Militarization of Politics in Brazil (original) (raw)
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THREATS TO BRAZILIAN DEMOCRACY: POLITIZATION OF THE ARMED FORCES AND THE RISKS TO THE DEMOCRATIC STATE (Atena Editora), 2023
This essay explores the influence of the Armed Forces on Brazilian politics and the risks that this politicization can entail for democracy. The context of recent presidential elections and the history of military politicization and the prospect of military intervention in the electoral process highlight challenges faced by the Brazilian democratic system. The country's political culture, with its history of strong politicization of the Armed Forces, often associated with actions that are harmful to democracy, increases the concern regarding the resurgence of the possibility of military intervention in elections. Given this scenario, the objective of this study is to analyze the risks of politicization of the Armed Forces for democracy and to investigate measures to ensure its depoliticization, aiming to maintain the impartiality and prestige that its professionalism deserves. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of understanding the relationship between the Armed Forces and politics in order to safeguard democratic integrity. It highlights the importance of analyzing the political influence in the Armed Forces before and after redemocratization, as part of an effort to sustain democratic stability in the country. In view of this, the measures necessary to avoid setbacks in democratic achievements are highlighted. Ultimately, the depoliticization of the Armed Forces emerges as a crucial factor for the maintenance and strengthening of Brazilian democracy.
“For the guarantee of law and order”: The armed forces and public security in Brazil
Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI) Working Paper, 2014
The transition to democracy in Brazil came with a significant change in the role the armed forces could play for public security within the country. According to article 142 of the 1988 constitution, the armed forces could now intervene “for the guarantee of law and order” in Brazil only on the initiative of the civilian authorities. But since then, the military has been used on this basis in a growing array of situations, ranging from strikes and elections via political summits and visits by foreign dignitaries to efforts to “pacify” urban neighbourhoods. This paper examines how the constitutional mandate of the armed forces to guarantee law and order was specified in successive legislation in Brazil, and how the practice of deploying troops for policing purposes has evolved. It finds that the growing use of the military for the guarantee of law and order, while not necessarily weakening civilian control of the armed forces, still comes with significant risks for the quality of democracy. The main risk is associated with how this use of the military shapes state-society relations and may weaken the links between the elected leaders and those they represent.
Brasiliana: Journal for Brazilian Studies, 2021
This article addresses the immediate aftermath of the November 15, 1889, republican coup d’état in Brazil. Taking into account the diversity of the states’ political landscapes, its main theme is the profound transformation in the country’s political life precipitated by the abrupt passage from a parliamentary monarchy, marked by the ascendancy of civilian institutions, to a military dictatorship. It will demonstrate that, given the fact that republicans were a fragmented minority in most of the country, the military had preeminence in the implementation of the regime. However, considering that the coup was itself an act of insubordination, that control over institutions created frictions, and that the role of arbiters contaminated the barracks with the period’s extreme polarization, the liabilities of the militarization of politics were soon manifest. They were, most notably, the deep unrest and factionalism in the armed forces, the continuous institutional degradation, and the rise of authoritarianism.
Perspectives on the militarization of public security in contemporary Brazil
Oñati Socio-legal Series, 2019
Brazil still has not fully accomplished procedural democracy, despite being a formal democracy funded on a federal constitution and on an organized judicial system. The country has not been able to foster the principles of justice, peace, development, and equity for most of the population, and the state apparatus is restricted regarding social control, transparency, and effectiveness of public policies. This scenario resulted in the rise of violence, criminality, organized crime, and urban disorder, which has led to the militarization of public security both with the improvement of the military police’s structure and with the presence of the armed forces performing public security activities. This process of militarization has increased in the last two years, and for the first time since 1985, the military managed to ascend to the most powerful positions in the Brazilian government. This article discusses the militarization of public security in Brazil, pointing to the risks of a ne...
