Anthony W. Pereira

Virtual Legality: Authoritarian Legacies and the Reform of Military Justice in Brazil, the Southern Cone, and Mexico

Authoritarian regimes in Latin America frequently expanded military court jurisdiction to prosecute political opponents and protect members of the armed forces and police engaged in repression. What happened to the military courts after the recent transitions to democracy in the region? Why did some democratic transitions produce broad reform of military justice while most did not? This article first reviews contending theoretical explanations that offer answers to these questions, comparing those answers with actual outcomes in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico. It then argues that the “mode of transition” perspective, which attributes variation in the extent of military justice reform to the autonomy and strength of the military in the democratic transition, best explains the outcomes in these cases. However, the militarys autonomy and strength should be specified. In the area of military justice, the relevant factors are the militarys propagation of an accepted legal justification for past uses of military courts and the creation of congressional support for the maintenance of existing military court jurisdiction. Both of these factors are present in Brazil, Chile, and Mexico, where little or no reform of military justice took place under democratization, and absent in Argentina, where broad reform did occur.

Irregular Armed Forces and Their Role in Politics and State Formation: Deconstructing Armed Forces

Existing models of state formation are derived primarily from early Western European experience and are misleading when applied to those nation-states struggling to consolidate their dominion in the present period. They also oversimplify aspects of the Western European experience itself. In this volume, scholars of politics and state formation focusing on a variety of countries and time periods suggest that the early Western European model of armies’ waging war on behalf of sovereign states does not hold universally. In particular, the importance of “irregular” armed forces – militias, guerrillas, paramilitaries, mercenaries, bandits, vigilantes, police, and so on – has been seriously neglected in the literature on this subject. The case studies in this book suggest, among other things, that the creation of the nation-state as a secure political entity rests as much on “irregular” as regular armed forces. In many parts of the world, the state’s legitimacy has been extraordinarily difficult to achieve, constantly eroding or under challenge by irregular armed forces within a country’s borders. No account of modern state formation can be considered complete without attending to these irregular forces.

Bolsa Família and democracy in Brazil

The conditional cash transfer (CCT) programme Bolsa Família (Family Allowance), introduced in Brazil in 2003, is one of the largest such programmes in the world. Bolsa Família has played a role in the recent reduction of poverty and income inequality in Brazil. But what has been its impact on democracy? An assumption in the literature on social policy, derived from the European experience, is that targeted programmes such as Bolsa Família divide citizens, erode trust between citizens and between citizens and the state, and weaken democracy. This article challenges that assumption, showing that there is considerable evidence that Bolsa Família has strengthened the citizenship rights of the poor and enhanced democracy. The Brazilian experience suggests that, in highly unequal developing countries under conditions of 21st-century capitalism, the argument that targeted social programmes will inevitably undermine democracy is incorrect.

Continuity Is Not Lack of Change

Dilma Rousseff became the first female President of Brazil at the beginning of 2011. How is Brazil faring under President Dilma? How will Dilma’s government cope as it attempts to preserve and extend the accomplishments of the prior government of President Lula? While continuity of personnel and policies between Lula and Dilma is the watchword of the new government, continuity is not synonymous with lack of change. This introduction to a series of articles in Critical Sociology analyses some of the changes taking place. It first looks at conflicting interpretations of the legacy of President Lula. Then it summarizes the other articles on Brazil in the issue, which focus on macroeconomic policy, trade, defence, human rights, public security, environmental policy, media regulation and culture. In these policy areas, there has been a continuation of the mildly progressive reformist legacy of the Lula years, but also the emergence of new problems.

Federalism, multi-level elections and social policy in Brazil and India

ABSTRACT Comparative studies often highlight the negative effects of federalism for welfare state expansion. We examine Brazil and India, which have both enhanced their welfare effort despite political fragmentation. We argue that federalism’s effects must be seen together with degrees of party system nationalisation. In Brazil, new social policies have reinforced a move towards greater party system nationalisation. Control over anti-poverty programmes has been recentralised leading to more even outcomes. In India, while the central government also introduced new social policies, expansion has been filtered by political regionalisation. The effectiveness of social provision relies on state governments, producing substantial territorial differentiation.

Is the Brazilian State “Patrimonial”?:

Patrimonialism is ubiquitous in the analysis of the state in Brazil, a country in which the concept has its own distinctive genealogy. However, patrimonialism has been subject to severe conceptual stretching, limiting its usefulness in comparative analysis. Furthermore, the “commanding heights” of the federal bureaucracy have become more universalistic and merit-based and less patrimonial over the past few years. Patrimonialism is therefore best viewed as one logic among many operating in the Brazilian state. O patrimonialismo permeia a análise do Estado no Brazil, país onde o conceito possui uma genealogia própria. Contudo, o patrimonialismo tem sido objeto de certa ampliação conceitual, o que limita sua utilidade numa análise comparativa. Ademais, nos últimos anos, os altos comandos da burocracia federal se têm tornado mais universalistas e meritocráticos, além de menos patrimonialistas. Nesse contexto, o conceito pode ser visto como mais uma lógica entre várias que atuam no Estado brasileiro.

