Populist Governance in Brazil: Carina Barbosa Gouvêa Pedro H. Villas Bôas Castelo Branco

Societies and Political Orders in Transition
Carina Barbosa Gouvêa
Pedro H. Villas Bôas Castelo Branco
Populist
Governance
in Brazil
Bolsonaro in Theoretical and
Comparative Perspective
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Carina Barbosa Gouvêa •
Pedro H. Villas Bôas Castelo Branco
Populist Governance in Brazil

Bolsonaro in Theoretical and Comparative
Perspective
Carina Barbosa Gouvêa Pedro H. Villas Bôas Castelo Branco
Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE) Institute of Social and Political Studies
Recife, Brazil State University of Rio de Janeiro (IESP-UERJ)
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
ISSN 2511-2201 ISSN 2511-221X (electronic)

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Foreword I
The difficulty to interpret, comprehend, and manage some words is comparable to

the difficulty the great navigations had for many years with the instruments of
geolocation and maps available at the time. One of these words is “populism.”
Populism can be taken by many concepts and used to express many political
structures, with plenty of ideological orientations and purposes. Hence the difficulty
in precisely establishing its content, such as the difficulty of precisely establishing
geolocation in pre-modern navigation.
This phenomenon establishes the term populism in the matter posted philosoph-
ically by John L. Austin, especially in his book How to do things with words, in
which, right in the first part, receives the conceptual treatment of the performative
term (performative).1
In the theory of speech acts, the performative term would encompass linguistic
expressions that would often be meaningless in themselves (one meaningless).
Performance statements do not describe or record anything, therefore, they are
neither true nor false. Furthermore, the act of expressing the sentence is to perform
an action, or part of it, an action that, in turn, would not normally be described as
consistent in saying something.2
The performative statements, out of the appropriate circumstances, are indisput-
able: they do not say or mean anything, they cannot be submitted to a validity test.
For example, the expression “live.” It alone does not mean anything, it can be a
command for someone to continue living, it can be an expression of exclamation for
something positive, etc. This is the characteristic of the performative statements,
they are indisputable, do not prove anything and cannot be refuted as true or false.3
1
Austin, John L. How to do things with words. 2. ed. Cambridge: Harvard University, 1975, p. 4
e ss.
2
Idem, pp. 4–5.
3
Idem, p. 6.
v
vi Foreword I
Thus, in Austin’s theory, human dignity is a performative term, because, when it

is isolated, its content cannot be determined. They do not serve to report something,
but to perform, since its content is only understandable when set among other words,
concepts, and acts.
In other words, although a lot has been theorized about human dignity, no matter
how great the texts on the theme are, be it either by the erudition of its foundations,
or by the poetry of its concepts, little contribution will be made to the approximation
of the fundamental hermeneutic concept, since the final verification of understanding
will take place only in the form in which it is performatively employed. It is in this
way that the possibility that two interlocutors defending antagonistic positions can
equally justify their arguments on human dignity.
Austin is the one who introduces, therefore, the idea of a “performative concep-
tion of language.” His systematic proposal, later developed by Pierce, expresses that
the language can be treated in a systematic way, as long as the adequate categories
are adopted for it, in other words, as long as the language is treated as a source of
action and not merely a representation of what is real or of the description of the facts
in the world.4
The distinction from which Austin starts refers to the dichotomy of the constative
and performative terms, in other words, between the use of sentences to describe
facts and events and sentences that are used to perform something, and not to
describe or report. For this reason, the constative terms may be true or false in
relation to the facts they describe; however, a performative is not really true nor
false, because it does not describe a fact, but it should be considered as successful or
unsuccessful, depending on the circumstances and consequences of performing the
act.5
It is in this sense that we can observe the polysemy of the term populism—reason
for which the authors of this paper were right in using it in a plural form. To
illustrate, we can point out the concept given by the Duden dictionary, in which
populism is defined as “politics defined by opportunism, popular, often, demagogical
[. . .] which aims to collect, through the dramatization of the political situation, the
preference of the masses (aiming for the elections).”6 Such a concept demonstrates
how easily this concept can be used in situations of political dispute, attributing a
flaw to any of the candidates by their political enemies. And, in such a way, the term
does not require an explanation, because it already seems to bring with it its
pre-comprehension elements that make the whole community recognize something
as negative.7 Another way to comprehend populism is, on the other hand, as
4
Souza Filho, Danilo Marcondes de. A teoria dos atos de fala como concepção pragmática de
linguagem. Unisinos Phylosophy Magazine, São Leopoldo, Unisinos, pp. 219–229 (220–221),
Sep/Dec. 2006.
5
Same, pp. 224–225.
6
Kunkel-Razum, Kathrin et al. (eds). Duden. Die Deutsche Rechtschreibung. 27.ed., 2017.
7
Voβkuhle, Andreas. Defesa do Estado Constitucional Democrático em tempos de populism.
Brasília: IDP, 2020, p. 25.
Foreword I vii
something good, like the associations made between political currents in the transi-
tion from the XIX to XX centuries, when farmers had part of their demands met in
antitrust legislations and in the New Deal.8
This is the panorama for this book: a semantic sea of arduous navigation, an
imprecise theoretical kaleidoscope. And, in the same way that precision instruments
were created based on external constant markers, making safe navigations possible,
the authors made it possible within the scope of the theory and conceptualization of
populisms, presenting a precise theoretical map of the multiple formulations and
uses made of the words populism, demonstrating that there are several populisms.
The debates in Political Science and Constitutional Law about populisms, their
effects, and risks to Democracy, are now able to count on a priceless theoretical
instrument that guides and structures safe markers in the comprehension and deep-
ening of the theme. The readers of this book will find an essential theoretical
reference in the following pages.
Usually, a presentation talks about its authors. It is an easy task, since I have the
privilege of knowing the great personalities that write this book, but it is equally
hard, since the greatness of their creativities, minds and souls makes any attempt to
reduce to term insufficient.
In order to respect the protocol of academic presentations, I want to register that
Carina Barbosa Gouvêa is a permanent Professor of the Post-Graduation in Law
Program at the Federal University of Pernambuco (PPGD/UFPE), has a Post-
Doctoral Internship—Federal University of Pernambuco (PPGD/UFPE); has a
PhD and Master’s Degree from UNESA. She coordinates the Study Group in
“Theory of the separation of powers and the crisis of the Brazilian democratic
system” of the Post-Graduation in Law program at the Federal University of
Pernambuco (PPGD/UFPE). She works on Human Rights training at the Joaquim
Nabuco Foundation, and is a researcher at the Jurisdiction and Constitutional Pro-
ceedings Research Group in Latin America: Comparative Analysis (UFPE) and the
Latin American and European Comparative Studies Laboratory (CECLAE). As a
lawyer, I am privileged to share the presidency of the Special Commission on
Bioethics and Bio law of the Federal Council of the Brazilian Bar Association
with her.
In his turn, Pedro H. Villas Bôas Castelo Branco is an adjunct professor at the
Institute of Social and Political Studies (IESP) of the State University of Rio de
Janeiro (UERJ) and of the Post-Graduation in Law Program at the Veiga de Almeida
University (UVA). He coordinates the Laboratory of Political Studies of Defense
and Public Security (LEPDESP), a partnership between IESP and the Superior
School of War (ESG). He is the coordinator of the Brazilian Political Theory and
Political Thought working group of the National Association of Graduate Studies in
Social Sciences (ANPOCS). He was an adjunct professor in the Department of
Public Law at Federal Fluminense University (UFF) between 2009 and 2014 and
8
Eichengreen, Barry. Die Entwincklung des Populismus in den Vereinigten Staaten. Leviathan,
n. 45, p. 180, 2017.
viii Foreword I
an adjunct professor at the School of Political Science at the Federal University of

the State of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO) between 2010 and 2014. He became a PhD in
Political Science from the University Research Institute of Rio de Janeiro (past
IUPERJ current IESP-UERJ), in 2009. During his doctorate, he studied with an
extension scholarship under the DAAD/CAPES agreement at the Otto-Suhr-Institut
für Politikwissenschaft (Political Science Institute Otto Suhr) at the Freie Universität
Berlin (Free University of Berlin), in Germany. He is experienced in teaching and
researching in the Political Theory, State Theory, Law Theory, and Public Security
Theory fields. He is the author of the book Unfinished Secularization: Politics and
Law in Carl Schmitt, published in 2011 in Brazil and also in Germany, in 2013, with
the title Die unvollendete Säkularisierung. Politik und Recht im Denken Carl
Schmitts. Lawyer, he is a consultant member of the Special Committee on Bioethics
and Bio law of the Federal Council of the Brazilian Bar Association.
As I mentioned previously, the book that the reader has in hand is born as a
theoretical reference for the complex analysis of the theme. And I say this by adding
that, for me, reading this book was fundamental to broaden my theoretical horizons
and to be able to advance my research in order to identify the existence of a
bio-populism. It is a form of populism in which biotechnological sciences are used
both as an ideologically appropriate instrument to support measures contrary to
liberal constitutionalism, as well as a narrative theme to be used as a topic around
which values of an expressive part of society are added, usually of a conservative
nature.
The appropriation of the biotechnological sciences does not imply in a scientific
speech, which presumes an error margin, scientific evidence, refutability, replicabil-
ity, verifiability, and other characteristics that mark scientific knowledge currently. It
is enough that it sounds credible and is extracted from supposed scientific knowledge
to achieve the necessary purposes. With this, bio-populism corresponds to a con-
temporary facet in the polyhedral complex that is populism, made possible by the
context of post-truth and the growth of fake news in mass communication, because it
does not matter that the technique or the discourse that appropriates biotechnology it
is true, it must be credible enough to have popular adherence and achieve the
proposed objectives.
It is, therefore, another way of proceeding from populism, in which biopolitics
and the implications of biopower are used to achieve the greater ends of those who
use it.
I wish readers a pleasant reading, hoping that the research can reach more and
more every time.
PUC-Campinas, Campinas, SP, Brazil Henderson Fürst

Special Committee on Bioethics and
Bi-law of the Federal Counsil of
Brazilian Bar Association,
Brasília, DF, Brazil
Foreword II
Populist Governance in Brazil: Bolsonaro in Theoretical and Comparative Per-

spective, by Carina Barbosa Gouvêa and Pedro H. Villas Bôas Castelo Branco,
offers the Brazilian reader a thorough and sophisticated survey of the academic
debate around the most recent populist wave that has been imposing itself on many
countries in the last decade. With a broad grasp on legal literature and contemporary
political Science on the new populism, the authors present a complex panorama of
this multi-faced phenomenon that has been putting liberal democracies at risk in
many continents, including where they were rooted, such as the United States, or in
which they seemed stable, such as India and Brazil. Although Donald Trump’s
defeat in the 2020 elections may point to a cooling of the populist wave, the
permanency of the structural difficulties presented by liberal democracies in a
growing inequality context, that favors the ascension of populist leaders, indicates
that we will have to live with this specific type of threat to democracy for some time.
Contemporary populism, according to the authors, emerged in an economical and
financial crisis a deeper liberal democracy crisis context. The ascension of economic
inequality and the escalation of the disbelief in politics would represent the failure of
liberal elites in fulfilling their promise of political practice base in moderation and
consensus, in recognizing minority rights, and in mutual tolerance. This led to the
crisis of liberal democracy. In this context, populism presents premises very different
than the one pluralist liberalism presents, such as political polarization, at the
expense of seeking consensus; popular homogenization, at the expense of recogniz-
ing the heterogeneity of groups in the political Community; the overlapping of
conservative and exclusive values on progressivism.
Carina Barbosa Gouvêa and Pedro H. Villas Bôas Castelo Branco are not
satisfied, however, in performing an exquisite review of the bibliography on con-
temporary populism. The goal of these Young authors is more ambitious. Starting
from Gábor Tóth’s conception, who defines populism as a form of liberalism, they
seek to verify if Bolsonaro’s and his government’s conducts can be configured as
populists. Borrowing a set of populism indicators from many authors, they launched
at the endeavor to analyze Bolsonaro’s behavior and his government. According to
ix
x Foreword II
Gouvêa and Castelo Branco, Bolsonaro’s attempt to fabricate a “pseudo-constitu-

tion,” from the beginning of his term; to establish a “front institutional balance”; to
“break democratic traditions”; and to build a “hyper-executive power,” would put
him clearly in the antiliberal field. More than this, resourcing to religious-political
moralism, boosting fake news, as well as the polarization and militarization of
politics, would not leave doubts as to Bolsonaro’s populist nature.
I tend to understand populism, in tune with the authors, as a contemporary
democracy syndrome, that is born from the mistrust in representative institutions,
from the resentment toward the elites that inhabit them and from the perception that
liberal democracy has not been able to keep its promises. Populist leaders have
presented themselves as direct and authentic representatives of popular will and
exclusive interpreters of the common good. It is not precisely about a political or
economic ideology, but, before that, a strategy to reach and maintain power. History
holds multiple expressions of what has been agreed as populism, as the authors make
clear. In their original and most benign versions, progressive political movements
who challenged oligarchic elites that have taken over representative institutions, for
their own good, have been called political populists. The term is also used in the
economic field to assign heterodoxic tax policies. In authoritarian variants, populism
is closely linked to fascism, as a force committed to destroying liberal institutions
and political pluralism, launching an ongoing war against the rule of law, the
representative system, parties, the free press, and the rights of all those who, in
some way, oppose the arbitrary exercise of the power of the leader.
Between populism as a mere anti-elitist expression and fascist populism, there are
countless paths and experiences, both toward the left and toward the right, that use
populist strategies and practices in a more or less radical way, but always in a tense
environment with democratic institutions, political pluralism, the empire of the law
and the rights of groups raised to enemies.
Authoritarian populists present themselves as the authentic and exclusive incar-
nation of popular will and of the nation’s legitimate interests. All those who disagree
are presented as enemies who should be fought, and, in extreme measures, elimi-
nated. By getting close to Schmitt’s conception of politics, which consists of a battle
between friends and enemies, and in which the final goal is to eliminate the other
side, populism transforms into the antithesis of constitutional democracy.
The legal face of populism, in many countries, such as Hungary and Poland, has
been a sort of “autocratic populism” (Kim Scheppele, 2018). Just as democratic
franchises and procedures are used to gain power and subvert representative democ-
racy, once in government, authoritarian populists also start to use legal procedures
and institutional prerogatives with the aim of subjugating legality and capturing legal
institutions, subverting the very essence of the rule of law.
Although in some authoritarian regimes, installed by coups of State, the legal
system and the law enforcement institutions are also systematically applied as an
instrument of government, the plot of subversion of the rule of law is not the same.
While in authoritarian regimes, tout court, we have a constitutional rupture, marked
Foreword II xi
by a period of exception, followed by the establishment of an authoritarian order,

that may use the legal system and its institutions, to a smaller or greater extent, as
government tools (rule of law), in the new populism, the path is more sinuous. What
can be observed in this populism wave, backed by an electoral majority, is the
systematic application of institutional prerogatives to fragilize electoral rules, brakes
systems, and counterweights, the rights of the groups who are undesirable to the
system, as well to capture and institutionalize the law enforcement institutions. The
spaces of discretion are being expanded, the authorities responsible for enforcing the
law are being replaced and the institutions are finally subjugated or co-opted. It is a
slower process, through which the conditions for the exercise of power and the
power alternance rules, the societal participation procedures, the transparency in the
conduction of public affairs, the independence of the law enforcement institutions,
the guarantees of the rule of law, and especially, the rights of groups seen as enemies
of the regime suffer a continuous erosion process. The rhythm and intensity of this
process will depend on the capacity of the institutions, opposition, and civil Society
sectors of putting limits to authoritarian advances.
In the final chapter of Populist Governance in Brazil: Bolsonaro in Theoretical
and Comparative Perspective, the authors present an extensive repertoire of mech-
anisms which they understand could contribute to contain populism, with the
reservation that it would be necessary to adapt them to the characteristics of each
context, among which I would point out: strengthening limits or obstacles to the
constitutional amendment/constitutional substitution; strengthening of political
parties as democracy guardians; increasing the legislative control in the edition of
decrees and provisional measures; the creation of a rational bureaucracy based on
competence and expertise, and not on charisma and tradition, to increase control
over the Executive Power’s discretion; strengthening of a deliberative democracy,
through the opening and stimulation of debating with civil society; the creation of
instances of social control designed to monitor democracy; the incorporation of
International protection tools; the strengthening of the system of brakes and coun-
terweights, for example, through the preservation and increase of judicial indepen-
dence; or the broadening of the cooperation and integration between democracies,
identifying vulnerabilities and protecting their principles.
It is evident that the reader does not need to agree with the diagnostics or even
with the proposals elaborated by the authors to reduce the risks of the advance of
populism. The richness of Populisms is, above all, in the path chosen by Carina
Barbosa Gouvêa e Pedro H. Villas Bôas Castelo Branco. The attentive, and at the
same time, critical and respectful reading of an immense literature on the phenom-
enon of contemporary populism is impressive. With that, they broaden, in a generous
way, the horizons of this populism in Brazil. The effort of the authors in investigat-
ing the actions of the Bolsonaro government toward liberalism is also noticeable.
Reading Populist Governance in Brazil: Bolsonaro in Theoretical and Comparative
Perspective will certainly contribute to the readers having more conceptual tools to
analyze this global phenomenon that threatens the building of democratic
xii Foreword II
constitutionalism as well as to understand how the growth of populism is associated

with the weaknesses of liberal democracy and the promises not kept by it, as
Norberto Bobbio warned us at the end of the 1980s.
Getúlio Vargas Foundation São Paulo Oscar Vilhena Vieira

(FGV Law SP), São Paulo, Brazil
Conectas and the Human Rights Arns
Commission, São Paulo, Brazil
November 2020
Reference
Scheppele, K. L. (2018). Autocratic legalism. The University of Chicago Law Review, 85(2),
545–584.
Preface
The publication of the book Populisms in Brazil was made possible with the support
of the Post-Graduation Support Program (PROAP-CAPES) and of the Higher
Studies Personnel Perfecting Coordination—Brazil (CAPES)—Financing code 001.
The research was developed in the Post-Graduation Program (PPGD/UFPE) on
research line 1.1. Jurisdiction and Constitutional Processes with the course “Global
Constitutionalism, Constitutional Processes and Changes in Times of Crisis of the
Rule of Law,” in semesters 2018.2 and 2020.3, taught by Prof. Carina B. Gouvêa
and having Prof. Pedro H. Villas Bôas Castelo Branco as an Invited Professor. The
course covered the following themes: “Populism, Populist Constitutionalism, Pop-
ulist Jurisdiction and the Crisis of Democracy” and “State of exception, Populisms
and the Militarization of Politics in the COVID-19 pandemic,” having been carried
out, respectively, in the Programs of Post-Graduation in Political Science at IESP-
UERJ and Post-Graduation Program at Veiga de Almeida University (PPGD/UVA).
It also counted with the support of the Foundation for the Support of Research of
Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ) and the collaboration of the Public Safety and Political
Defense Studies Lab (LEPDESP) and the Research Group on the Theory of the
Separation of Powers and Crises of the Brazilian Democratic System (PPGD/UFPE).
We would like to thank the unconditional support from all that, directly or
indirectly, collaborated to the materialization of this research, especially the Coor-
dination of the PPGD/UFPE, represented by Professor Doctors Mariana Fischer and
Manuela Abath, and the Pro-Rectory for Research and Graduate Affairs at the
Federal University of Pernambuco (PROPESP/UFPE).
Recife, Brazil Carina Barbosa Gouvêa

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Pedro H. Villas Bôas Castelo Branco
October 2020
xiii
Introduction
“Evil winds blow on the blue planet. Our lives falter in the whirlwind of multiple
crises.” With these phrases, Castells9 envisions the collapse of democracy inspired
by political and economic liberalism.
In almost the entire world, mistrust in political institutions delegitimizes their
representation, making us orphans of a shelter that protects us in the name of
common interest. The rupture in the relationship between rulers and governed
makes this conflicts even deeper, having devastating consequences starting with
the incapacity of dealing with multiple crises that are being decanted and mapped in
the internal political system: economic crisis, institution legitimacy crisis, represen-
tative and political class system crisis, social crisis, and liberal consensus crisis.
9
Castells, Manuel. Ruptura: a crise da democracia liberal. Trans. Joana Angélica d’Ávila Melo. Rio
de Janeiro: Zahar, 2018, p. 7.
xv
xvi Introduction
The effects resulting from mistrust in the bodies thus considered democratic—
executive, legislative, and judicial—end up delegitimizing political representation,
which is not necessarily defined in specific political options, such as left or right.
Compiling Tavares10 ideas, it can be said that the dual division between left and right
in modernity also reflects “mere labels” that do not necessarily have political party
content. They represent the manifestation that guides us to discussions and positions
without, at first, having previous political significance. The essence of the meaning
between left and right are those that we attribute. And that ends up explaining the
longevity and flexibility of what is left and right in the political field. This elasticity,
on the other hand, clarifies how society is repositioning itself. If the left and right
simply meant progressive and conservative, libertarian, and authoritarian, good and
bad, we would simply call it good or bad. A society without constructive political
polarization: between left/right is an apathetic society because this division helps us
to establish positions in terms of political ideals in any context that affects the
development of the national political culture. And when that does not happen, the
path is opened for other forms of crystallization of power such as clientelism,
corruption, and the cooptation of the popular masses—and this ends up blocking
the transformations of society.
Castells11 announces a gradual collapse of a representation and governance
political model: liberal democracy, that has been consolidated in the past two
centuries at the expense of revolutions, blood and tears against authoritarian States
and institutional will.
These institutional crises that emerged in the last decade ended up fabricating two
different movements: popular revolutions and the consolidations of authoritarian
regimes and illiberal democratic regimes, that is, populists.
The initial intent of popular revolutions is to attempt to articulate a new relation-
ship between parliament and social representation. The waves of mass protests have
swept the world, and although there are specific causes and contexts, many of them
can be seen as a part of a global revolt against extreme inequality and political and
economic systems considered unfair. According to Saiz,12 there is a common factor
that can be extracted in some of these protests: the broad resentment against
austerity—represented by packs of debt reduction policies that countless govern-
ments are implementing.
Currently,13 at least 13 popular protests are happening around the world: in
Ecuador, protests led be the indigenous against an austerity package concerted
10
Consult Tavares, Rui. Esquerda e direita: guia histórico para o século XXI. Lisboa: Tinta da
China, 2015.
11
Castells, Manuel. Ruptura: a crise da democracia liberal. Trans. Joana Angélica d’Ávila Melo.
Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 2018, p. 8.
12
Saiz, Ignacio. Global protests demand human rights actors tackle economic injustice. Pub.
November 26th, 2019. OpenGlobalRights. Available at: https://www.openglobalrights.org/global-
protests-demand-human-rights-actors-tackle-economic-injustice/. Accessed on November
27th, 2019.
13
These protests were mapped in September and October 2019.
Introduction xvii
with the International Monetary Fund, which include payroll cuts and the increase of
fuel prices; in Indonesia, against the losses of the anticorruption law; in Hong Kong,
initially the protests started against the new extradition lay, however, they are
currently gaining scale; in Holland, thousands of farmers protest against the new
governmental laws related to gas emissions; in France, thousands of people protest in
Paris against violence toward women; in Russia, the protest was unchained against
political repression; in Peru, the manifestations are of repudiation of the old
bourgeois-landowner State and its management; in Iraq, against the high unemploy-
ment rates, deficient public services and poor economic management; in Haiti, the
population demands the resignation of President Jovenel Moïse; in Egypt, the protest
waves are against President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s authoritarianism; in Lebanon, the
initial movement was caused by a new tax charged on WhatsApp and other electronic
messaging apps conversations, however, it ended up demanding the resignation of
Saad Hariri’s Sunni government, of President Michel Aoun and of President of
Parliament Nabih Berri; in Syria, the curd population has been protesting against the
exclusion of their community in the Constitutional Committee created by the UN,
whose function is to carry out the process of political solution in the country’s crisis;
in Chile, the protests were, initially, against the rise of the price of the subway fare
and transformed into a multi-class movement against low salaries, extreme levels of
economic inequality, acquired a new political sense by assuming the responsibility
of building their future through a profound transformation in the current system.
Consolidation and its attempts to build authoritarian and illiberal democratic
regimes,14 that is, populists, have come about through formal and informal move-
ments—formal and informal movements are understood as the way in which pop-
ulism settles in the democratic system. The formal instrument can be considered
when there is a change in the laws, regulatory instruments, and the constitution
through the decree, provisional measure, amendment, substitution and constitutional
interpretation, institution of the state of exception. The informal instrument, how-
ever, can be characterized, for example, when there is persecution and processes
directed at the media, hate speech, excessive use of military force to contain social
movements, generalized surveillance, use of the majority system to speak on behalf
of the people, use of a direct channel with the people via the social network, among
other variable properties that will be better presented in the book,15 which are
14
Democratic illiberalism represents the disintegration of the system where liberalism and democ-
racy are coming into conflict. The term illiberalism has been widely used by the doctrine. See
Zakaria, Fareed. The rise of illiberal democracy. Foreign Aff., v. 76, p. 22, 1997; Mounk, Yascha.
The people vs. democracy: Why our freedom is in danger and how to save it. Harvard University
Press, 2018; Puddington, Arch. Breaking down democracy: Goals, strategies, and methods of
modern authoritarians. Washington, DC: Freedom House, 2017. For Puddington, illiberalism
involves a rejection of liberal values and democratic norms in the specific political context.
15
Formal and informal movements are understood as the way in which populism settles in the
democratic system. The formal instrument can be considered when there is a change in the laws,
regulatory instruments and the constitution through the decree, provisional measure, amendment,
substitution and constitutional interpretation, institution of the state of exception. The informal
instrument, however, can be characterized, for example, when there is persecution and processes
xviii Introduction
composed of effective alternatives to liberal democracy.16 The use of an ambiguous

form of government is noted, but clearly anti-establishment in the ideological,
economic, political, and legal context.
In an economic, social, institutional, moral crisis, what was a model of represen-
tation collapses in people’s subjectivity. All that is left is the understanding that
things are this way and those who do not accept it should leave for the streets, where
the police wait for them. For Castells,17 the legitimacy crisis is configured in this
context.
It is what is happening in many countries, East and West. Over two-thirds of the
inhabitants think that politicians do not represent them, that parties, all of them,
prioritize their own interests, that parliaments are not representative and that gov-
ernments are corrupt, unfair, bureaucratic, and oppressive.18 And from this disen-
chantment are born anti-liberal social and political behaviors that are transforming
democratic governance institutions and practices everywhere and are defined as
populism by a wide range of authors.19
directed at the media, hate speech, excessive use of military force to contain social movements,
generalized surveillance, use of the majority system to speak on behalf of the people, use of a direct
channel with the people via the social network, among other variable properties that will be better
presented in the paper.
16
Bearing in mind that the word liberal is polysemic and has multiple strands, some milestones of
what the term represents will be established, specifically aimed at the twenty-first century, so that
one can understand the dimension and definition of populism to be presented in the book.
17
18
19
Baker, Peter C. Populismo, conceito precário. Outras Palavras. Pub. February 05th, 2019.
Available at: https://outraspalavras.net/geopoliticaeguerra/populismo-conceito-precario/?utm_
source¼newsletter&utm_medium¼email&utm_campaign¼5_2_populismo_conceito_precario_
contrarreforma_da_previdencia_as_vitimas_e_os_algozes_a_possivel_cilada_do_farda_sensata_
brumadinho_a_tragedia_da_dependencia_economica&utm_term¼2019-02-05. Accessed on
05 Feb. 2019; Balkin, Jack M. Populism and Progressivism as Constitutional Categories.
104 Yale L. J. 1995, pp. 1935–1990, p. 1942; Di Tella, Torcuato S. Populism and reform in
Latin America. In: Veliz, Claudio (Ed.). Obstacles to change in Latin America. London [u. a.]:
Oxford Univ. Press. 1965, pp. 47–74; Green, James R. Grass-roots socialism: Radical movements
in the Southwest, 1895–1943. LSU Press, 1978; Kazin, Michael. The populist persuasion: An
American history. Cornell University Press, 1998; Pollack, Norman. The Humane Economy:
Populism, Capitalism and Democracy. New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990;
O’Brien, Michael. C. Vann Woodward and the Burden of Southern Liberalism. The American
Historical Review, v. 78, n. 3, pp. 589–604, 1973; London School of Economics Conference on
Populism, May 20–21, 1967: Verbatim Report, shelf mark HN 17 C74; Mudde, Cas. The populist
zeitgeist. Government and opposition, v. 39, n. 4, 2004, pp. 541–563. Available at: https://www.
cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/
2CD34F8B25C4FFF4F322316833DB94B7/S0017257X00002372a.pdf/populist_zeitgeist.pdf.
Accessed on 25 oct. 2017; Ostler, Jeffrey. Prairie populism: the fate of agrarian radicalism in
Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa, 1880–1892. University Press of Kansas, 1993; Palano, Damiano.
L’invenzione del populismo. Note per la genealogia di un concetto «paranoico». Storia del pensiero
politico, v. 8, n. 2, pp. 273–296, 2019, p. 273; Pappas, Takis S. Populism and liberal democracy: a
Introduction xix
Taking this into consideration, the need emerged to define some causes for which
the separation between representatives and represented has worsened in the past two
decades, until reaching the boiling point of popular rejection toward the ones that are
in the dominant political classes and the rising of “charismatic leaders” that do not
call themselves “politicians” and whose intention is to become the new national hero
messiah. The word messiah was widely used by Dietrich Eckart in his journalistic
essays between 1919 and 1923 in Germany. The messiah, according to him, is
described as one who speaks directly to the people with passion and fury and,
preferably, must be unknown to politics—a leader who inspires and who is able to
carry the message forward.
comparative and theoretical analysis. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019; Rooduijn,
Matthijs. The nucleus of populism: In search of the lowest common denominator. Government
and Opposition, v. 49, n. 4, pp. 573–599, 2014.
Contents
1 What Would Populism Be? Understanding Some Semantic

Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Democracy and the Movement of Populist Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 Populism as Movement and Ideology: Laclau’s Vision . . . . . . . . . 5
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2 “We the People” vs. “We the Popular Mass” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.1 Populism and Progressivism Through Balkin’s Point of View . . . . 16
2.1.1 Initial Characteristics of the Populist Political
Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.1.2 Characteristics of the Progressive Political Movement . . . . 18
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3 A Structuring Method for Understanding the Dimensions
of Populism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.1 The Semantic Vacuum of Populism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.2 Populism and Its Manifestation in Limbo of Liberal
Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3.3 The Semantic Range of “Populisms” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
4 Primary Indicators in the Bolsonarist Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.1 The Fabricate of a Pseudo Constitution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.2 Imitation of Institutional Checks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.3 The Break of Brazilian Democratic Traditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.4 Superior Executive, Extension of Justifications to Institute
a State of Exception and Rivals as Enemies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4.5 Restricted Fundamental Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
xxi
xxii Contents
5 Variable Properties of Populisms in the Bolsonaro Government . . . . 77

5.1 The Use of Political and Religious Moralism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
5.2 The Use and the Unbridled Intensification of Disinformation and
Fake News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
5.3 The Polarization of Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
5.4 The Militarization of Politics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
6 Structural Political and Legal Approaches in Opposition to Populist
Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
About the Authors
Carina Barbosa Gouvêa Professor of Constitutional Law at the Postgraduate

Program in Law at the Federal University of Pernambuco (PPGD/UFPE); Post
Doctorate in Constitutional Law of Federal University of Pernambuco (PPGD/
UFPE); PhD and Masters in Law of UNESA. Coordinator of the Study and Research
Group Theory of the Separation of Powers and Crisis of the Brazilian Democratic
System linked to PPGD/UFPE; Vice-leader of the International Law and Human
Rights Research Group ( CNPq-UFPE).
Pedro H. Villas Bôas Castelo Branco Associate Professor at the Institute of Social
and Political Studies at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (IESP-UERJ); Profes-
sor of the Postgraduate Program in Law at the Veiga de Almeida University (PPGD/
UVA). Doctor in Political Science of past IUPERJ current IESP-UERJ, Master in
Theory of State and Constitutional Law at the PUC-Rio. Coordinator of the Labo-
ratory for Political Studies on Defense and Public Security (LEPDESP) linked to
UERJ and High War College (ESG).
xxiii
Chapter 1
What Would Populism Be? Understanding
Some Semantic Dimensions
(. . .) ‘populism’ is everywhere and everything is ‘populist’.

(Takis Pappas)
Mudde’s1 publication called “The populist Zeitgeist,” in 2004, rekindled, in the

academic scenario, the discussions around the definition of “populism.” According
to him,2 the term “populism” carries a great semantic imprecision, being able to
represent a “highly rhetorical and simplistic speech that consists, mainly, in the
elaboration of opportunistic policies which aim to coopt the electorate support,”3
therefore it represents the self-destruction of liberal democracy through democratic
procedures by an authoritarian government and under the mantel of the Rule of
Law.4
For Mudde, populism is an ideology that considers Society separated by two
homogeneous and antagonistic groups: the “pure people” and the “corrupt elite.” All
the populists believe that politics should be an expression of “general will,” being
moralists and not pragmatic and presenting, still, a Manichean perspective in which
there are only friends and enemies.
The trajectory of populist manifestations was contextualized by Palano5 in five
different stages: Russian populism at the end of the nineteenth century; popular party
populism in the United States; the populism of the Perón and Vargas regimes,
respectively, in Argentina and Brazil; the reformulation of the conceptual definition
performed by social sciences in the 1950s and 1960s; and the subsequent extension
of the concept to Western Europe.
Thus, the term “populism” may show a political phenomenon marked by Amer-
ican political systems after the 1930s, which made it practically prone to populist
1
Mudde (2004).
2
Mudde and Kaltwasser (2017).
3
Baker (2019).
4
Tóth (2019, p. 37).
5
Palano (2019, p. 273).
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 1

C. B. Gouvêa, P. H. V. B. Castelo Branco, Populist Governance in Brazil, Societies
and Political Orders in Transition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85022-7_1
2 1 What Would Populism Be? Understanding Some Semantic Dimensions
mobilization.6 It is possible to attribute characterizing elements of populism and of

the populist movement through bibliographical revision, which many times is
centered in contextual experimentation to attribute indicating elements. For example,
some historians limit the term to members and followers of American populist
parties, because they are particularly interested in discovering why people with
approximately similar ideas remain inside the democratic and republican parties.7
Others use the term to refer to a more general political movement that, eventually,
are assimilated or coopted by the main political parties and that reverberate in the
policy to be implemented. For example, a series of American policies, known as the
New Deal,8 implemented between 1933 and 1937 by President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt with the goal of recuperating and reforming the economy in the United
States.
The reconstruction of a concept must start with the examination of its literature in
order to extract its semantic spectrum and underline the inflexion of its senses.9 The
intention of establishing characteristics or properties from the revision of literature is
to attempt to understand: what is populism; what is the extent of its concept,
meaning, which are the empirical approaches that populism refers to when asked
who are the populists; and why the study of populism is considered so expensive to
political Science ant to contemporary constitutionalism.
1.1 Democracy and the Movement of Populist Waves
Democracy is currently the only constitutional system considered legitimate.

According to Apter,10 populism emerges in the democratic political system, and,
therefore, mobilizes popular sovereignty by summoning “general will.” In this
context, almost all the movements are populists and, in a real meaning,
pre-democratic instead of antidemocratic. Di Tella,11 for example, considers that
populism, although being a transitional phenomenon, is an important and positive
reform and change instrument, and, in this sense, can accommodate so-called
transition constitutionalism. Transitional constitutionalism can be understood as a
theoretical category whose scope is not to explore the content element, but the way
in which it will be articulated when building the document structuring process rooted
in the sensitive context of the political composition aimed at redemocratization.12
6
Baker (2019).
7
Ostler (1993).
8
Green (1978), Kazin (1998), Pollack (1990), and O’Brien (1973).
9
Pappas (2019).
10
Apter (1969, p. 2).
11
Di Tella (1965, p. 47).
12
For more information see: Yeh and Chang (2009), Teitel (2003), Khatiwada (2008), and
Pulcinelli (2015).
1.1 Democracy and the Movement of Populist Waves 3
The first wave of studies on populism, according to Pappas,13 started in a

conference in 1967, at the London School of Economics,14 in which a
multidisciplinary team came forward to study the theme. The job was to try to
produce a model that could identify populism, in any political circumstance, being it
in the nineteenth or the twentieth century, in the Americas, in Asia, in Africa, among
others. In the extensive literature about populism, there is a tendency to emphasize
the specific nature of its development in certain countries and places, which ends up
compromising its definition.
What was realized, in the first study wave, was “global populism” in the
premodern and peripherical states of the world—Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe,
then communist. For Pappas, the expedition of the study without a clear concept of
populism represents fishing without nets, which led the researchers to compare
different cases without concern for the constitution of the term.
The second wave of studies happened in Latin America and was written by
natives characterizing two movements. The first movement was dedicated to Latin
American populism in the first decades after the war. The second, however, was
more concerned in explaining the incompatibilities of the populist policies in the
neoliberal economy of Latin America. In this context, populism became the main
instrument of autocratic leaders who, realizing the possibility of extracting political
gains, advocated free elections, participation of women and the illiterate, in other
words, the use of the masses in politics. Getúlio Vargas in Brazil, Juan Perón and
José Maria in Argentina, and Lázaro Cárdenas in Mexico are some examples of
strategic masses inclusion in the stage of politics.
The phenomenon was related mainly to the socioeconomic15 determinants in
relation to the masses that developed contemporarily in their own countries.
Although Pappas assigns socioeconomic determinants to the second wave of studies
on populism, it is considered reckless to overestimate the socioeconomic determi-
nant as a way for the masses to appear in politics, as it ends up giving the impression
that they were exclusively passive. The masses, a mosaic of social segments of the
lower sections of the population, struggled to be recognized and for their political
participation. In Brazil, we are faced with the official narrative according to which
social and political rights were granted to the masses by the paternalistic-populist
political elite, but the research reveals that there was also a struggle. That is,
conditions were established under which the political participation of the lower
classes was channeled through a populist movement.
Two signs are important in this second wave of studies: the popular mass
movement and the charismatic leadership of a leader or party movement. However,
the problem to face, according to Pappas, was its lack of comparability, that is, these
13
Pappas (2019, p. 14).
14
London School of Economics (1967).
15
A book that disputes the grant myth is the Unique Union of Evaristo de Moraes. For more
information, see: De Moraes Filho (1978).
phenomena could only be studied to explain authoritarian movements which fell

under the specific socioeconomic context of Latin America.
Between the decades of 1980 and 1990 and with the emerging of Hugo Cháves in
Venezuela, the cadence of studies on the subject was rekindled with the appearance
of a new type of populism in a socioeconomic and political environment radically
different from that of previous post-war decades.16 In this sense, there was the
implementation of neoliberal policies by charismatic leaders that benefitted from,
at the same time, noticeably high levels of popular support—a phenomenon called
neo-populism. It can be illustrated by Alan García and, later, Alberto Fujimori in
Peru; Carlos Menem in Argentina; Fernando Collor de Mello in Brazil; and Carlos
Salinas de Gortari, in Mexico.
In all of these countries, populism enjoyed a new political epiphany that distin-
guished it from classic populism: its social bases now were composed by members
of the informal urban sector and by rural workers in opposition to the organized
working class; and the second difference was the implementation of neoliberal
policies with recommendations to build an economic austerity and structural adjust-
ments oriented toward the market.17
The governmental practices were molded inside of the collapse through more
institutionalized paths with political representation and tax restrictions inherent to a
public debt and a diminished State apparatus context.
Thus, the study of political populism is already being thought of in an instru-
mental way, which makes it more dependent on strategic and symbolical political
leadership than on a deterministic relation with the state of economy and with
specific market characteristics.
With the new communication environment of “political social media” and the
denial of legitimacy of political opponents, populism currently has become a modern
cliche. According to Pappas,18 the researches on populism advanced in different
directions: expanded their comparative scope to include increasingly more cases in
countries with specific contexts; bet on the studies grounded in quantitative methods
with the objective of “measuring” the degree of populism, focused on establishing
one or more characteristics—leadership, ideology, symbolic speeches, and patterns,
mass mobilization; and, more recently, with empirical analysis dedicated to the fall
of liberalism and to the deconstruction of democracy.19 In this perspective, the
populists represent and lead antiestablishment forces which deny legitimacy to the
main parties and attack them, defining them as corrupt and elitists.
Without a theoretical definition, however, we are still unable to understand its
causes and variables,20 which ends up hindering the application of countermeasures
16
Pappas (2019, p. 19).
17
Pappas (2019, p. 19).
18
Pappas (2019, p. 20).
19
See Diamond and Morlino (2005), Zakaria (1997), Scheppele (2018), Levitsky and Way (2002),
Levitsky and Ziblatt (2018), Castells and Webster (2004), and Ginsburg and Huq (2018).
20
Pappas (2019, p. 23).
1.2 Populism as Movement and Ideology: Laclau’s Vision 5
to rescue the liberal democratic system. We can name three distinct events in 2016
considered populists: the first, the so-called Brexit, that is, the United Kingdom’s
decision to leave the European Union (EU) after a referendum held on June
23, 2016, in which 52% of voters voted in favor of leaving the EU; the second
was motivated by an amateur attempted coup in Turkey on July 15, 2016, against
Erdogan’s growing autocratic government; and third historic event of 2016 was the
presidential election in the United States and the unexpected victory of Donald
Trump. The three events address political and cultural issues that lead to extremely
different results. A Eurocentric nationalist who successfully campaigned for his
country to leave the EU; an autocratic leader in a pluralist democracy suspended
by a counter-coup by the autocratic leader; a political outsider, messiah, who used a
populist speech against the political establishment in order to win the elections.
1.2 Populism as Movement and Ideology: Laclau’s Vision
Some approaches center their definition of populism as a movement and as an

ideology typical of a distinct social class. In this sense, for those who study the
phenomenon in the nineteenth century in Russia (narodniks),21 populism will be
presented, essentially, as a peasant ideology or an ideology elaborated by intellec-
tuals who praised peasant values. In the Russian leftist framework, the formation of
two main parties stands out: the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party
(RSDWP) and the Revolutionary Socialist (RS). Initially, the RSDWP outlined its
bases in international socialism, while the RS structured itself in the peasant
narodnik populism, which aimed at the equal distribution of land.
On the other hand, if the goal of the analysis is the North American populism of
the twentieth century, it will be considered as a typical ideology and mobilization of
a Society of small farmers who oppose urban life and large companies.22
If, by any chance, the approach is centered in Latin America, where mass
mobilization has reached the “populist” meaning, it will be seen as political and
ideological and the expression. Of a small bourgeoisie coming from marginal sectors
or from a national economy aiming to mobilize masses for partial confrontation with
local oligarchies.
There is a common element in all the mentioned approaches: the word populism.
And the theorization must be found outside of the social bases since they are totally
different. The use of the concept cannot be connected to similar social bases, but it
should be lined in the similarities present in many different social movements.
The studies on the theme have been combined in three different dimensions in
Laclau’s23 vision:
21
Barbon (2017).
22
Howarth (2014, p. 111).
23
Laclau (2014). Our translation.
1. As an intuitive perception being constituted through a common characteristic

shared by quite different political movements, which then determines, at first, that
this characteristic must find its explanation in the social bases of these
movements.
2. Concrete populist movements are therefore studied and in the course of the
research, there is a peculiar transfer of meaning: populism is no longer considered
a common characteristic of several movements and is transformed into a synthetic
concept that defines or symbolizes the complexity of characteristics of the
concrete movement under investigation.
3. When it is necessary to provide a definition of what is specific about populism,
the analyst—instead of isolating a common characteristic of the perceived move-
ments, is led to compare these movements and as such try to determine what they
have in common through a typical empiricist procedure of abstraction/generali-
zation. This method can be considered flawed, since populist movements funda-
mentally differ from each other. Consequently, what is generally done in these
cases is to continue talking about populism without defining it.
Another adherence field that can be found in populism is its identification with a
political movement which benefits from the support of mass urban population,
meaning, the working class and/or peasantry, but which does not result from the
autonomy of an organizational power of any of these two sectors. It can be reached,
still, by non-working class sectors who defend an anti-status quo24 ideology.
Although these social classes are present, they do not present any ideology of their
own. A peculiar distortion separated the class nature of these sectors and their
political forms of expression.
Populism, therefore, constitutes the political form of expression of popular
sectors when these are unable to establish an organization and class ideology.
Although there is a popular movement, there is no possibility of rising to political
power.
The meaning of the ideological elements identified with populism must be located
in the structure in which they are inserted in the political culture context and not in
ideal paradigms.
For Laclau,25 there is no possibility of connecting the strictly populist element to
the class nature of a determined movement. This confusion comes from a flaw in
differentiating two aspects: the general problem of political and ideological class
determination and its structures; and the ways of existence of classes to the level of
these structures.
The classes no longer determine the political and ideological superstructures, but
accommodate them as a necessary circumstance in its self-unravelling process. The
English bourgeoisie of the nineteenth century was transformed into a hegemonic
24
Di Tella (1965, p. 47).
25
Laclau (2005).
1.2 Populism as Movement and Ideology: Laclau’s Vision 7
class not through the imposition of a uniform ideology on other classes, but as it was
able to articulate different ideologies to its hegemonic project.
Aristocracy was not abolished, in the Jacobin style, but was reduced to a level
increasingly more subordinate and decaying to a more operational role while the
working class demands were practically absorbed, which resulted in reformism and
unionism.
It is important to realize that the dominant class exercises its hegemony in two
ways: (1) articulating in its class speech contradictions and interpellations to the
dominant political power; (2) through absorbing content, aspirations, and needs of
the ideological and political speeches of the dominated classes.
This is a clear evidence that we are not in the field of the determined content of a
discourse, but in the principle of articulation that unifies them.
We must conclude that what transforms an ideological speech into a populist
speech is a peculiar form of articulation of the popular democratic interpellations.
According to Laclau,26 populism consists in the presentation of popular democratic
interpellations with a synthetic–antagonistic complex with regard to the dominant
ideology.
By advancing in the conceptual definition, Mudde and Kaltwasser27 adopt an
“ideational” approach, in which they define populism as a thin-centered ideology in
which it is possible to establish a metric not only in different historical moments and
in parts of the world, but also to realize its variables and its subtypes. Although
populism has been thought of in different ways, for example, as a multiclass
movement or a specific type of political mobilization, and in this way, the “idea-
tional” approach has some advantages.
Firstly, by understanding populism as a centered ideology, it is possible to
understand why it is so flexible in the contextual world. Given its nucleus and
restricted ideological concepts, it necessarily appears connected to other concepts
or ideological families that are normally as relevant to the populist authors as they
are to the category itself.
Later, contrary to restrictive definitions, as established initially by Laclau,28 who
limits populism to a specific type of mobilization and leadership, the approach is
capable of accommodating a broad range of political actors normally associated to
the phenomenon. These movements have been manifesting themselves in many
ways, perceived both through organized social movements, as well as in political
party movements or through a certain type of leadership that has the same common
focus: to represent the “voice of the people.”
Finally, this approach is exclusively positioned to provide a broader and more
multifaceted answer to the crucial issue in the debates about populism. What is its
relationship with democracy? The definition of this connection is not as simple to
realize, since its manifestation in the normative field may promote the erosion of the
26
Laclau (2005).
27
Mudde and Kaltwasser (2017).
28
Laclau (2005).
democratic system by turning the stage of liberal democracy into an arena in which
the political adversary is substituted by the enemy. The risk of excessively elevating
the temperature of the political thermometer to a boiling point varies in conformity
with the stages of the democratization process.29
It is convenient to discuss which causes would have provoked a deficit in the
legitimacy of the institutions of liberal democracy and motivated a social depoliti-
cization, on one hand, and, on the other, an extreme politicization of segments that
seemed dismissed from “traditional” politics.
In Brazil, it is suspected that the depoliticization was aggravated, among other
reasons, by the “criminalization of politics” occurred, overall, due to unprecedented
combat against corruption, the result of which exceeded the punishment of charac-
ters from the political and business elite by criminalizing liberal-democratic political
rules and practices. The entry of “external agents” into politics in the 2018 electoral
dispute is discussed, in addition to the sense of opportunity, it was not marked by a
messianic role attributed to members of the Armed Forces.
The so-called “populist jurisdiction” is manifested in an environment of consti-
tutional interpretation, more precisely in the triggered tension points between the
powers that may come from it. The political criminal sanctions and the illegitimate
pressure instruments assume an importance in this field, thought here in the field of
the fundamental rights violations and of the penal system of guarantees, that may be
seized by the judges and/or jurisdiction.
The deflagration of political sanctions against the executive or the legislative
certainly consists of a strategically articulated and antidemocratic movement, whose
effects intend to correct the social dissatisfactions which produce political
dissatisfaction.
Immediate affiliation to the dominant popular sentiment may reveal a tendency to
open up to “populist jurisdiction.” From the combination of the factors listed, it
awakens to the “new conception of the role of the judiciary” that surpasses the fetish
of independent performance.
In this sense, the biggest threat to the democratization processes, which are
always unfinished, is the criminalization of politics. The latter is shaped by the
inadmissibility of the existence of an opposition, freedom of press, expression,
opinion, and thought, among other democratic values that become the object of
demonization by those who judge themselves or behave themselves as carriers of the
absolute truth.
And, finally, realizing populism in the ideological field allows us to take into
consideration the side of the demand, as well as the side of the supply for populist
politics. Instead of centralizing the gaze toward populism, notably constructed as a
strategy of a specific political elite that heads toward “illiberal” democracy, it allows
us, also, to look at the populist demand, understand the support of the ideas of
populism in the popular masses. It is convenient to realize which are the reasons that
led or lead the masses to support demands that intend to deconstruct the old
29
In this same sense, Landau (2018).
References 9
institutional order—this mapping may lead to the development of new mechanisms

facing the contemporary populist movement.
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Chapter 2
“We the People” vs. “We the Popular Mass”
Instead of the wide diversity in the uses of the term populism, we can find in all of
them a common reference to an analogue base which is the people.
The conception of popular sovereignty is the result of the construction of many
authors, but it acquires its clearest sense in the Social Contract, by Jean-Jacques
Rousseau. The construction of the concept of general will by the Genevan was
determinant so that the state sovereignty in popular will could be founded.1 Such an
elaboration constitutes one of the pillars of the theory of democracy until current
days. The contemporary doctrine bets on the people as the subject of the constituent
power which inaugurates a new era of political ideas. This way, the “people” of the
nation, according to theory, continue being the basis of all of the political happening,
the source of all of the strength that manifests itself and never subordinate.
Through the lenses of Schmitt, there are three moments of popular sovereignty
manifestations in relation to Constitution: it is exercised before or at the moment of
constitutional creation, establishing its fundamentals; after its creation, the power
continues to be exercised, this time, through the representatives elected; and, finally,
the sovereignty may claim the constitutional change at every and at any time,
because, as a revolutionary power, it remains inalienable and illimited.2
In the first moment, the will of a certain social group will be responsible for
creating a Constitution, giving it life through political decision. This way, some
process of decanting and representing the popular will occur.
The second moment is characterized by the people “inside” of the Constitution, in
which it will use the institutional instruments offered by a certain regime to partic-
ipate in the development of the identity and constitutional culture.
And, finally, the third moment is defined by the people “in front of” the Consti-
tution, when certain popular manifestations, external to the institutionalized consti-
tutional system, seek to transform the operation of the political regime.
1
Rousseau (1999).
2
Schmitt (2008, pp. 23–24).

12 2 “We the People” vs. “We the Popular Mass”
However, the formation of some states (especially nations scourged by Strong

troubles such as human torment, corruption, massive violation of humanitarian and
human rights, dictatorships, civil conflicts) have revealed cracks with repercussions
in the theory of popular sovereignty and of the original constituent power. The
constituent power represented exclusively by the “people” is left aside as great
powers are intervening in the construction of constitutions, for example, in Cambo-
dia, Timor-Leste, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, imposing deals and, in
certain cases, continuing to influence decisively in the functioning of such constitu-
tional orders.3, 4 As an example, the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina is mentioned,
where the constituent process was established by the Dayton Agreement and there
was an imposition of an external political agenda, which included the territorial
division (federalism) and the structure of the constitutional device to be deployed.
The Constitution provided for in Annex IV of the document contained a structure
that is in line with the principles that define Western liberal democracy.
The original constituent power has been suffering these “cracks” since decoloni-
zation.5 The Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Countries and Peoples
was issued as of Resolution 1514 of December 1960 by the UN General Assembly.
The Declaration affirmed the right of all people to self-determination and proclaimed
the gnawed and unconditional end of colonialism. In 1961, the Special Committee
on Decolonization was established to monitor its implementation. It is the self-
imposed restriction generated by arguments from great powers that puts aside any
simplistic notion of popular sovereignty, self-determination, or sovereign equality,
since all constitutions are imposed.6 In this same sense, Vinx7 clarifies that, regard-
less of whether there are forms of popular participation in the democratic system, it is
usually the elites who create the Constitutions, which will have the greatest influence
on the signs and elements of power of the institutional archetype. This is the final
arbiter of the legality or legitimacy of the intervention.
The concept of “imposed constitutionalism” and “imposed constitution” has been
characterizing the creation of Constitutions currently under the point of view of the
construction of semantic senses, in order to identify a better comprehension of the
type of constitutionalism incorporated by current constitutions. We can identify,
thus, the following faces of imposition of Constitutions: externally imposed,
imposed under external influence; internally imposed, being divided in generational,
majoritarian, elitist, and jurisdictional; and imposed with consent (heteronomous),
3
Oklopcic (2012).
4
Gouvêa (2019).
5
The Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Countries and Peoples was issued as of
Resolution 1514 of December 1960 by the UN General Assembly. The Declaration affirmed the
right of all people to self-determination and proclaimed the gnawed and unconditional end of
colonialism. In 1961, the Special Committee on Decolonization was established to monitor its
implementation.
6
Gouvêa (2019).
7
Vinx (2016).
2 “We the People” vs. “We the Popular Mass” 13
subdivided constitutions amended by an external actor, aided by an external actor

and interpreted by an external actor.
It can be verified that every Constitution has, in a certain way, an imposing tone,
and, in this sense, there is the need of establishing the following structuring ele-
ments: which factors should weigh in on this imposition; which are the degrees of
this imposition–extension; and the way it will be materialized in the rules of the
game.8 Meaning, its structure and institutional design must be compatible in order to
establish new processes of change, integration, and cooperation among the institu-
tions and constituted powers, that, necessarily, will diminish the negative effects of
imposition and will broaden the spaces of public vocalizations.
Populism is characterized, also, by its appeal to the people above class divisions.
According to Laclau,9 this definition fails as much as it does by excess as it does by
standard: by standard, what indicates its influence from a popular speech is under-
stood, which may refer to the people, as well as to the classes (presenting, for
example, a class as a historical agent of the people’s interests); and, by excess,
since, as we see it, not all references to “people” transforms, automatically, a speech
into a “populist speech.” The people are not just a rhetorical concept, but an
objective determination, one of the two poles of the dominant contradiction in the
context of concrete social formation.
The definition of “what is people” is an endless saga.10 This indeterminability of
Greek words is perceived as demos, populus, plithos, Óchlos, syllogikótita, ethos to
the arguments of contemporary constitutionalism in favor of a holder, protagonist, or
bearer of power in a social legal–political order. As a constitutional authority, the
concept was considered and reconsidered—it is a component that emerges in certain
historical moments and political, economic, and cultural circumstances.
The contradiction “power of the people” is an antagonism whose intelligibility
does not depend on the relations of production, but on the ideological relations of
domination in the political complex, building a social formation relationship,
according to Laclau.11 If the dominant contradiction, at the level of the production
way, establishes the specific dominion of the class struggle, on the other hand,
relating to concrete social formation, this contradiction constitutes the specific
dominion of the popular-democratic fight. Since the clash of the classes has priority
over the popular-democratic fight, the latter only exists articulated with class
projects.
All of the great mass revolts of successive exploited classes (slaves, peasants,
proletariat) present ideological, egalitarian, anti-property expressions and formula-
tions before state companies that form the characteristics of a communist program.12
For Laclau, the communist programs do not possess a defined class characteristic,
8
Gouvêa (2019).
9
Laclau (2005, p. 115).
10
Rodean (2019).
11
Laclau (2005, pp. 115–116).
12
Laclau (2005, p. 121).
they synthetize the universal aspiration of the exploited, which is to suppress every
principle of exploration and oppression, and come to existence in the terrain of
contradiction between masses and State. The inherent antagonism to this contradic-
tion is neutralized and partially absorbed in the speech of the dominant classes. Thus,
the popular-democratic fight is subordinate to the clash of classes and the ideology
only exists when it is articulated with an abstract movement in a class speech.
Why is it wrong to classify the popular ideology as “constants”? We are referring
to the articulated ideologies as a whole, which, obviously, are not “constant” taken
into consideration that they change according to the rhythm and contestation of the
clash of classes.
In the social context, these symbols and values transform, lose their reference to a
concrete social base and are transformed in the ideological expression of the
“confrontation of people” vs. “power block.” They abandoned all class references
and can, therefore, be articulated in the ideological speeches of the most varied
classes.
As a conclusion, what transforms an ideological speech into a populist speech is
the peculiar form of articulation of the popular-democratic interpellations. As men-
tioned, according to Laclau,13 populism consists in the presentation of popular-
democratic interpellations as an antagonist–synthetic complex with respect to the
dominant ideology.
The appearance of populism is historically connected to a crisis of the ideological
speech that is a part of a more general social crisis. These manifestations can be
observed from two strands: populism of the dominant classes and populism of the
dominated classes.
When the dominant political block experiments a profound crisis facing the
emergence of a new class and sees itself incapable of imposing its hegemony inside
of the structural limits of the political power block, a solution to rise to power may be
a direct appeal for the masses to develop their antagonism toward the state, that is,
the dominant political block. For example, we could talk about the ascension of the
Nazi movement: a bet was made on a popular mass movement that would develop its
potential antagonism of interpellations, but articulated in such a way that would
obstruct its orientations toward any revolutionary direction. The populism performed
by the dominant classes is, most times, repressive. They induce antagonism in a
controlled way, that is, keeping it inside certain limits.
An emerging paradigm based on the matter of crowd representation is character-
ized. The dominating authority does not understand the subject with willpower and
conscience, it appears only in plural form, as a people, is not capable of making
decisions nor acting as a unit14; on the other hand, it represents a homogeneous and
antagonistic political unit.15
13
Laclau (2005, p. 122).
14
Habermas (1998).
15
Mudde (2004).
2 “We the People” vs. “We the Popular Mass” 15
The ideological struggle of the dominated classes, on the other hand, consists of
an expansion of the antagonism implicit in democratic interpellations and of a
political articulation with their own class discourses, for example, when the working
class manages to implant its set of ideologies within a given class. In this context, the
figure of Mao Zedong represents the populism of the dominated classes based on his
leadership that culminated in the Chinese Revolution in 1949. The populist move-
ment of the dominated classes can also be reflected in the revolution.16
The concept of revolution is one of the most discussed in the field of political
science, sociology, and constitutional law and, of course, has a complex structure. It
is a sociological and total concept that can be realized, however, individually, in the
different dimensions of sociocultural life, or be generalized throughout the social
structure, totally dynamizing its ideologies and economic conditions; that is, the
change in the stratified structure of society. We are not dealing with a mere
substitution of one layer of power by another, but that, within the existing strata, a
differentiation is made because these strata are disintegrated and then reintegrated in
a different way. The political revolution calls for force as a means of achieving its
goal, and ultimately uses it to achieve the desired social transformation. The cause of
the revolution can be derived from the growth of the repression of the main instincts
of the majority of society, and the impossibility of obtaining for these instincts the
minimum necessary satisfaction. Hence, it is possible to adduce the existence of a
people’s right to resist oppression imposed by autocratic regimes, or against democ-
racies that strayed from their right path, for the materialization of this necessary
minimum of economic and cultural satisfaction.
In this bipolar social power relationship analysis (dominant and dominated), we
have to remember that, in the extreme opposite of force, there is another element:
obedience.17 And the understanding of this binomial supports the dichotomy
between liberal democracy and populism, even though both wanted to give a
voice to the people and defend their interests.18 Popular obedience is only achieved
when and to the extent that the performance of power brings social values to its base,
the idea of law accepted by society. No power can be maintained from the instant in
which its acting is shocked with the interests of the last group.
Thus and according to Dantas,19 there is no configuration of Revolution if there is
a change in the constitutional structure provoked by force without, however, an
agreement with the “living right,” since the field continues conducive to the revolu-
tionary process. In this exact situation, the revolutionary process will live: the
substitution of governments and of the constitutional-legal structure by another
which performs the goals desired by the group.
16
Pinto Ferreira (n.d., p. 106). To understand the political sense of revolution, its pathos of the new
from the war of liberation and institutionalization of power, see: Arendt (1990, pp. 21 a 58 e
142 e 178).
17
Dantas (1985, p. 18).
18
Rodean (2019).
19
Dantas (1985, pp. 18–19).
The classical conceptualization of populism for Laclau implied four essential

attributes of the people: (a) its potential to form a political majority;
(b) homogeneous nature and endowed with sovereignty; (c) subservience to institu-
tions; and (d) it belief in maintaining the moral right. All of these attributes are
extracted from primitive republicanism and, although they are no strangers to the
democratic principle, they are fundamentally hostile to the basic precepts of post-war
liberal democracy, which demands: (a) prevent the tyranny of the majority;
(b) promote social plurality; (c) institute the system of brakes and counterweights,
elevating them above the personal interest of each power; and (d) advocate ratio-
nality as an end and not morality as a means.
2.1 Populism and Progressivism Through Balkin’s Point

of View 20
The populist theory and the progressist theory can be realized in the relationship
between constitutional theory aligned with popular practices and popular culture. In
this sense, in the political context, the opposition between progressivism and pop-
ulism exists entirely within the liberal discourse of the left in the American context,
represented by distinct ideological communities.
By progressivism and populism, Balkin intends to invoke two successive political
movements of American reform, being the first, agrarian and the second, urban.
There are some similarities among the movements—both the populists and the
progressists defended some reforms, such as indirect elections, 8-h per day work
shifts, established minimal income, monetary reform, which came to be
implemented in the governmental system, however, for different reasons.
Populism and progressivism diverge, but they are not totally antagonistic. They
share the same wish for reform21 in relation to beliefs, attitudes, and popular mass
actions and to the conduction of politics for these reforms; they reject immorality and
corruption; and they demand popular participation in power structures.
For better comprehension, Balkin22 exposes characteristics of the populist and
progressivist political movements at the end of the twentieth century to understand
the tendencies in contemporary political debate.
20
Balkin (1995).
21
Share the same vision Laclau (2005), Balkin (1995, pp. 1935–1990), and Arendt (2013).
22
Balkin (1995, p. 1950).
2.1 Populism and Progressivism Through Balkin’s Point of View 17
2.1.1 Initial Characteristics of the Populist Political

Movement23
Initially, the so-called populist politics was concentrated on and had the objective,
mainly, of promoting and defending the interests and contestations of common
citizens. In this sense, it saw the bureaucracy of the government as excessive and
corporate and believed that the concentrations of political powers and privileges
carried out for a long time by the same people led, initially to immorality and
political corruption.
Due to its immanent preoccupation with corruption and its base political ideol-
ogy, in which the people should compose the power structures that affect them,
historically, populism suspected the elites, being academic, social, or political. This
vision has two consequences: first a preference for the regular alternance of power
and authority positions; and second, for the popular participation in the economic
and political structures that affect the lives of common citizens.
The expected goal of the populist movement in governmental politics had both a
public aspect as well as a private aspect. Thus, the government existed to provide to
the individuals, their families, and communities the chance of living their own lives
with dignity; in addition to that, it demanded that common people had a voice in the
decisions that affected them.
Therefore, the populist movement was based on a particular conception of self-
government and self-determination in which the active participation of citizens
would be exercised when they chose to participate and this participation should be
encouraged and facilitated by the governmental structure. This interrelation between
the public and private aspects of populism is crucial for the comprehension of its
constitutive character.
People intended to be a part of the governance at the same time in which they
wanted the government to respect their ways of life. They wished to participate in the
government but did not want to be manipulated and molded by some director plans
focused on effective governance.
The mere mentioning in the Constitution of the participation in the power
structure through representative and deliberative democracy, that is, through direct
voting and referendums, does not represent the intention of inferring in the power
structures. The movement wished to have the opportunity of expressing its will on
political decisions to be operationalized, free from the hands of bureaucratic plan-
ning or corporate overreaching.
Political participation is not something to be imposed on citizens—under the
populist point of view, participative management attempts are paternalists. The
government must provide opportunities for popular participation when people look
for it and should not try to divert or weaken this popular will.
23
In the American context, as described by Balkin. See: Balkin (1995, pp. 1935–1990).
This way, populism did not discern the people as a mass to be cooptated, that is,
the people are not a passive receptor of an ideological speech with rhetorical
narratives.
2.1.2 Characteristics of the Progressive Political Movement
Historically, progressive politics represented a good, a clarified government that was

turned to public policy and public interest. It, by nature, accommodated the elites,
that, in its point of view, were better prepared and could determine what was more
correct for society as a whole using reason. Due to its respect for expertise,
progressivism has always been comfortable with the elite’s speech.
It uses persuasion, rational discussion, and dialogue techniques in the decisions
and choices that concerned the public interest. For it, the government and public
participation should, therefore, be structured to produce rational deliberations and
consensus about public policies to be implemented.
Popular culture and the populations would have an important role to perform in
this process, but only after reaching educations for the development of a democratic
constitutional culture, since popular passions would tend to make the decisions
unbalanced. Popular hate and the lack of constitutional education are more propense
to take the people to the promotion of precipitated and irrational trials.
Let us take as an example the project of summoning a popular consult for the
legalization of abortion which happened in Argentina in 2018. