President Jair Bolsonaro Research Articles

Facts from a redemptive future: denial and future anterior politics during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil

ABSTRACT During the COVID-19 pandemic, Brazil was the target of great international concern due to the policies adopted by the far-right government of President Jair Bolsonaro. His disregard for Non-Pharmaceutical Initiatives (NPI) for combatting COVID and his defense of pharmaceuticals considered scientifically ineffective were often characterized as denialist and anti-science. This diagnosis may not clearly describe the multiple dimensions enmeshed in denialism. This article focuses on the temporality implied in governmental denialist discourses and practices. Based on an ethnographic analysis of public documents, speeches, and posts on social networks made by Bolsonaro and his ministers between 2020 and 2022, this article describes how denialist actions of the Brazilian government were structured in the future anterior. The article underscores how future anterior ethics and denial politics open a temporal and ethical space for governance to become unbound from responsibility for deaths and the suffering of victims, which are quickly forgotten or denied. The article argues for a nuanced examination of temporality and denial as a way to grasp the material and political effects of institutionalized state denial, especially as they entail modes of life and death governance.

Far-right rhetorics and deconstructions in Brazilian educational policies

Brazil's education policy has historically been marked by significant inequalities in access and quality, particularly affecting the most vulnerable populations. Over the past two decades, Brazil has implemented substantial changes aimed at reducing inequality, promoting inclusion, and addressing racial and gender disparities. However, the rise of radical right-wing populism, particularly under President Jair Bolsonaro (2018-2022), resulted in a shift in educational policy. This article examines how radical right groups have influenced education policy in Brazil. Bolsonaro's administration, supported by conservative and religious groups, sought to reverse progressive policies related to gender, sexual orientation, and ethnic diversity and inclusion. These changes reinforced societal norms, traditional values, and nationalism, rejecting multiculturalism and adopting forms of othering. The findings are based on previous research that involded qualitative analysis of documents and interviews.

Democratic Regression in Brazil under the Bolsonaro Presidency

In this paper we analysed the quality of democracy during the presidency of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro between 2018 and 2022. Our research question was whether an erosion of democracy, or more precisely a reduction of the quality of Brazilian’s democracy, took place during that time or not. To answer these questions, we used relevant democracy criteria as analytical tools. Methodologically, this study we conducted a thorough literature review and an expert interview with a Brazilian social scientist. As a result, we concluded that based on the findings in the fields of vertical accountability, political rights, civil liberties, and horizontal accountability there was indeed a decline of democratic quality during Bolsonaro’s presidency.

Twisted knowledge construction on X/Twitter: an analysis of constructivist sensemaking on social media leading to political radicalization

PurposeThis study aims to identify how Brazilian followers of an X/Twitter profile engage in theory-building processes leading up to the January 8, 2023 riots in Brasília, the Brazilian capital. This paper seeks to understand how cognitive and sociocultural processes weave together to weaponize collective knowledge construction that, in isolation, could be seen as virtuous but, in specific contexts, might lead to radicalization.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses qualitative content analysis of comments on ambiguous X/Twitter posts published by a conspiratorial profile associated with former President Jair Bolsonaro. Content was published in the three weeks that preceded the coup d’état attempt by Bolsonaro supporters on January 8, 2023.FindingsFindings point to users’ resorting to intuitive knowledge to support sensemaking processes in their search for subliminal meanings in tweets. That includes, for example, attempts to crack binary code-encrypted messages. This study also identified practices of cross-media sourcing, where users collect evidence from alternative social media channels to interpret messages containing verbal and visual information. Finally, this study found that religious symbols are often instrumentalized and become a lens through which followers organize information to integrate with their existing knowledge and assumptions.Research limitations/implicationsWith this work, the authors build on existing scholarship on epistemologies used by conspiratorial and radicalized groups as they engage in systematic sensemaking and often refer to religion to interpret messages that motivate extreme political position-taking. This study addresses a similar phenomenon as it unfolds in an understudied geographical context (Brazil) and seeks to demonstrate how individuals engage in collective sensemaking practices. The authors hope that their findings inform educators as they explore the affordances of social media to foster positive collective learning experiences in reasoning supported by social media.Originality/valueThe originality of this study is twofold. First, this study uses an analytical lens that draws on the learning sciences and cognitive science for inquiry of radicalization happening around social media. The authors understand that social media lend themselves particularly interesting to the analysis, as they are settings where notions of mastery blur, and individuals engage in conversations on complex, controversial topics. With that engagement, they demonstrate willingness to reason collectively. Second, this study investigates how those phenomena unfold in an understudied context, responding to calls for more diversity in research in the learning sciences as well as in media studies.

