THE REINVENTION OF THE AUTHORITARIAN MINDSET IN HISTORY

A. The Authoritarian Mindset in Authoritarian Regimes

If we look into the genealogy of such an authoritarian mindset, we should point to the beginning of the twentieth century, when authors such as Oliveira Vianna, Azevedo Amaral and Francisco Campos gained prominence and influence over political life.

During the civilian-military dictatorship, when Brazil was urbanising fast,^[395] once again the argument that Brazil needed a government that would be strong and relentless enough to combat the political crisis and the growth of social tensions reappeared.

Moreover, the law should be respected but based on an ideology that stra­tegically instrumentalised it to optimally function under an authoritarian government. The civilian-military dictatorship intensified one of the most perverse features of Brazilian legal history: it provided a veneer of democracy by claiming that it was committed to the rule of law, while twisting such a rule of law according to its own convenience.

The justification for this movement kept much of that mindset expressed by those prominent scholars from the beginning of the twentieth century, but they were readapted to the new context. The first Institutional Act, written by Francisco Campos and which inaugurated the dictatorship,^[399] provides a rich overview of the narrative the government would then adopt. It was a strategic and well thought out plan to legitimise the coup d’etat as a radical movement that was not only imperative and urgent, but also an unequivocal expression of democratic values against those who have long aimed to destroy them. Moreover, that coup d’etat was itself a �Revolution’ expressing the �will of the nation’ and, as such, legitimised itself as a �constituent authority’.^[400]

It is striking how, from a true coup d’etat, the dictatorship saw itself as the most legitimate movement to reconstruct Brazil and bestowed upon itself the powers of a �constituent authority’.^[401] That narrative was a perfect playbook of how to manipulate concepts for the masses by providing a veneer of democ­racy to an authoritarian regime.

The following Institutional Acts adopted the same strategy of twisting concepts in order to justify, through a seemingly democratic narrative, a regime that was becoming more violent and increasingly perpetrating human rights violations. The Institutional Act No. 2 - which harshly tightened control over Congress by disfranchising political parties and opponents, and the judiciary by packing the Supreme Court and creating federal courts to rule on cases related to the regime - went even further with this plan. The argument was that the mili­tary government was essential to �eliminate a situation and a government which were plunging the country into corruption and subversion’.^[404] The fact that such a regime called itself a �true revolution’^[405] meant that it could last up until the country was able to overcome those threats: �it is not stated that the revolu­tion was, but that it is and that it will continue. Thus, its constituent authority has not been exhausted, since it is inherent in the revolutionary process, which must be dynamic in order to achieve its objectives’.^[406] Democracy, though still defended as a feature of that regime, needed to be balanced with other values: �democracy presupposes liberty, but it does not exclude responsibility or entail license to go against the very political will of the nation’.^[407]

Finally, at the moment when the dictatorship witnessed its most atrocious human rights violations, the Institutional Act No.

These legal documents reveal that a key feature of Brazilian constitution­alism is its constant need for justification, even in circumstances of typical authoritarianism. One of the features of the Brazilian military regime - says Cristiano Paixao - was the concern with drafting legal norms upholding arbi­trary measures.^[411] Naturally those distinct justifications aimed at maintaining popular support strong while the regime was ruthless with those who opposed it. It is worth noting that the civilian-military dictatorship did not follow the path of simply overlooking the legal framework and implementing repressive actions without the burden of justifying them. After the transition to democracy in 1985, this narrative would naturally face new challenges, but it would not vanish. As has been the history of Brazil, those three features mentioned above - the depoliticisation of society, the institutionalisation of a technocracy and the empowerment of clientelistic relationships between the private and public sectors - would be readapted to new circumstances.

