Dilma Rousseff Research Articles

Show Me a Hero

Show Me a Hero

Portuguese as a World Language for Future Army Officers

Portuguese as a World Language for Future Army Officers Rebecca L. Jones-Kellogg and Sarah Martin Keywords Army/exército, MLA, Portuguese/português, United States Military Academy, World War II/Segunda Guerra Mundial Response 1 to "Brazil's Rise and Portuguese as a Strategic Foreign Language: Preparing Tomorrow's Military Leaders" There is no denying that Brazil is still a major power player in Latin America and, in many ways, the world as well. However, Brazil's meteoric economic rise after emerging fairly unscathed from the economic crisis that hit the world in 2007–08 was followed by a no less meteoric fall leading up to the 2016 Olympic Games. More recently, popular unrest and strikes have occurred as a direct result to the current government's tightening of the federal budget; serious political scandals, to include the April 2016 impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff, continue to hamper the creation of an effective and stable government; and any hope for a quick resurgence in the economy is offset by occasional news reports of cities going bankrupt amid ongoing claims of government corruption. All of these events, while certainly not unique to Brazil, nonetheless present significant obstacles in Brazil returning in the near future to its most recent former economic glory. That said, like success, conflict can also be a driving force behind any increased interest in a country or culture and, therefore, the Portuguese language is just as strategic now as it ever has been, if not even more so. At the United States Military Academy at West Point (Army), Portuguese has been considered an important language, if not technically labeled "strategic," since World War II. While initially funded in 1942, the program effectively began with the addition of the first Brazilian Exchange Officer, Capitão Jorge Augusto Vidal, to the foreign language faculty in 1946. This position was important for many reasons. First, it represented an acknowledgment between the US and Brazilian governments (Truman and Dutra) of a reciprocal desire for the further strengthening of political and military ties between the two countries. As an exchange position, this agreement requires that one US Army Officer be sent to Brazil to teach at their Escola Superior da Guerra in Rio de Janeiro. The creation of this position was also a direct result of Brazil sending its famed Brazilian Expeditionary Force (Força Expedicionária Brasileira [FEB]) to fight alongside US/Allied forces in Italy from 1944–45, with the officer exchange symbolically reinforcing the ties that were forged between to the two nations on the battle lines. To date, 34 continuous Brazilian officers, ranking from Captain through Colonel, have taught Portuguese language and content courses to Army cadets at West Point. Interest in the Portuguese language among cadets, much like their civilian counterparts, has been consistently growing over the past decade or two, although we have seen a stabilization [End Page 295] in our enrollments (roughly 150–160 every year in our first-year sequence) in recent years. According to the MLA Language Enrollment Database (1958–2013), students taking Portuguese language courses at the university level have more than doubled since 1986, from 5,021 students in 1986 to 12,415 in 2013, the most recent year available from the survey. Our program at USMA also encourages the global aspect of Portuguese, as it is spoken as an official language in now nine countries on four different continents. Our cadets take advantage of semester abroad opportunities in Portugal and Brazil, as well as short-term immersion experiences in Portugal, Brazil, Lusophone Africa (Mozambique and Cabo Verde to date) and Macau. With the ever-changing world and the uncertainties that come with it, Portuguese will no doubt remain a significant and strategic language for many years to come. As long as we retain our relationships with Portuguese-speaking countries, either through exchanges or immersion programs that provide opportunities for student interactions, we are creating opportunities for success for our future military leaders who are facing such an unpredictable future. And, whether they are assigned to Lajes Air Force Base in the Azores, or complete the Jungle School (Selva) with the Brazilian Army in the Amazon, the most important thing is...

Crisis, juicio político y judicialización de la gobernabilidad: el STF y la estabilización del sistema político

This paper aims at describing the role played by the Brazilian Supreme Court (STF) during the impeachment process of former President Dilma Rousseff. From an analytical perspective that couples the political events on the STF’s agenda and the content of judicial rulings, which impacts on the agenda of the impeachment in Congress, this paper assesses STF’s behavior as the body in charge of dealing with the political crisis that resulted in Rousseff being removed from office. It also studies STF’s major decisions affecting the political actors involved in the crisis, from the acceptance of the request for the ex-president impeachment by the Chamber of Deputies to her final removal, ruled by the Senate. Besides evaluating the features of ministers’ arguments and the fundamentals considered in the decisions that indicate that the STF assumed the role of manager of the risks to the country’s political stability, this paper presents the hypothesis that the crisis has exposed a new face of the judicial processes of political disputes submitted to arbitration by the STF, whose purpose will be to reduce political costs in the already deteriorated relationship between executive and legislative powers in order to promote the governability of the country.