Framing disinformation through legislation: Evidence from policy proposals in Brazil

This article analyzes 62 bills introduced in the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies between 2019–2022 to understand how legislators frame disinformation into different problems and their respective solutions. The timeframe coincides with the administration of right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro. The study shows a tendency from legislators of parties opposed to Bolsonaro to attempt to criminalize the creation and spread of health-related and government-led disinformation. This trend is explained by the Brazilian polarized democracy in a moment of crisis with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Party identity and social-distancing behaviours in Brazil

ABSTRACT Does political affiliation of local politicians determine citizens’ compliance to social distancing behaviours? I provide causal estimates of the effect of political identity of municipal mayors on regional differences in engaging in COVID preventive behaviours in the context of Brazil. I employ a sharp regression discontinuity design based on close mayoral elections in 2016 to examine the effects of having a mayor from one of three political parties that President Jair Bolsonaro is closely associated with, by combining Facebook mobility data that tracks regional movement relative to February 2020 levels with electoral data from the 2016 mayoral municipal elections. The methodology compares municipalities that are similar along a wide array of predetermined and observable correlates of the spread of coronavirus, and where the incumbent mayor was selected as-if randomly. I find that residents of Bolsonaro-affiliated municipalities exhibit 60% smaller relative declines in regional movement and are 13% more likely to cross regional boundaries over the months of March, April, and May in 2020. The findings hold for each of the three political parties, for each of the three months since the onset of the pandemic, and after controlling for anti-lockdown measures of 15 March 2020 in Brazil.

Grassroots Archives

Abstract In recent years, coalitions of activists, artists, scholars, and community members have created archives composed of material related to social movements past and present with increasing frequency. These grassroots archives raise questions about the potential role of archives as generative spaces for democratizing history. This article explores this potential and the attendant challenges through a case study on an effort to preserve the memory of activism in São Paulo’s urban peripheries during Brazil’s civil-military dictatorship (1964–85)—an effort in which the author took part amid the rise of the far-right president and former dictatorship supporter Jair Bolsonaro. The postdictatorship culture of censorship and an ever-changing city relentlessly militated against the permanence of memory, not least through the destruction of physical archives and reference points in the urban landscape. The effort to organize and digitize precarious materials unfolded amid a larger campaign by activists to create an archive as part of a new university in the periphery. In this article, the author reflects on his experience working with communities through grassroots archiving to preserve at-risk historical sources, enhance local capacity, and broaden the practice of history beyond the academy.

The Influence of the Militarisation of Bureaucracies during Bolsonaro's Government on Public Opinion about the Brazilian Armed Forces

This paper examines the consequences of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's strategy of appointing military officials to high‐level positions within the federal executive branch and its effect on public opinion about the Armed Forces. The main argument is that the outsized role of the Armed Forces in the Bolsonaro administration harmed public perceptions of the Brazilian military. Despite the robust recruitment process in the public bureaucracy, Bolsonaro found a way to surround himself with ideologically extreme bureaucrats at the highest level. The study explores the systematic approach of enhancing military personnel's presence in the government and hypothesises about declining levels of trust in the Armed Forces. The paper draws on data from three waves of the Brazilian survey ‘A Cara da Democracia’ (The Face of Democracy) to show that the population's level of trust in the Armed Forces decreased during Bolsonaro's tenure. Furthermore, the Brazilian survey data also suggest that lower trust in the Armed Forces is robustly associated with dissatisfaction with Brazilian democracy.

Dismantling and Reconstruction of Public Policies in Brazil: From Bolsonaro’s Destruction to the Possibilities of Union to Rebuild

This article discusses the Brazilian political situation with a focus on the dismantling of public policy that occurred during the government of President Jair Bolsonaro between 2019 and 2022. It also focuses on the possibility that emerged with the election of President Lula da Silva in October 2022 of rebuilding politics and the Brazilian state. The study seeks to demonstrate how the Brazilian state was dismantled, jeopardizing the provision of public policies that guarantee the social, political, and human rights enshrined in the 1988 Brazilian Constitution.