B. The Authoritarian Mindset in the Awakening of Democracy: A Clash of Narratives

The Constituent Assembly of 1987-88 is itself a clash of narratives, one that recalls those three features and one that attempts to overcome them by putting people themselves at the forefront of building the new constitutional order. On the one hand, that authoritarian mindset reappeared by claiming that �drafting a constitutional text represents a highly technical task’,^[412] and should thus be made by a committee of experts with the necessary knowledge and wisdom. This thinking reflected the mindset of those who previously gave support to the civilian-military dictatorship and saw, when the transition to democracy became inevitable, the need to control the process in order to fend off more radical moves from popular movements that had been gaining ground at least since the 1970s. On the other hand, a distinct narrative from grassroots movements, professional organisations, the Catholic Church and organised civil society was gaining momentum and would directly impact the new democratic order.^[413] The authoritarian mindset was still very widespread and influential during and after the Constituent Assembly, but the novelty was that, possibly for the first time in Brazilian history, it would be challenged by another increasingly powerful democratic mindset. The 1988 Constitution, which resulted from such a clash of mindsets, is itself also a clash of mindsets within its own text. It is very democratic by expanding individual and social rights as well as strengthening accountability and control institutions, but, at the same time, it keeps some of the authoritarian enclaves of the previous years virtually untouched.

The drafting of the 1988 Constitution is revealing of how the authoritarian mindset readapts to new contexts but keeps untouched much of that longstand­ing discourse that, first, disenfranchises the citizenry from their capacity to more directly participate in the political process; secondly, restricts such a capacity to technocrats associated with political elites; and thirdly, empowers private-public relationships designed to benefit clientelist practices. The military, which, since the end of the 1970s incrementally promoted a political opening of the regime,^[414] was not disposed to dialogue with civil society. There was not, by any means, the acceptance that the people could somehow institutionalise their participation in the political arena.^[415]

Even after the transition to the civilian government of President Jose Sarney in 1985, the armed forces were still very influential (Sarney was a former member of ARENA, the military’s ruling party) and the political elites of those authoritarian years were largely present during the Constituent Assembly of 1987-88. Despite a proposal with such a purpose,^[416] no exclusive Constituent Assembly elected with the sole goal of drafting the Constitution took place. Instead, the National Congress elected in 1986 played this role, though - it is worth noting - leaders from the opposition formed the majority. Moreover, the

The Reinvention of the Authoritarian Mindset in History 73 1988 Constitution resulted from a constituent amendment to the authoritar­ian 1967/1969 Constitution,^[417] which led some scholars to argue that the new Constitution was nothing other than the product of a secondary constituent power.^[418] In many respects, therefore, there were seemingly plausible arguments in favour of the prevalence of an authoritarian mindset during the Constituent Assembly, which could then stress that Brazil was in a typical transition with no rupture. As Paixao argues, �between March 1985 and February 1987, it should be acknowledged that the military regime largely succeeded in its strategy of “safe, slow, and gradual opening”’.^[419]

It is this conciliatory discourse that is beneath some authoritarian lega­cies in the constitutional text. They resulted from a series of pact-makings, compromises and bargains meant to protect, through legal means, privileges and benefits that certain segments of society have long enjoyed. The 1988 Constitution is what constitutional scholars call an evolutionary Constitution:^[420] it resulted from a transition to a new regime, but the degree of rupture - or even whether it was indeed a rupture - with the previous authoritarian years is disputed among scholars and politicians. There are those who still defend it as a continuation of - or a conciliation with - that past^[421] and those who are clearly critical of this position, pointing out the break with those authoritarian years as the hallmark of that moment.^[422] Despite that, the argument for conciliation rather than rupture would be a remarkable success and impact the way bargains and compromises were set during the Constituent Assembly. For this account, it was not a �new beginning’, but a harmonisation of interests where, in the end, �there [were] no winners or losers’.^[423] One could argue that the final result of those bargains was a Constitution that is not very distinct from the previous one. In fact, according to Elkins, Ginsburg and Melton’s similarity scores, the 1988 Constitution matched 77 per cent of the topics of the 1967/1969 Constitution.^[424]

Moreover, for some, such a conciliatory transition would undermine the future of Brazilian democracy. Many analysts at that time were very critical of how the debates during the Constituent Assembly took place and the decisions

that were made in respect of matters of great import for the future. For instance, Francisco Weffort stressed the maintenance of the status quo in a context of �conversion’ and �continuity’,^[425] and Adriano Nervo Codato more directly pointed out that that the new constitutional order had �no real replacement of the groups connected to the dictatorship, but rather a re-accommodation within the realm of the elites’.^[426] These were also the main arguments that some foreign analysts raised at the exact moment when Latin America, and especially South America, was experiencing a series of regime transitions from dictatorship to democracy.^[427]

Indeed, for some scholars, bargains and compromises that could somehow stabilise the transitional process^[428] became, in the end, a serious threat to the consolidation of democracy. Frances Hagopian was particularly assertive on the subject: �In Brazil, pacts did not broaden and deepen democracy, nor did the politicians who forged them create strong democratic institutions and resolve to adhere to democratic political practice. Elite pact making as practiced in Brazil does not produce “democracy by undemocratic means”.’^[429] The prospects were grim since those pacts were visibly aimed at keeping the status quo virtually untouched in an environment of deep inequality and a strong authoritarian mindset. Democracy was coming, but its conditions challenged the premise of a path toward a stable democracy. Weffort, in this regard, did not mince his words: Brazil was living a �conservative transition’^[430] that kept intact much of that authoritarian legacy and was still marked by high inequality, and, as such, would not be considered a consolidated democracy.^[431]

Despite all this, there was also something emerging whose potential could shake up those assumptions to some extent. Indeed, the transition was very conservative in many ways, but it also brought about changes that were in prin­ciple unexpected from the point of view of a typical controlled transition. The authoritarian mindset was still very much alive, but a sequence of events created an environment that led to a much greater participatory constitution-making process. The 1988 Constitution could therefore not be interpreted as a work of technocrats who did everything they could to avoid the participation of the public nor could it be summed up in merely clientelistic terms like the emphasis on bargains and compromises would suggest.^[432]

In a sense, the 1988 Constitution resulted from the disruption of those long­standing three pillars that have long characterised Brazilian political life, without stating that they did not have an impactful influence on its text and, above all, on how it would be put into practice. Although this dispute of narratives has since affected the very meaning of the Constitution,^[433] there is a consensus that, unlike the country’s previous constitutional experiences, there was a momentum for change that brought together various segments of civil society. There was an explicit civilian counter-movement that not only pushed for, but also put in place principles that largely contrasted with the claim that the new document represented the final term of the �revolutionary cycle’, as some would argue.^[434] Instead, a rupture with that past, though not obviously a total one, was clearly in the making.

During the works of the Constituent Assembly, distinct sectors of organ­ised civil society, such as the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB), the Catholic Church and other religious groups, the Brazilian Press Association (ABI), labour unions, minority rights movements and federations from economic sectors (industry, agriculture, commerce, etc), among others, were very influential in a way that was unprecedented in Brazilian constitutional history.^[435] This democ- ratisation of constitution-making resulted from incremental, but effective, popular movements that, especially since the late 1970s, had become prominent as the dictatorship began coming to an end.^[436] Moreover, some contingen­cies played an important role in defining a more democratic environment for constitution-making. For example, the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), the opposition party during the dictatorship (then called MDB), reached a comfortable majority in the congressional elections in 1986, thus becoming the majority during the Constituent Assembly. PMDB’s President, Ulysses Guimaraes, was also the Speaker of the House and, more importantly, the President of the Constituent Assembly, who personally engaged in laying the groundwork for a more democratic constitutional document.^[437] Senator Mario Covas (PMDB), the leader of the majority, was a strong advocate of democ­racy and played a major role. Also, the fact that the Brazilian President at the time, Jose Sarney, who shared that authoritarian mindset, was seen as an ille­gitimate and weak figure - Brazil was enduring a severe economic and political crisis at that time^[438] - helped configure an environment where the results of that constitution-making were largely unpredictable. During the Constituent Assembly, there was a significant fragmentation of the political leaderships and a clear conflict between progressive and backward mindsets. The deliberative proce­dures and the decentralised organisation of the works, whose functioning rules were very openly and publicly discussed,^[439] facilitated the arrival of new players.

