Postauthoritarian Brazil Research Articles

It’s my party and I’ll lie if I want to: Elite ideological obfuscation in post-authoritarian settings

This paper examines the origins and evolution of the direita envergonhada (“embarrassed right”) phenomenon, a pattern of ideological obfuscation by right-of-center politicians that was originally identified and documented in post-authoritarian Brazil. Conservative politicians refused to identify themselves as right-wing, defining themselves instead as centrists and placing themselves ideologically to the left of their own political parties. We find that this phenomenon is not restricted to Brazil, but is widespread across Latin America’s Third Wave of democratization. We also find that politicians personally connected to the defunct authoritarian regime were more likely to engage in obfuscation and that, contrary to previous hypotheses, obfuscation has faded in recent times.

Bolsonaro in Power: Failed Memory Politics in Post-Authoritarian Brazil?

This brief chapter offers some first reflections on the nexus between what is now being construed as a ‘failed’ memory politics in Brazil and the recent mass support for a figure who enthuses about human rights violations. It asks: Where did memory politics ‘fail’ and to what extent can this explain Bolsonaro’s rise? Is the Bolsonaro government successfully dismantling a supposed ‘post-authoritarian human rights culture’ or ‘collective memory’, and what kind of resistance does he face? The chapter answers these questions in three steps. It first outlines Bolsonaro’s views on past violence. It then summarises key post-1985 memory initiatives in order to, thirdly, examine both how the Bolsonaro government is trying to dismantle existing human rights and memory institutions, and who the actors are that resist these political initiatives.

“With colleagues like that, who needs enemies?”:Doctors and Repression under Military and Post-Authoritarian Brazil

As young medical students at Guanabara State University, Luiz Roberto Tenório and Ricardo Agnese Fayad received some of the best medical education offered in 1960s Brazil. For six years, the peers in the same entering class had studied the principles of the healing arts and practiced their application at the university's teaching hospital. They had also witnessed the Brazilian military oust a democratically elected president and install a dictatorship that ruled the country for 21 years (1964–85). After graduating, however, Tenório and Fayad embarked on very distinct paths. The former became a political dissident in opposition to the military regime and provided medical assistance to members of the armed left. The latter joined the armed forces and, as a military physician, participated in the brutal torture and cruel treatment of political prisoners. At the end of military rule, Brazil's medical board would find him guilty of violating the Brazilian code of medical ethics and revoke his license.

The importance of presidential leadership for Brazilian foreign policy

ABSTRACTThe conventional wisdom in Brazil is that foreign policy is a policy of state and, as such, not part of the daily political debate. The result is an understanding that foreign policy is largely driven by the foreign ministry, with the president generally only taking a role when needed to advance a particular initiative through presidential diplomacy. We challenge these assumptions, arguing that the engagement and authority of the president are the essential factors in bringing about not only substantive strategic change in Brazilian foreign policy, but also alterations in the policy process that have democratized foreign policy and moved it from a policy of state to another area of public policy. To do this, we draw on and deepen Sergio Danese’s theory of presidential diplomacy and map out major strategic changes in post-authoritarian Brazil’s foreign policy. We find that the major changes that have taken place were initiated by the truncated Fernando Collor presidency and then deepened and amplified by the highly internationally engaged presidencies of Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Lula. By contrast, the presidencies of Itamar Franco and Dilma Rousseff emerge as instances of inertial continuity lacking in dynamism and innovation.

Impunity in Post-authoritarian Brazil: The Supreme Court’s Recent Verdict on the Amnesty Law

While numerous countries in post-authoritarian South America have annulled Amnesty Laws issued under authoritarian rule and punished officials involved in repressive organs, Brazil continues to favour impunity. This attitude has recently been confirmed by the Brazilian Supreme Court's decision to maintain the 1979 Amnesty Law granting de-facto impunity to violators of human rights during the military regime. The article considers this verdict within its historical context, and raises two questions which have previously attracted little attention: First, why has post-authoritarian Brazil processed the experience of the military regime so differently from its neighbouring countries, and what role did the Amnesty Law play in that difference? Second, what does this disinterest in punishment mean? This article concludes that one promising theory highlighted by political scientists - the low degree of par- ticipation in civil society in Brazil - cannot fully explain why the vast majority of Brazilians are not interested in punishment, as numerous citizens mobilized during the amnesty movement. It seems to imply that the heterogeneous anti-authoritarian alliance vanished once the Amnesty Law had been achieved. Another key finding is that the disinterest in punishment cannot be interpreted as moral sup- port for the military regime or a sanctioning of its human rights violations, as the amnesty debate in Brazil is more complex. Keywords: Brazil, amnesty, military regime, human rights, impunity.