The Outlook of Brazilian Amazon Forest Restoration under The Leadership of President Lula da Silva

The implementation of anti-environmental policies during the conservative government under President Jair Bolsonaro has resulted in the destruction of the Brazilian Amazon forest region. The deforestation rate, which had previously decreased, started to climb significantly in 2019. The devastating forest fires that hit the Amazon at the end of this year is indivisible from the government's neglect. The re-election of Lula da Silva as President of Brazil in 2023 sparked great optimism among the Brazilians and international public for restoring Brazilian Amazon forestbecause Lula, as Brazil president for two previous periods, had succeeded in reducing the deforestation and destruction of the Brazilian Amazon forest to its lowest point in 2003-2011. Therefore, this paper aims to examine the vision of restoring the Brazilian Amazon forest under the new government of Lula da Silva. This study uses a qualitative method that relies on various information originating from government documents, related books and journals, online news reports, and several other types of secondary data. Based on the initial research, Lula has carried out multiple programs related to Amazon Forest restoration, from initiating sustainable economic development to strengthening law enforcement, protecting indigenous communities, and strengthening cooperation with the international community. As a result, the level of deforestation and forest fires in the Amazon has now followed a significant downward trend. Keywords: Amazon, Brazil, Lula da Silva

Fake News in Brazil – Bolsonaro Case Study

It is well-known that former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro used social media to spread fake news with the assistance of his public official supporters also known as the “hatred cabinet”. This practice started during his campaign and continued throughout his government. This political strategy was guided by a selected group influenced by Olavo de Carvalho and inspired by his far-right thinking. This paper aims to analyze Bolsonaro’s political strategy of using social media to manipulate his followers by applying Carlo Ginzburg’s evidence method. The theoretical reference is based on Pierre Bourdieu, Jürgen Habermas from the vision of Mauro Wilton and Wilson Gomes, Zygmunt Bauman, Hanna Arendt, Yuval Harari, Pierre Lévy, Gilles Lipovetsky, Georges Balandier, among others. In the post-truth era, Bolsonaro and his supporters continue to disseminate fake news through a giant network in social media - such as Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook - about many different issues including politics, dictatorship, racism, homophobia, environment, COVID-19 treatment, and vaccines. Keywords: fake news, social media, public space, digital communication, post-modernity

Role of social bots in the Brazilian environmental debate:

This paper examines the use of computational propaganda in the Brazilian environmental debate, focusing on the 2020 Amazon Forest fire discussions on Twitter. Through the use of a bot detector algorithm and social network analysis, the research aims to understand the role of social bots and the extent to which automated accounts reverberate certain ideological positions. The study found that Twitter discussions were highly polarized between supporters and critics of former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro. While the participation of international celebrities in the debate increased the visibility of a civil society awareness campaign against the forest fires, it also triggered a computational propaganda counterattack by Bolsonaro’s supporters. Our analysis indicates that the anti-environmentalist reaction aimed at denying the existence of an environmental problem in the Brazilian Amazon was heavily amplified by automated and inauthentic accounts.

Mass Atrocities against Indigenous Peoples: Atrocity Structure and the Brazilian Amazon under Bolsonaro

Abstract Throughout the four years of his presidency, President Jair Bolsonaro implemented policies, sponsored initiatives, and promoted discourses that were fundamentally detrimental to indigenous peoples in Brazil. This resulted in the most acute and irreconcilable disparity in interests between settlers and indigenous communities over the control of land in the Amazon, a dispute which is at the core of the eruption of the anti-indigenous atrocity structure existent in Brazil in the 21st century. As a result, the Amazonian indigenous peoples were victims of several mass atrocities, consisting of destructive, exterminatory, persecutory, and other inhumane acts, especially through invasion, deforestation, contamination, and deprivation of health care. This article explains and analyses each pillar of this atrocious process.