Yet, while this configuration permitted advancing a democratic agenda, it also made it more difficult to reach a consensus on matters that could more structur­ally affect the status quo. �The Brazilian constituent process was an ambivalent moment of definition of the rules of the future democratic game at the same time when the game had already begun.’^[440] By some means, this explains why, from such a melting pot of narratives, the 1988 Constitution represents a rupture with that past since it launches a democratic order and creates mechanisms^[441] that would strengthen the rule of law over the following years.^[442] At the same time, nevertheless, it kept some corporatist bargains, constitutional designs and formal and informal practices that have long hindered the consolidation of democracy in Brazil. It is a democratic document and is certainly the most inclu­sive and forward-looking document in Brazilian history. It features an extensive catalogue of both individual and social rights and defines policies targeted at consolidating a welfare state. It also strengthens mechanisms of accountabil­ity and transparency as well as laying down procedures of direct participation, such as popular legal - though not constitutional - initiatives,^[443] plebiscites

The Reinvention of the Authoritarian Mindset in History 77 and referenda.^[444] It also provides for a greater participation of the citizenry in the administration of segments of the welfare state and public policies.^[445]

However, the political system, either because of its design or because of the longstanding behaviours of political players,^[446] suffers from a crisis of represen­tation and entrenched corruption. Even those greater participatory mechanisms in the constitutional text have been rather unusual, with very few examples put into practice.^[447] Leonardo Avritzer diagnoses it by saying that �the institutions of semi-direct democracy, such as plebiscite, referendum, and popular initia­tive, have remained much more bound to the functioning of National Congress or the state legislatures than would be expected or what happens in other countries’.^[448] The Constituent Assembly was therefore a participatory event and the Constitution certainly is a symbol of the serious attempt to overcome that past, but it does not necessarily follow from that moment of popular engage­ment that Brazilian constitutionalism would foster a permanent involvement of the citizenry in future political affairs. Indeed, though popular engagement has naturally increased, Brazil’s case shows that the correlation between a participa­tory constitutional-making and a future participatory constitutional practice cannot be taken for granted.^[449]

For this reason, the Constituent Assembly and the clash of narratives that marks it are central to understanding the rule of law in the country. Unlike some other experiences in Latin America - for example, in Chile, where the regime transition did not translate itself into a constitutional transition^[450] - Brazil rapidly moved to drafting a new Constitution. Such a movement did not contra­dict the behaviour the country had until then traditionally adopted. In Brazil’s history, regime transitions were followed by constitutional replacements^[451] and it would not be different this time. What differed from previous experiences - and also from other Latin American ones^[452] - was that the 1987/1988 Constituent Assembly had a direct presence of distinct groups of organised civil society

interfering in the deliberation process. The uniqueness of this participatory constitution-making process would also be responsible for projecting the rela­tive success of the 1988 Constitution in Brazilian life, �up until this moment, the most successful from the institutional viewpoint and - why not say? - the most successful from the point of view of the rights and guarantees for the people’.^[453] The remaining question is whether such a democratic, inclusive and forward­looking document has been able to challenge the preservationist provisions and practices that that very document also embraced. That clash of narratives, where the authoritarian mindset could find a rich environment to reinvent itself, would become the Achilles heel of Brazilian democracy, while those three pillars would find new ways to re-emerge. Though years have passed since the tran­sition to democracy, the �figures of the past’ would still present themselves as the �enabling’ and �necessary condition’ of democracy. The question is, which democracy are they really striving for?

C. The Authoritarian Mindset and the Revival of the Military under Jair Bolsonaro

Among those �figures of the past’, there is possibly no other that has been more controversial than the military. Along with the rise of President Jair Bolsonaro, the military reappeared in political life as never before since the end of the civilian-military dictatorship in 1985. Marcelo Pimentel, a retired colonel, has repeatedly argued that Bolsonaro’s government is, in reality, a �true military government’ or a �government of generals’ and that there is a �military party’ ruling the country.^[454] Piero Leirner, a leading sociologist, states that Brazil is currently enduring a sort of �hybrid warfare’ unleashed by the military whose goal is to �take over the government’,^[455] and, though the �Project Bolsonaro is finite’, it represents a �project of reconfiguration of the state that has as main artificer the Armed Forces’.^[456] Emilio Meyer and Ulisses dos Reis wrote a post to Verfassungsblog titled �Brazilian Democracy under Military Tutelage’, whose first words are quite strong: �the relationship between the military and the civil­ian government is one that has defined the whole constitutional history of Brazil and could pave the way for a collapse of democracy’.^[457] Some other scholars have