The Dialectics of the Brazilian Military Regime's Political Trials

O Brasil tem um dos melhores arquivos de processos legais autoritários do mundo. O arquivo Brasil: Nunca Mais contém todos os processos políticos na justiça militar que recorreram ao Supremo Tribunal Militar entre 1964 e 1979, durante o regime militar. Este artigo usa documentos do arquivo para analisar a interação entre a lógica dos promotores, dos juízes, e dos advogados de defesa nos processos. O artigo enfatiza as contradições na área legal do regime militar, as inconsistências da justiça militar ao julgar o “crime” político de expressão de dissidência ou oposição, e a habilidade dos advogados de defesa em suavizar as aplicações mais severas das leis de segurança nacional.

Dilemmas of Brazilian Economic Development in the Twenty-First Century

After several decades of stagnation since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Brazilian economy has made important changes (ECLAC, 1950; Edwards, 2009 Panizza, 2009). There has been a new growth cycle that directed government action to combat social inequalities and resume the construction of a new pattern of development, but without changing the structural conditions of a peripheral economic system (Sicsu, Oreiro and Paula, 2003). This growth cycle was relatively high between 2003 and 2010, when the country had an annual growth rate of 2.5 percent compared to less than one percent in the previous decade (Weisbrot, Johnston & Lefebvre, 2014). However, due to the global economic crisis, since 2011 the Brazilian economy has been stagnant, with very low GDP growth rates (Bacen, 2014).

Participatory Institutions in Democratic Brazil

In the last two decades, Brazil has become a laboratory for innovation in city government. Elected offi cials and representatives of grass-roots social movements have joined forces in Brazilian cities to create new institutions with distinctive designs, including the bottom-up model of participatory budgeting, power-sharing arrangements in health councils, and ratifi cation mechanisms in city master plans. Participatory Institutions in Democratic Brazil compares the creation and implementation of these institutions in four diff erent Brazilian state capitals – Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul), Belo Horizonte (Minas Gerais), São Paulo (São Paulo) and Salvador (Bahia), and off ers a rich array of theoretical insights, empirical evidence, and practical conclusions that will be of interest to scholars and political activists alike. Avritzer asks three questions at the beginning of the book. “Is the Brazilian experience a model for increasing participation elsewhere? Can the successful experience in Brazilian cities be reproduced in places where the conditions may be very diff erent? And under what conditions can participatory institutions succeed?” (1). His answer to the fi rst question is yes, with the caveat that the context of city politics, and especially the strength of civil society and the degree of consensus about participation in political society, is crucial in determining the success of the new institutions. In response to the second question, his answer is “yes, but. . . .” Avritzer argues that while bottom-up participatory designs are the most democratic and consequential, in terms of the redistribution of public goods, they are also the most diffi cult to implement, especially where civil society is weak and/or political society divided (166). Th is leads to his answer to the third question, which is that in cities where civil society is strong and political society is divided, power-sharing designs are likely to lead to more eff ective participatory institutions than bottom-up designs (168), and where civil society is weak, ratifi cation designs can be most eff ective (172). Th e four case studies provide plenty of variation in outcomes. Scholars of Brazil will not be surprised by Avritzer’s fi nding that participatory institutions of all three types worked best in Porto Alegre and very well in Belo Horizonte, due to the relative strength of civil society organizations, and the consensus in favour of participation in political society, in those two cities. (Th e 16-year hegemony of the Workers’ Party, or Partido dos Trabalhadores – PT – in Porto Alegre from 1989 to 2005 being an additional factor in the outcome there.) São Paulo is a mixed case. Although it has a relatively strong civil society, especially in the eastern part of the city, its political society was divided in response to demands for more participation. Even the PT, which pioneered participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre, was ambivalent about participation in São Paulo, and downplayed it under the administration of Mayor Marta Suplicy (2001–2004).

The Unpast: Elite Violence and Social Control in Brazil, 1954-2000 (review)

displaying. In its approach and style the text matches the complexities and nuances of that knowledge. The book attests to the longstanding acceptance among educated Brazilians of French culture as the ideal and the norm. Just how conversant they are in general with that culture is another matter, as indicated by the publisher’s selection for the cover illustration of a fi gure from Gustave Caillebotte’s best-known painting, exhibited in 1877—totally out of period and irrelevant to the topic.displaying. In its approach and style the text matches the complexities and nuances of that knowledge. The book attests to the longstanding acceptance among educated Brazilians of French culture as the ideal and the norm. Just how conversant they are in general with that culture is another matter, as indicated by the publisher’s selection for the cover illustration of a fi gure from Gustave Caillebotte’s best-known painting, exhibited in 1877—totally out of period and irrelevant to the topic.