La prensa brasileña y las elecciones presidenciales: la polarización del contenido periodístico de las revistas en la web

El artículo compara la forma en que dos revistas brasileñas, Veja y CartaCapital, cubrieron los principales candidatos a la presidencia del país en sus medios web en las elecciones de 2014. El corpus está compuesto de 4703 textos, publicados durante el período de campaña, a los que se les aplicó un análisis de contenido. Los resultados muestran que hay más similitudes que diferencias en la cobertura de ambas revistas. Sin embargo, la principal diferencia es que ambas revistas trataron de forma distinta en sus publicaciones a los candidatos Aécio Neves y Dilma Rousseff según su interés, lo que refleja la polarización de la campaña electoral y las diferencias ideológicas de ambas revistas.

Environmental Policy in Brazil after the 2016 Coup: An Analysis of Government Expenditure

An emerging power since the last decade and a participant in BRICS—a bloc composed of Russia, China, India, and South Africa—Brazil would be the weakest link of an opposition to U.S. hegemony in the world order established since 1991 with the end of the Cold War. The 13-year advances of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s reformist and progressive government, continued by his successor Dilma Rousseff, appear to have reached a tolerance limit regarding the retrograde domestic forces and outside interests of the metropolitan center. The coup happened in 2016, following a two-year process of political and economic destabilization of the government. This paper seeks to show, through the exposition of an earlier history and the analyzed narrative of the events, besides the analysis of the federal public expenditures, that this movement of linkage and regression occurred in the ambit of issues related to the environment. The coup government launched in 2016 has abandoned any environmental policy, is interested in dissolving the institutional framework established after 20 years of insertion of Brazil in the global debate on the environment, and does not even supervise and protect the country’s natural resources, in an attitude characteristic of a state of exception.

Pós-verdade, neoliberalismo e cinismo institucional

Este texto trata da conjuntura política brasileira e do processo que redundou no golpe de Estado que destituiu a presidente eleita Dilma Rousseff. Articulando as noções de regime de verdade, práticas discursivas e política de escândalo, o texto avança na descrição da formação de uma articulação das classes dominantes, corporações da mídia, Ministério Público e Poder Judiciário para destruir as possibilidades eleitorais das forças de esquerda no Brasil, abrindo caminho para a implementação do receituário neoliberal. Apropriando-se principalmente da ideia do combate à corrupção, os velhos esquemas do poder econômico organizam a construção de discursos e ações de Estado que compõem o cinismo institucional como política de Estado.

Crise institucional brasileira e a imagem dos partidos nas Propagandas Partidárias Gratuitas

A eleição presidencial de 2014, apesar de ter sido a sexta polarizada entre PT e PSDB, foi uma das mais acirradas nas últimas décadas, com a vitória apertada de Dilma Rousseff (PT). A presidente reeleita passou a enfrentar resistências, principalmente da base aliada, que, no primeiro ano do seu segundo mandato, ficou reduzida a poucos partidos e congressistas. O PMDB, maior partido do Congresso e da coalizão, uniu-se à oposição para articular o processo de impeachment da presidente. O artigo estuda as ênfases e narrativas construídas pelos três maiores partidos do Brasil (PT, PMDB e PSDB) em suas Propagandas Partidárias Gratuitas (PPG) durante o contexto da crise política. O trabalho toma como base as discussões sobre interface mídia e política, campanha permanente e especificidades da propaganda política.