The Reinvention of the Authoritarian Mindset in History 79 pointed out some other nuances of such a relationship between the military and President Bolsonaro,^[458] but the consensus is quite widespread that Bolsonaro and the military are intrinsically connected and that the military saw, in Bolsonaro, the opportunity to regain relevance in national debates and to obtain further benefits.

This expresses the most explicit version of the authoritarian mindset. One of the most damaging legacies of the transition to democracy is that the military was not confronted with its past and the atrocities it had committed during the dictatorship. As with many other legacies of the Constituent Assembly, a compromise with the military would pay a high price a few decades later. Unlike in Argentina and Uruguay, where the military was in a weaker bargaining posi­tion during the transition to democracy, in Brazil it �had allies in civil society who wished to limit change in the New Republic’ and could �[retain] the ability to control its own affairs free from civilian interference’.^[459] Despite some attempts to limit the military to external defence,^[460] the 1988 Brazilian Constitution ended up not providing a design that could effectively help overcome the longstanding difficulty of providing full civilian control over the military. The compromise of the constitutional project was therefore to �normalise’ the relationship between civilians and the military, sweeping under the carpet the expected tensions that usually occur during regime transitions.

This �normalisation’ was defined by three mechanisms. First, some level of separation between the military and civilians was set in the constitutional text through the prohibition of political party affiliation and constraints on their participation in the civil administration, though not prohibiting it.^[461] Such a separation would also imply a degree of non-encroachment on their benefits and guarantees (for example, a more generous pension system) that could not be found in any other civilian public career. It also meant the absence of civil­ian mechanisms for overseeing military activities, so Congress and the civilian judiciary have little or no authority to check the military.^[462] Secondly, an agree­ment that what happened in the past remains in the past should be interpreted as virtually untouchable. Such an agreement was visible when the Supreme Court

ruled that the Amnesty Law,^[463] which was passed during the civilian-military dictatorship, is constitutional under the new democratic regime,^[464] unlike what had occurred in other countries in Latin America.^[465] Thirdly, the new constitu­tional text allowed some leeway of interpretation of the false statement that the military are the �protectors’ or �moderators’ of democracy. In this regard, the Constitution prescribes that the military are responsible for not only defending the country, but also �[guaranteeing] the constitutional powers’.^[466] More seri­ously, it says that, �on the initiative of these’, the Armed Forces is responsible for �[guaranteeing]... law and order’,^[467] certainly an authoritarian legacy that could be wrongly interpreted as that any branch could unilaterally request the military for such a purpose without being checked or any authorisation by the other branches of power.^[468]

That �normalisation’ could be preserved as long as such tensions could be kept under the radar, and the political realm would not dare to disrupt that fragile agreement and the compromises of the constitutional project. Those compromises seemed to be working properly as demonstrated by the fact that, since 1999, the Minister of Defence had been a civilian, not a member of the Armed Forces. This movement clearly signalled that some progress had been made in this relationship, and it looked like Brazil had finally achieved such a degree of civilian control over the military that, despite not being perfect, did not seem to be causing disruption. For various scholars during those years, the military was no longer of major concern and rarely appeared as a variable for political analyses.

