Back to basics: assessing military involvement in politics in contemporary Brazil

Abstract

As Brazil showed signs of progress in civil-military relations in the late nineties and early 2000s, research moved from civilian control to defense policy topics, resulting in the neglect of less obvious forms of military involvement in politics, many of which pre-date the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro. After critically reviewing existing frameworks for assessing progress in civilian control we propose returning to the field’s primary concern with military intervention in politics by using three indicators -military presence in government; public commentary by military officers; and episodes of military contestation –and their implications regarding the armed forces, politicians, and society. Next, we examine these three indicators in the context of the presidencies of Dilma Rousseff and Michel Temer. We conclude that interactions between “soldiers, politicians, and civilians” in recent episodes of military involvement in politics revealthe full extent of the frailty of civil-military relations in Brazil.