Quali-quanti visual methods and political bots

Computational social science research on automated social media accounts, colloquially dubbed “bots”, has tended to rely on binary verification methods to detect bot operations on social media. Typically focused on textual data from Twitter (now rebranded as "X"), these inference-based methods are prone to finding false positives and failing to understand the subtler ways in which bots operate over time, through visual content and in particular contexts. This research brings methodological contributions to such studies, focusing on what it calls “bolsobots” in Brazilian social media. Named after former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, the bolsobots refer to the extensive and skilful usage of partial or fully automated accounts by marketing teams, hackers, activists or campaign supporters. These accounts leverage online political culture to sway public opinion for or against public policies, opposition figures, or Bolsonaro himself. Drawing on empirical case studies, this paper implements quali-quanti visual methods to operationalise specific techniques for interpreting bot-associated image collections and textual content across Instagram, TikTok and Twitter/X. To unveil the modus operandi of bolsobots, we map the networks of users they follow (“following networks”), explore the visual-textual content they post, and observe the strategies they deploy to adapt to platform content moderation. Such analyses tackle methodological challenges inherent in bot studies by employing three key strategies: 1) designing context-sensitive queries and curating datasets with platforms’ interfaces and search engines to mitigate the limitations of bot scoring detectors, 2) engaging qualitatively with data visualisations to understand the vernaculars of bots, and 3) adopting a non-binary analysis framework that contextualises bots within their socio-technical environments. By acknowledging the intricate interplay between bots, user and platform cultures, this paper contributes to method innovation on bot studies and emerging quali-quanti visual methods literature.

#FandomsPeloVoto (#FandomsfortheVote): Fan Activism for Youth Voter Engagement in the 2022 Brazilian Elections

This article aims to analyze the media literacy skills at work in the content shared by fans on Twitter during the #FandomsPeloVoto (#Fandomsforthe- Vote) campaign. In a convergence culture environment, media literacy comprises five skills: curation, creation, critical understanding, participation, and collaboration. Launched in May 2022, the campaign—carried out in partnership with Mídia Ninja, the National Student Union (União Nacional dos Estudantes, UNE), and the Brazilian Union of Secondary School Students (União Brasileira dos Estudantes Secundaristas, UBES)—brought together more than 100 pop culture fandoms in Brazil to mobilize 16- to 18-year-olds to obtain a voter registration card and be eligible to vote in the 2022 elections. It can be concluded that the activism of fandoms goes beyond transposing fan culture practices into the realm of political participation, also encompassing the critical interpretation of the sociopolitical issues that were part of the action and the creative production of posts on Twitter. Accordingly, #FandomsPeloVoto has aspects of political resistance, as one of its primary objectives is the removal of President Jair Bolsonaro, leader of the far right in Brazil, from power.

Lies Have Short Legs: Brazilian Media Exposes Bolsonaro's Deceptive Claims Amidst Misinformation Surge

In an era marked by widespread misinformation and declining trust in institutions and journalism, the deceptive statements made by former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro have gained significant attention. However, it was only in the second year of his term, during the COVID-19 pandemic, that news outlets actively began to expose and denounce his false and misleading claims. This article presents a content analysis comparing press coverage of the following four pivotal moments in the Bolsonaro administration during the pandemic: his speech at the UN General Assembly in 2020, his national radio and TV address in March 2021, his speech to ambassadors in July 2022, and his interview with Jornal Nacional, the most-watched news program in Brazil, in August 2022. By examining articles and headlines from the country's three most prominent newspapers, including two leading fact-checking agencies, this study reveals a shift in media discourse with the term 'lie' being increasingly used. Our hypothesis is that journalism is striving to reclaim its role as a trustworthy institution.

THE INSURRECTIONIST PLAYBOOK: JAIR BOLSONARO AND THE NATIONAL CONGRESS OF BRAZIL

In this paper we unpack the 2022 Brazilian Presidential campaign marked by multiple claims of electoral fraud and support for a coup d’état by supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro. We identify the narrative frames underpinning the insurrectionist playbook by analyzing Bolsonaro’s statements during the presidential campaign. We subsequently test the penetration of this playbook on members of the Brazilian National Congress during the campaign trail and the transition of power to the opposition candidate, when pro-Bolsonaro protesters attempted to overthrow the Federal Government. Our analyses lend support to the hypothesis that the coup d’état was not successful due to the dwindling support beyond the hard-core Bolsonaro base. Our results also show that the insurrectionist playbook, largely centered on the blueprint of false claims of electoral fraud, can be monitored through the public statements of elected officials. We conclude with a discussion of our findings and recommendations for future research.