Reconstructing Brazil: Institutional Reform, Economic Liberalism, and Pluralism

Inventing Local Democracy: Grassroots Politics in Brazil. By Rebecca Neaera Abers (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000. Pp. 269. $59.95 cloth.) Democracy and The Public Space in Latin America. By Leonardo Avritzer. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002. Pp. 202. N.p.) Transforming Brazil: A Reform Era in Perspective. By Mauricio A. Font. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 2003. Pp. 288. $75.00 cloth, $25.95 paper.) Fernando Henrique Cardoso: Reinventing Democracy in Brazil. By Ted G. Goertzel. (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1999. Pp. 220. $49.95 cloth, $19.95 paper.) Democratic Brazil: Actors, Institutions, and Processes. Edited by Peter Kingstone and Timothy J. Power. (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000. Pp. 480. $50.00 cloth, $22.95 paper.) The Political Right in Postauthoritarian Brazil: Elites, Institutions, and Democratization. By Timothy J. Power. (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2000. Pp. 284. $55.00 cloth, $19.95 paper.) Consumption Intensified: The Politics of Middle-Class Daily Life in Brazil. By Maureen O'Dougherty. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002. Pp. 262. $59.95 cloth, $19.95 paper.) Lost For Words? Brazilian Liberationism in the 1990S. By Goetz Frank Ottman. (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002. Pp. 240. $39.95 cloth.) Over the past twenty years, Brazilians have witnessed and participated in the reform, renewal, and restructuring of their political institutions, economic system, and state-society relationships. The distribution of authority and the allocation of resources have been transformed through the return to democracy in 1985, the drafting of the [End Page 242] 1988 Constitution, the decentralization of federal authority to states and municipalities, the entrance of new groups into civil and political society, the ending of hyper-inflation with the 1994 Plano Real, and the liberalization of Brazil's economy. In response, social and political actors have modified their strategies and practices to take advantage of the new institutional settings and political opportunities. The establishment of democracy has helped to foster more pluralistic and competitive political and civil societies. Yet, as some authors in the books under review note, there has also been considerable stagnation and resistance to reform as various sectors have sought to stifle reform efforts. Basic improvements in the quality of life for most Brazilians have not occurred even though the basic institutional structure of the government has changed, the economy has liberalized, and new groups have been able to participate in formal political society. Violence, poverty, exclusion, and corruption remain constant themes in everyday Brazilian life. The research topics vary greatly among the books reviewed, from the role of conservative politicians in the New Republic to the formation of middle-class identity in the city of São Paulo, but a recurring theme is how individuals and groups responded to the instability of the late 1980s and early 1990s as well as the increasing economic and political stability that developed after the Plano Real was launched in 1994. This review essay is organized around three themes to demonstrate how the authors of the selected books account for the responses and strategies of the individuals and groups to the changing political environment. The first section focuses on politics at the national level. These works illustrate the continued importance of regional politics, personal loyalty, and maintenance of interest groups that cut across party lines. The second section focuses on the emergence of new actors within civil society but pays particular attention to how civil society organizations now interact with political society and new institutional arrangements. Brazilian local politics experienced a renewal during the 1990s as oppositional political parties were able to win local elections and begin experimenting with new policies and institutional types. The final section turns to ethnographic pieces situated in the city of São Paulo to demonstrate how macro-structural institutional and economic changes have led to micro-level shifts in how individuals and civil society organizations responded to the upheaval of the 1980s and early 1990s. Restructuring Institutions...

Timothy J. Power, The Political Right in Postauthoritarian Brazil: Elites, Institutions, and Democratization (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2000), pp. xvi+284, £46.50, £16.95 pb.

Timothy J. Power, The Political Right in Postauthoritarian Brazil: Elites, Institutions, and Democratization (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2000), pp. xvi+284, £46.50, £16.95 pb. - Volume 34 Issue 4

The Political Right in Postauthoritarian Brazil: Elites, Institutions, and Democratization. TIMOTHY J. POWER: University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000.

More than fifteen years after the return to civilian rule, why do starkly unequal political and social structures persist in Brazil? In a detailed examination of the impact of military dictatorship on democracy, Timothy Power puts his finger on important answers to this question. While some theoreticians suggest that so-called conservative transitions from authoritarianism can be beneficial to democracy, Power clearly establishes the Brazilian case as a significant counter-example. Authoritarian rule and the slow transition (1964-1985) not only asphyxiated democratic expression; they also provided right-wing politicians with disproportionate influence and the ability to stay entrenched in positions of power at least into the late 1990s. Instead of a fully consolidated democracy, Brazilians experience "a perverse situation in which, instead of the right accommodating itself to the rules of the new democracy, the rules of the new democracy must accommodate the right" (p. 239). The Brazilian right blocks the kind of legislative initiative needed to reduce cronyism and promote social change, for example, the long overdue implementation of meaningful agrarian reform.