However, the disruption did happen - and it happened fast. It first occurred when the Brazilian Military assumed the command of Minustah, the United Nations’ Stabilisation Mission in Haiti in 2004, which laid the groundwork for the return of the military to Brazilian politics (many generals of that mission would later integrate the Bolsonaro government).^[469] However, it was during the Dilma Rousseff presidency, a former victim of the dictatorship herself, that such a movement gained momentum. When she installed the National Truth Commission in 2011^[470] as a means to make public the recognition by the state of the atrocities and crimes perpetrated by the military during the

The Reinvention of the Authoritarian Mindset in History 81 civilian-military dictatorship (1964-85), the opposition from the Armed Forces was fierce.^[471] There was also a growing resentment among members of the Armed Forces, who saw themselves left out of the country’s major decisions during the democratic years,^[472] a feeling that was aggravated by the fact that Brazil’s history is marked by the constant involvement of the military in political affairs.^[473]

The anti-corruption crusade^[474] that gained impetus in the last years of President Dilma Rousseff being in office (2010-16) paved the way for the rapid revival of the military - a phenomenon that looked, until recently, largely improbable. As had happened in those past dictatorships, by pointing out that the political system is corrupt, the military seized the opportunity to reappear as essential players in the political realm. President Michel Temer, who succeeded President Dilma Rousseff after her impeachment, appointed several members of the military to key positions in his government and also appointed, for the first time since 1999, an army general as Minister of Defence. It was in the Bolsonaro administration, in any case, that such an association with the military hit new highs. The number of military figures in the government jumped from 2,765 in 2018 to 6,157 in 2020^[475] and increased tenfold among those who command state- owned enterprises.^[476] It was during his government that a set of benefits and privileges were granted to the military as never seen before since the transition to democracy,^[477] in a clear movement of co-optation.

The �equilibrium’ between the military and civilians by �normalising’ their tensions would thus be severely disrupted to the point that the very idea of a coup d’etat reappeared in political analyses, a shocking outcome if we look to what the country had already achieved over the years of democratic life. Several debates over the role of the military in politics and the risks involved in their close participation in the Bolsonaro administration took place, and compari­sons with other countries such as Venezuela began to appear in the media.^[478]

Other discussions provided a more nuanced view of Bolsonaro as a phenomenon of our times. Sergio Abranches, a leading political scientist, claimed that the country was enduring a â€?hybrid coup’ whereby â€?Bolsonaro needs extra-parlia­mentarian resource [to enable] him to domesticate parliament and, therefrom, also subjugate the judiciary’.¹⁰⁷ In his view, since Bolsonaro had met with some institutional resistance to his authoritarian project and his popularity had plummeted, the military would thus function as a threatening force - an â€?extra­parliamentarian resource’ - aimed at subjugating the country’s institutions to his purposes. Lilia Schwarcz, a prominent anthropologist and historian, main­tained that Bolsonaro’s government was, in reality, â€?a state of coup’, in which he â€?[did] not need to stage a coup, because, in his daily life, he [was] slowly building [that] coup’.¹⁰⁸ Brazil, in this regard, would be heading in the opposite direc­tion to other cases of democratic crises in Latin America. In 2019, for example, Adam Przeworski argued, in his Crises of Democracy, that â€?astonishingly [the military] is no longer a political actor, even in Latin America, and it all but disappeared from the pages of political science as well’.¹⁰⁹ This was the case in Brazil just a few years ago. After the Temer and especially the Bolsonaro admin­istrations, it is not the case anymore, to the astonishment of both Brazilian and foreign analysts.¹¹⁰

The rise of the authoritarian mindset in its most explicit form is severely detrimental to the rule of law in Brazil. It is a symptom of Brazil’s democratic crisis, and it becomes more dramatic still with this re-emergence of the military in this trade-off between granting benefits to the military and its politicisa­tion in favour of the government. However, there should be some caution when Brazilian democracy, because of such recent movements, is depicted as being under the control of the military. If this argument prevails, it seems that Brazilian democracy, like many other episodes of the country’s history, keeps being highly dependent on the movements of such an institution.¹¹¹ It is obviously a concern

pesquisadora-cobra-freio-a-escalada-militar-estamos-virando-venezuela/; M Sanches, â€?“Bolsonaro Adota Medidas do Manual de Chavez”: Entenda Semelhanφas e Diferenφas entre Brasil e Venezuela’ (Terra, 9 August 2021) www.terra.com.br/noticias/brasil/bolsonaro-adota-medidas-do-manual-de- chavez-entenda-semelhancas-e-diferencas-entre-brasil-e-venezuela,6300cb2ad77d720818ec0f882e0c d07csykkaoun.html.