O presente artigo, resultado de investigações e discussões teóricas realizadas no Programa de Pós-Graduação em Direito e no Centro para Cidadania, Sociedade Civil e Estado Democrático de Direito (CISRUL) da Universidade de Aberdeen no Reino Unido, tem como escopo principal analisar o processo histórico e sócio-político brasileiro de transformações de direitos humanos durante a saída do país do domínio autoritário militar e sua chegada à democracia constitucional, sob a perspectiva da teoria do modelo espiral de mudança de direitos humanos (spiral model) desenvolvida por Risse, Ropp and Sikkink (2013; 1999). Além disso, com base no conceito de autoritarismo social desenvolvido por Dagnino (2014; 2000; 1998; 1993), o artigo explica porque apesar de o Brasil ter se transformado em uma democracia constitucional, há ainda um cenário generalizado de violações de direitos humanos no país. Por fim, o artigo argui pela necessidade de se mudar as bases materiais da sociedade brasileira, de forma a possibilitar a construção de um novo projeto de sociedade, mais igualitária e na qual haja a efetivação dos direitos humanos. Palavras-chave: Direitos Humanos; Democracia; Teoria de Mudança de Direitos Humanos em Espiral (Spiral Model); Autoritarismo Social. The paper, the result of research and theoretical discussions in the Postgraduate Program in Law and the Centre for Citizenship, Civil Society and Rule of Law (CISRUL) of the University of Aberdeen in the UK, has as main purpose to analyse the Brazilian historical and socio-political process of human rights developments during the output of the country's military authoritarian rule and its arrival at a constitutional democracy from the perspective of the spiral model of human rights change theory developed by Risse, Ropp and Sikkink (2013; 1999). In addition, based on the concept of social authoritarianism developed by Dagnino (2014; 2000; 1998; 1993), the paper explains why even though Brazil has been transformed into a constitutional democracy, there is still a widespread scenario of human rights violations. Finally, the paper let us reason together by the need to change the material basis of Brazilian society, in order to enable the construction of a new project of society, more egalitarian and where there is the realization of human rights. Key-words: Human Rights; Democracy; Spiral Model of Human Rights Change. Social Authoritarianism
Military intervention in brazil: pinnacle, disruption and decline
Revista de Estudos e Pesquisas Avançadas do Terceiro Setor
Brazil until the establishment of the Civil and Military Regime of March 31, 1964 coexisted with military coups, which ravaged the entire republican period and contributed to corrupt any democratic pretension of the nation. This article aims to examine the process that would have sought to withdraw the armed segment from political activity after that date, by means of an analysis of the course of political and strategic actions that led to a rupture with the previous paradigm and changes in civil and military relations and in the Brazilian democracy. In the theoretical and methodological framework, the argumentation, based on a hypothetical deductive approach, was supported by a dialectical path assumption, taking as a starting point the Moderator Model of Alfred Stepan, to which put an opposing configuration structure, so called Enframement Antimodel, which supposedly would result in a form of very close relationship with that proposed by Samuel Phillips Huntington, named Civilian ...
A political history of the Brazilian transition: from military dictatorship to democracy
Revista de Sociologia e Política, 2006
This article discusses Brazilian political history, from the military-political coup in 1964 through Fernando Henrique Cardoso's second presidential term. Written in the form of an explanatory summary, three themes are joined in a narrative on the transition from a military dictatorship to a liberal democratic regime: the military, the political and the bureaucratic. We seek to establish causal inferences linking content, methods and the reasons for and meaning of political change beginning in 1974 with the quality of the democratic regime as it emerged during the 1990s. Our explanation is premised on the need to analyze two different but interconnected spaces of the political: transformation in the institutional systems of the State apparatus and the evolution of the broader political scenario. We conclude that neo-liberal economic reforms not only dispensed with true political reform able to increase representation and with reform of the State in ways that would favor participation. Neo-liberal reforms also continued to be premised on authoritarian arrangements of governing processes inherited from the previous political period. Palavras-chave : Brazilian politics [1964-2002]; military dictatorship; political transition; democracy; neo-liberalism.
2008
In Brazil, as a result of the transition pact, electoral democracy is combined with authoritarian enclaves deeply embedded in the State apparatus. This situation, far from improving, has become worse during recent years as a result of the growing urban violence and the increasing militarization of the measures designed to guarantee public security. The confusing institutional status of the military police and the increasingly important role of the army indicate that, unlike the experience of the more developed countries, in Brazil the national defense role is combined in a dangerous way with the maintenance of internal order. The resulting institutional hybrid blocks the construction of a fully-fledged democracy.