Participação, políticas públicas e o movimento LGBT brasileiro entre 2003 e 2014

O artigo analisa a relação entre o movimento de Lésbicas, Gays, Bissexuais, Travestis e Transexuais (LGBT) com os governos de Lula da Silva e Dilma Rousseff a partir das políticas participativas por eles implementadas. Estudos empíricos feitos pelo Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada (IPEA) apontam para significativa ampliação da estrutura institucional de participação, centrada no aumento de Conferências Nacionais e Conselhos Nacionais de Políticas Públicas. Partindo de estudos qualitativos, a participação política do movimento LGBT como grupo subalterno gerou laços de dependência no que tange a recursos materiais e simbólicos, fazendo-o conformar-se no Estado e não diante deste. Isso repercutiu em sua autonomia e organização gerando a adesão e o consenso ativo do grupo subalterno junto ao bloco no poder. Ao comprometer a constituição do movimento enquanto sujeito político autônomo, a relação aponta para a hegemonia exercida pelo governo sobre a população LGBT.

TV serial fiction, political journalism and construction of reality: some hypotheses from Greimas’ perspective

O objetivo deste artigo é refletir, com base nos pilares epistemológicos da semiótica de Greimas, sobre o papel das relações entre seriados televisivos e jornalismo político no processo de formação daquilo que, em uma dada esfera sociocultural, é percebido como “mundo real”. Em particular, foca-se nos elos entre o drama House of Cards e a cobertura dos eventos que antecederam e seguiram o impeachment da ex-presidente do Brasil, Dilma Rousseff, a fim de mostrar como a interseção entre os dois universos discursivos contribui, hoje, para forjar a percepção de uma realidade política e cotidiana cada vez mais serializada e dramatizada, construída e fruída nos moldes da ficção seriada televisiva.

POLITICAL CARTOGRAPHIES IN AQUARIUS

The premiere of Kleber Mendonca Filho’s film Aquarius coincided with the beginning of impeachment processes against former president Dilma Rousseff, spurring the filmmaking team to voice their opinions on the Cannes red carpet and in subsequent public discourse. In the following months the film became an important point of reference on the cultural landscape of Brazil, snubbed for selection for the Oscars, and involved in a debate over censorship. By first studying the content and cinematic techniques employed in telling the intimate story of contested space in the historic seafront building that is the film’s subject, and then analyzing the film and its reception as a cultural object at a certain political moment in Brazil during which time the film garnered significant attention and meaning beyond what is presented on screen, this article explores the deep politicization and extensive political cartography of Aquarius.

Impedimento presidencial de Dilma Rousseff, rendición de cuentas interinstitucional, estrategias de subversión, y calidad de la democracia en Brasil

The paper explores the Brazilian political crisis that forced the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff, in 2016. The article has been prepared in the perspectives of the studies on quality of democracy, in general, and the inter-institutional accountability, in particular. The approach to the inter-institutional accountability usually refers to the relations between Executive, Legislative and Judicial branch, the control agencies, the press/journalism and civil society contributions, and the political-administrative decentralization processes. In this context, we establish that the Rousseff’s impeachment was an abuse and excess of certain agents, political and juridical actors against the current executive.

Herança familiar na política: retrato dos limites da democracia no Brasil contemporâneo

Resumo O artigo traz reflexão teórica sobre a herança familiar na política influindo nos resultados eleitorais ainda hoje, resultado de simbiose que envolve cultura do favor, marketing político e poder econômico. Condição que sugere atualização de nossas raízes coloniais patrimonialistas e registro do inconcluso processo de modernização burguesa. O objetivo da reflexão é contribuir com pistas para se compreender a crise institucional e política que provocou a perda do mandato presidencial de Dilma Rousseff em 2016 através de golpe parlamentar, midiático e jurídico. A análise pauta-se em estudo bibliográfico no contexto de pesquisa particular sobre clãs políticos familiares do Ceará. Ao considerar outros estudos sobre o Brasil, pôde-se constatar a abrangência da influência familiar em diferentes esferas do poder político. Nesses termos, conclui-se sobre a frágil democracia brasileira que é acentuada por novo ciclo neoliberal e perspectivas de perdas de direitos sociais e trabalhistas.