Blairism Brazilian Style? Cardoso and the “Third Way” in Brazil

Journal Article Blairism Brazilian Style? Cardoso and the “Third Way” in Brazil Get access Timothy J. Power Timothy J. Power TIMOTHY J. POWER is assistant professor of political science and an affiliate of the Latin American and Caribbean Center at Florida International University. His most recent book is The Political Right in Postauthoritarian Brazil: Elites, Institutions, and Democratization. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Political Science Quarterly, Volume 116, Issue 4, Winter 2001, Pages 611–636, https://doi.org/10.2307/798223 Published: 15 February 2013

Political Parties, the Right, and Institutions in Latin America: Prospects for DemocracyConservative Parties, the Right and Democracy in Latin America. Kevin J. MiddlebrookChile's Political Culture and Parties: An Anthropological Explanation. Larissa Adler Lomnitz , Ana MelnickLegislative Institutions and Ideology in Chile. John B. LondreganThe Political Right in Postauthoritarian Brazil: Elites, Institutions, and Democratization. Timothy J. Power

Political Parties, the Right, and Institutions in Latin America: Prospects for Democracy<i>Conservative Parties, the Right and Democracy in Latin America</i>. Kevin J. Middlebrook<i>Chile's Political Culture and Parties: An Anthropological Explanation</i>. Larissa Adler Lomnitz , Ana Melnick<i>Legislative Institutions and Ideology in Chile</i>. John B. Londregan<i>The Political Right in Postauthoritarian Brazil: Elites, Institutions, and Democratization</i>. Timothy J. Power

The Political Right in Postauthoritarian Brazil: Elites, Institutions, and Democratization. By Timothy J. Power. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000. 284p. $55.00 cloth, $19.95 paper.

The Political Right in Postauthoritarian Brazil: Elites, Institutions, and Democratization. By Timothy J. Power. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000. 284p. 19.95 paper. - Volume 95 Issue 3

The political right in postauthoritarian Brazil: elites, institutions, and democratization

The political right in postauthoritarian Brazil: elites, institutions, and democratization

The Political Right in Postauthoritarian Brazil: Elites, Institutions, and Democratization

The Political Right in Postauthoritarian Brazil: Elites, Institutions, and Democratization

The Political Right in Postauthoritarian Brazil: Elites, Institutions, and Democratization

The Political Right in Postauthoritarian Brazil: Elites, Institutions, and Democratization

Between global markets and domestic politics: Brazil's military-industrial collapse

Concerns about Third World military industrialization, which animate a broad range of international security debates, often take for granted the South's capacity for sustained military-industrial development. A convergence of favourable conditions spurred rapid defence-sector growth in much of the South beginning in the late 1970s. But the increasingly competitive character of the global arms economy and the turbulent political situations of most would-be military industrializers have derailed this growth. The collapse of Brazil's defence sector in the early 1990s illustrates that the largest barriers to Third World military industrialization are not financial or technological but rather institutional. Simultaneous domestic-political and global-market changes destabilized the institutional foundation of Brazilian military-industrial growth, despite the defence sector's impressive technological, industrial, and political advantages. It has proven impossible to reconcile the military's domestic political needs in post-authoritarian Brazil with the global-market integration on which the sector's financial and technological development depends.

Obstacles to Social Reform in Brazil's New Democracy

This article analyzes the impact of democracy on social equity.' Specifically, why has Brazil's recent transition to democracy not enabled the large number of poor people to use their new rights of participation to press successfully for social reform? And why have politicians and state officials who have advanced equity-enhancing proposals been unable to carry them out? An analysis of policymaking in social security suggests that the institutional fragmentation of social organizations and the state have posed the main obstacles to redistributive change. Persistent clientelism has cemented divisions among the poor and thus lessened pressure for reform; weak party organization has hindered the articulation of redistributive proposals in the electoral arena; narrow interest associations have given better-off sectors direct access to the state to defend their privileges; and an internally fragmented state has proven incapable of enacting equity-enhancing change on its own initiative. With these arguments, the article advances an institutionalist explanation of the dearth of social reform in postauthoritarian Brazil.

Transition to Democracy and Political Culture: an Analysis of the Conflict Between Civil and Political Society In Post‐Authoritarian Brazil

ConstellationsVolume 2, Issue 2 p. 242-267 Transition to Democracy and Political Culture: an Analysis of the Conflict Between Civil and Political Society In Post-Authoritarian Brazil Leonardo Avritzer, Leonardo AvritzerSearch for more papers by this author Leonardo Avritzer, Leonardo AvritzerSearch for more papers by this author First published: April 1995 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8675.1995.tb00030.xCitations: 7Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume2, Issue2April 1995Pages 242-267 RelatedInformation

The Military Ministers and Political Change in Post-Authoritarian Brazil

AbstractOne important barrier to the democratization process in Latin American countries has been the persistence of military-institutional structures, often at the very heart of the national polity. In the case of Brazil, these structures evolved during a period of protracted military dictatorship, and have depended for their survival after 1985 upon the pivotal role of the military ministers in the presidential cabinet. An examination of the striking changes in the roles and functions of the military ministers between the presidencies of Jose Sarney and Fernando Collor de Melo suggests that the democratization process in Brazil has involved a pervasive and effective depoliticization of the military from the first to the second post-authoritarian presidencies, although significant qualifications to this observation exist.