relationship between knowledge and planning - i. e. between science and action based on science. In an analysis of that relationship in the period previous to the dominance of the New Public Management (NPM) theses about the role of the modern state, it investigates the conditions that lead to the failure of the planning based development strategies in the postwar in most countries. In following it states the question if there are, even now, when new developing ends ask for new roles of the state, evolutions in economics, social and political science able to offer ground to planning a development process based on growth, justness and ecological sustainability. Starting from there, it explores the possibilities of the endogenous and sustainable development theories (ESDT) to subsidize new planning processes targeting inclusive development, broadly democratic and territorially rooted.