REFLECTING ON HARD AND SOFT COUPS: A COMPARISON OF AQUARIUS BY KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO AND LAND IN ANGUISH BY GLAUBER ROCHA

This article aims to study the film Aquarius (2015) by Kleber Mendonca Filho in comparison with Land in Anguish (1967) by Glauber Rocha. The interest in analyzing both films stems from the polemical reception that Aquariu s received after its director and cast used the international launch at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016 to protest publically against the impeachment of Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, denounced by them as a soft coup. Land in Anguish , on the other hand, has long been considered an allegory of Brazil’s political situation after the military coup in 1964. This article will ask if any of the two films can be read as a diagnosis of the country and if how. To do so this study will be guided by the anthropological definition of film developed by German philosopher Martin Seel (2013) who understands the media as the art form that most strongly is capable of moving us, as much emotionally as intellectually, and, in consequence, make us move. I will therefore discuss both Aquarius and Land in Anguish’s potentials to move us and to make us move, asking if they can make us feel and understand Brazil so as to make us act – perchance – within its socio-political structure.

Brazil: From Successes to the Systemic Crisis

The paper focuses on the socioecnomic development of Brazil from the mid-1990s up today. The author puts a special attention to the process of deindustrialisation, which has been expressed in the diminishing share of manufacturing industry in GDP, employment and the structure of goods’ export whereas the role of the primary sector increases in economy and the external trade. The paper scrutinises the achievements of Brazil in reduction of poverty and social inequality, in development of education and enlargement of the social mobility’s channels. At the same time, the author argues that the model of development, apparently successful in 2003–2012, has exhausted itself in the changed conditions. It presupposed the balance of different interests, but this balance has been destroyed. Meanwhile, the social forces that could realise a transition to the new model of development have been weaker than the forces interested in exportation of commodities. The author treats political events in the country in 2015–2017, including the impeachment to Dilma Rousseff, as the counteroffensive of conservative forces in the context of Lava Jato (“car-wash”) corruption scandal which has shaken the fundaments of Brazil’s political system. The main conclusion the author makes from his analysis is that any exit from the deep crisis the country undergoes now will be long and painful.

Protecting democracy or conspiring against it? Media and politics in Latin America: A glimpse from Brazil

Political communication researchers often take for granted that a free press is one of the most important pillars of a solid democracy. Based on the western Fourth Estate model, they suppose that a free press naturally acts as an accountability agent, by protecting the interests of common citizens against government corruption and political abuses. Like many other nonwestern regions of the world, studies about the relationship between media and politics in Latin America usually adopt a ‘transition to democracy’ approach, by evaluating them more or less positively in reference to their degree of conformity to western examples. Typically, these studies describe advances of Latin American media toward a more democratic model or point to the obstacles preventing this from happening. However, these studies rarely explore a third possibility: What about cases in which the free press seemingly conspire against the democratic order? The 2016 parliamentary coup that overthrew President Dilma Rousseff in Brazil pro...

<b>A produção de um ‘policorpo’ para Dilma Rousseff nas eleições presidenciais de 2010: uma análise discursiva dos semanários brasileiros

Este artigo discute, sob a perspectiva da Análise do Discurso (AD) de linha francesa, as transformações que configuram não a utilização do corpo político empírico, mas a corporeidade, isto é, a sua discursivização - tal como ela é engendrada nas páginas da mídia impressa brasileira. Para isso, analisamos a forma como o perfil político de Dilma Rousseff foi materializado nos fios discursivos dos semanários de atualidades durante as eleições presidenciais de 2010. A fim de viabilizar o processo teórico-analítico desse cenário, constituímos um arquivo formado pelas 208 edições das revistas CartaCapital, Época, IstoÉ e Veja, publicadas no ano eleitoral. Dentro do quadro teórico adotado, cujos fundamentos baseiam-se principalmente no método arqueogenealógico de Michel Foucault, os resultados mostram que as práticas discursivas dos semanários focalizaram metamorfoses que o corpo da petista teria sofrido para figurar como representante de seu antecessor, produzindo um ‘policorpo’ (Santos, 2014), o qual foi potencializado pela dizibilidade de mecanismos tecnológicos imateriais e inumanos, mas perspicazes na midiatização de uma ‘candidata-corpo’ (Santos & Romualdo, 2013), que foi denunciada pela imprensa como produto eleitoral.

