INTRODUCTION: HOBSBAWM’S OMEN AND THE AUTHORITARIAN MINDSET IN BRAZIL

IN 1995, the English historian Eric J Hobsbawm was in Brazil for a con­ference at the Art Museum of Sao Paulo to discuss the main difficulties he encountered when writing his celebrated book The Age of Extremes.^[373] His lecture, titled �The Present as History: Writing the History of One’s Own Times’,^[374] was a lesson for anyone coping with the difficulties of writing about the present.

Yet words, even when written in distinct contexts and times, can be resilient and have the power to predict a future that a writer could not expect at the time of his or her own writing. Hobsbawm himself could not foresee what Brazil would experience, but his diagnosis of a country that had just transitioned to a democratic regime is striking. In June 1988, in an interview for O Estado de S.Paulo, a newspaper, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the interviewer and professor of political science at the University of Sao Paulo, asked him about his thoughts on the political and social situation of Brazil after the end of the civilian-military dictatorship, and Hobsbawm answered:

... In this political situation, all I can say is that the transition seems to be taking too much time and, maybe, I could also say that it does not strike me as a good sign for the country’s politics that at least two of the figures in the command of the next presidential elections were people or phenomena that I heard about 26 years ago, when I came to Brazil for the first time.

�That figures of the past are not necessarily good for the future’ was a good omen of the developments Brazil would endure in the years ahead. That constitutional transition, which was �taking too much time’, was itself a clash of narratives on the degree of influence the authoritarian past would have in the rising demo­cratic regime. Such a clash had a substantial impact on the very understanding of that constitutional moment, and it is no wonder that Hobsbawm had his own concerns about the capacity of that moment to overcome a past symbol­ised by those �people or phenomena that [he] heard about 26 years ago’. More dramatically, Hobsbawm’s omen would prove true decades later, when such an authoritarian mindset seemed to regain strength after years of democratic life.

There was something unresolved in that transition that would charge a high price in the future. An authoritarian mindset, now re-contextualised for a more urban and democratic country, would reappear in the form of a leadership which would take advantage of the growing distrust in the political system and the economy that had left many behind. For many scholars and analysts, such a phenomenon would be evidence of the urgency of Hobsbawm’s cautionary tale. After all, until recently, there was a general perception that Brazilian democracy would not experience an authoritarian revival. As Hobsbawm warned, however, such assumptions are often discredited by history, especially when the pace of change is nowhere near the pace of writing. Those �figures of the past’ have somehow reappeared - or more accurately never disappeared - in Brazil.

Bolsonaro, who was elected with 55 per cent of the valid votes in the second round in 2018, is symptomatic of the authoritarian mindset that has long played an impactful role in Brazilian political life, with detrimental effects on the rule of law. Bolsonaro’s words and practices are a shock to anyone who cherishes the values of democracy,^[377] and they certainly infer an authoritarianism among Brazilians that seemed tamed until recently. They are also shocking because they are explicit, straightforward, grotesque - which might seem strategically unwise as they foster a stronger social backlash and institutional reaction^[378] - but they are not a novelty in Brazil.

Bolsonaro’s election is also a symptom of a country that has not come to terms with its authoritarian past. Brazil has not really challenged its dictatorial years, as Hobsbawm’s omen could foresee at the very moment of the democratic transition. For example, unlike its neighbours Argentina, Uruguay and Chile, where amnesty laws were reversed or judged unconstitutional by their Supreme Courts, Brazil kept granting de facto impunity to all those who perpetrated human rights violations during those dark years and had this understanding confirmed by its Supreme Court in a controversial ruling in 2010.^[379] Although the political transition led to a constitutional transition in 1987-88, when the Constituent Assembly became the stage of effective participation of distinct sectors of civil society,^[380] much of that past was kept virtually untouched in the new democratic regime. At other times, such authoritarianism became more explicit as is the case with President Bolsonaro, but his election, though helped by favourable circumstances, was no surprise in a country where different types of authoritarian behaviours are still rife.

This chapter aims to introduce the reader to a discourse that has long played a major role in shaping Brazilian political life, with serious impacts on the devel­opment of the rule of law. It is a brief genealogy of an authoritarian mindset whose origins go far beyond the scope of this book, but whose analysis, espe­cially from the perspective of its growing presence in the country’s democratic regime, is a prerequisite for understanding its formal and informal institutions,^[381] the challenges to consolidate its democracy and the commitment to the rule of law, and the difficulties in overcoming extractive political and economic institutions^[382] that have historically plagued the country’s development.

After having examined the impacts of inequality in the country, the next step in understanding the rule of law in Brazil is to explore some of the nuances of such an authoritarian mindset. This chapter delves into some of its core elements by stressing the efforts to provide a theoretical justification for authoritarian­ism that gained momentum in two particular periods of Brazilian history: the Getulio Vargas’ Estado Novo (1930-45) and the civilian-military dictatorship (1964-85). Both periods were the most repressive in Brazil’s twentieth century, but both also aimed to furnish good reasons for such an authoritarian behaviour. Interestingly enough, several arguments raised during Vargas’ dictatorship were renewed during the civilian-military dictatorship, showing that, despite chang­ing realities, there is a continuity and preservation of that authoritarian mindset. This chapter ends by suggesting that the Bolsonaro presidency reassumed many of those justifications, though years of democracy and improved institutional framework have proven important barriers to some of his most authoritarian impulses. The question that lies ahead is how strong Brazilian institutions need to be to finally overcome such an authoritarian mindset and whether, in spite of the �figures of the past’ reappearing whenever the opportunity arises, Brazil will be able to look to the future at last.

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