¹⁰⁷S Abranches, â€?O Golpe Hibrido de Bolsonaro’ (Sergio Abranches, 15 August 2021) https:// sergioabranches.com.br/politica/535-o-golpe-hibrido-de-bolsonaro.

¹⁰⁸G Afiune and L Schwarcz, â€?Entrevista Governo Bolsonaro e “Estado de Golpe”, Afirma Historiadora Lilia Schwarcz (Agenda Pulbica, 12 August 2020) https://apublica.org/2020/08/governo- bolsonaro-e-estado-de-golpe-afirma-historiadora-lilia-schwarcz/.

¹⁰⁹ A Przeworski, Crises of Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 2019) 140.

¹¹⁰JZ Benvindo, â€?A “Hybrid Coup” in Brazil?: Bolsonaro in Desperation Mode’ (International Journal of Constitutional Law Blog, 25 August 2021) www.iconnectblog.com/2021/08/a-hybrid- coup-in-brazil-bolsonaro-in-desperation-mode/.

¹¹¹See JZ Benvindo, â€?The Historian of the Future in Brazilian Democracy: The Challenges of Interpreting and Comparing Events of Our Time’ (International Journal of Constitutional Law Blog, 24 February 2021) www.iconnectblog.com/2021/02/the-historian-of-the-future-in-brazilian- democracy-the-challenges-of-interpreting-and-comparing-events-of-our-own-time/.

The Reinvention of the Authoritarian Mindset in History 83 that deserves close scrutiny from society. It is also a reminder that full civilian control over the military is not the reality, and certainly becoming less likely. More importantly, it should serve as a cautionary tale of the need to finally challenge the wrongs of such an authoritarian mindset that have simply been �normalised’ and swept under the carpet repeatedly in Brazilian history.

However, years of democracy, even if flawed, matter. Despite the �normalisa­tion’, Brazil has undergone significant changes in society and largely improved its institutional framework^[479] and mechanisms of democracy.^[480] There is a self­correcting learning process^[481] that should not be overlooked, and democracy, as regards both good and bad features, has the trend of preservation as a self­reinforcing process that makes any switching costs substantially higher over the years, which does not deny the power of contingencies.^[482] Even if such an asso­ciation with the government is very concerning, it should be noticed that it has not really strengthened the Bolsonaro government, but it has rather revealed his blatant weakness, while the military has been demoralised. It might be a sign of our times, and it may prove Przeworski’s words to be partially redeemed. The military have not �disappeared from the political scene’,^[483] but they do not look as threatening as they once did.^[484]

The Bolsonaro presidency placed the military more than ever before on the radar of political analyses, and its revival is certainly deleterious to the rule of law. Yet, the fact that such a revival could not radically affect how traditional political forces behave - in fact, Bolsonaro’s weakness increased the costs of political bargains, including patronage and corruption - is meaningful. Such signs should serve as a cautionary tale for analyses that look on such a revival as if the military of today had the strength they once had or Brazil’s democracy featured the same vulnerabilities of the past. It should also be a cautionary tale for immediate comparisons with other cases of democratic backsliding.

Therefore, even though this book acknowledges the serious damage of such a revival of the military for the rule of law and the importance of the �mili­tary issue’ for Brazilian democracy, it assumes that the �equilibrium’ has already shifted to more nuanced and complex alliances at the institutional level than

the traditional civilian-military relationships. The authoritarian mindset is still very much alive, but it goes far beyond the �military issue’ and is entrenched in the functioning of Brazilian institutions, now operating under democratic rule. It is beneath several dysfunctionalities of the rule of law in Brazil. The �military issue’ should justifiably be brought to everyone’s attention, but it is the �normalisation’ of both the authoritarian mindset and inequality that may more accurately explain why Brazil still has a long way to go to overcome the pitfalls of the country’s rule of law. Sometimes it is not the most visible nor the most ostensible examples of the authoritarian mindset that hold sway, but those that have repeatedly gone unscathed in Brazilian history.

IV