BNCC e a História Antiga: Uma possível compreensão do presente pelo passado e do passado pelo presente

O objetivo deste artigo é apresentar de que modo as pesquisas em História Antiga foram e podem ser associadas à contemporaneidade política brasileira. Para tanto, mostraremos a princípio um breve panorama sobre o desenvolvimento da Base Nacional Comum Curricular e a exclusão da História Antiga do projeto inicial. Em seguida, apontaremos as críticas acerca de tal eliminação e a importância da disciplina para a compreensão do presente. Por fim, demonstraremos como podemos relacionar o Principado de Nero com o afastamento da Presidenta Dilma Lana Rouseff. O referencial teórico empregado nesse artigo pautou-se no conceito de Anacronismo e na concepção de tempo não-linear, discutida por Bevernage e Lorenz (2013).

Negative campaign in the Brazilian presidential race: an analysis of the attacks posted on Facebook by the main candidates

ABSTRACTIn 2014, the polls indicated a fierce dispute between the two main candidates running for the Brazilian Presidency, Dilma Rousseff (Workers’ Party, PT) and Aécio Neves (Brazilian Social-Democracy’s Party, PSDB). During the campaign, their media attitude towards each other became quite aggressive at times, especially on social network sites. The use of digital media to attack opponents is a recent electoral communication strategy in Brazil, since this was only the second presidential race in which those tools could be officially employed by the candidates. In order to analyse this new context, this paper compares the negative campaigning promoted on Facebook by Dilma and Aécio in the pre-campaign and campaign periods. For the purpose of the investigation, we collected all the 3907 posts published on the two candidates’ official fan pages between 6 April and 26 October, 2014. Through the techniques of Content Analysis and Discourse Analysis, we identified and categorised the attacks based on the frequency, author, target and type of resource used. The results indicate that the electoral period was more negative than the pre-campaign, and that the preferred targets and the type of resource used by Rousseff and Neves varied over time.

O ANTIPETISMO RELIGIOSO: A DEMONIZAÇÃO DOS GOVERNOS PETISTAS A PARTIR DO DISCURSO UMBANDISTA

The election for the second term of President Dilma Rousseff in 2014 and the her impeachment in 2016 caused enormous political debates over these two years. On the Internet, through social networks, and in the protests that took over the streets, there was a growing discourse that attributed to the elected presidente and his political party the sole responsibility for the serious political and economic crisis in Brazil in recent years: the antipetism discourse. In this context, the book The Party - criminal project of power (INÁCIO; PINHEIRO, 2016), which has an esoteric-spiritualist content, makes an interpretation, from a spiritual perspective, of the political events that preceded the president's impeachment. In this analysis, the PT and their two elected presidents were manipulated by dark spirits, justifying the battle to get them out of the government not just as a political dispute, but a real war of good and evil. In this article we will analyze the discourses contained in this book and demonstrate how they reproduce the main elements of the antipetism discourse.

Emancipatory economic deglobalisation: a Polanyian perspective | Desglobalização econômica emancipatória: uma perspectiva a partir de Polanyi

The article explores the potential of a Polanyian analysis for overcoming the current Manichean opposition between cosmopolitan globalizers and reactionary nationalists. For long, Karl Polanyi has inspired socio-economic thinking in different ways. First, his reflections on the end of the first period of globalization in the 1930s offer insights for analysing the current political-economic situation. Furthermore, Polanyi contributes to an institutional analysis and utopian thinking towards a civilization for all. His approach enables a combination of a critique of current neoliberal globalization as a renewed version of the "liberal utopia" with a cultural and ecological critique of capitalism as a mode of production and living. In this respect, Karl Polanyi may be contrasted to Friedrich Hayek, both contemporaries of Red Vienna, an ambitious project of local socialism as a step towards a "good life for all". The social and cultural struggles in Vienna during the 1920s and 1930s offer insights for current confrontations worldwide, but especially in Brazil where the reformist attempts of civilizing capitalism where confronted with severe opposition. Instead of the false polarization between globalization and nationalism, policies “for the select few” are opposed to policies” for all”. Finally, Polanyi´s reflections will be used to shed light onto the current impasse resulting from the illegitimate deposition of president Dilma Rousseff.