One event, multiple narratives: an analysis of the attempted coup in Brasília from the perspective of Jovem Pan News and Globo News

The beginning of 2023 was politically agitated in Brazil. The year started with the inauguration of newly elected president Luís Inácio Lula da Silva. The ceremony culminated with the climbing of the presidential palace’s ramp, bringing together various representatives of Brazilian society, such as indigenous people, women, disable people, and workers. The following week the same place became the stage of undemocratics acts. The upheaval was broadcast live by various TV and internet channels, such as GloboNews and Jovem Pan. Based on the French approach of Discourse Analysis, we found that the same fact generated very different coverage and interpretations, depicting contradictory expectations for the future of the country. These various interpretations reflect the ideology of each channel, feeding the audience’s polarization in the political moment Brazil is experiencing, with just over half of the population supporting the elected government and the other fighting and defending far right ideals, currently represented by voters of former president Jair Bolsonaro.

Linguistic means of forming the image of the head of a foreign state in the American media (based on the material of The New York Times)

This article is devoted to the study of linguistic means of forming the image of the former president of the Federative Republic of Brazil – Jair Bolsonaro. The purpose of this study is to study the linguistic means of forming the image of the head of a foreign state, who receives representation on the pages of The New York Times. The subject of the study is the lexical and semantic field (LSF) of Personal Names as a model of representation of knowledge about the leader of a foreign state, as well as the contexts of the linguistic implementation of the core of the studied LSF. The main objectives of the study included the study of the structure and composition of the lexico-semantic field of Personal Names, as well as concordance analysis of the contexts of the linguistic implementation of the Personal Names LSF core. The research material is presented by The New York Times newspaper's 2019 issues of articles about Brazil. Using the method of corpus analysis of the texts of articles using the Wmatrix computer program made it possible to identify the lexical and semantic field of Personal Names in the structure of the cognitive matrix Brazil. Concordance analysis of the contexts of the linguistic implementation of the Bolsonaro lexical unit allowed us to identify 3 leading typical arguments that are formed by the newspaper around the name of the politician. The novelty of the study lies in the choice of the material and the subject of the study: the image of President Jair Bolsonaro in the American media has not been studied by linguists to date. The results of the study showed that the image of a politician is formed, among other things, by building contextual connections between the core of the lexico-semantic field under study and the units that make up the structure of this field, while the majority of lexical units relate to figures of political figures in Brazil and foreign countries who do not support the policy of J. Bolsonaro. The nature of the typical arguments identified by examining the concordance of the core of the studied LSF allows us to confirm that the image of this politician, formed by The New York Times newspaper, tends to be negatively biased. Readers are being shown the image of Jair Bolsonaro as a politician advocating the disappearance of the Amazon forests, being an ultra-right populist and not supporting the rights of the indigenous peoples of Brazil.

ASSISTENCIALISMO E REPRESENTATIVIDADE ALEGÓRICA DAS PESSOAS COM DEFICIÊNCIA

In this theoretical rehearsal, we seek to analyze the setbacks related to the rights of disabilities people through the assistance and allegorical representation Bolsonaro government strategies and to understand how bolsonarismo still present in capacitist practices, even with the end of the President Jair Bolsonaro mandate. This time, we organized the discussions into three crucial points for deepening the theme: 1. Welfare and withdrawal of rights, showing normative and/or social setbacks during the period of government of former president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro; 2. Understanding of representativeness sustained as a flag, but used as an allegory as the main strategy for implementing Bolsonarism in relation to the agenda of people with disabilities; and, finally, 3. we reflect on the current situation through the resumption of inclusion policies. We analyze that the former Bolsonaro government, in a covert way, appropriated the guidelines of representativeness and accessibility, strengthening in the social imaginary the dehumanization of people with disabilities, through the sneaky discourse of welfare, thus violating social, ethical and political rights of these subjects. Embodied in this fact, even with the recent inauguration of Luís Inácio Lula da Silva - who remains inoperative in relation to the theme -, there are countless consequences and confrontations with Bolsonarist practices regarding the construction of these setbacks that need to be carried out.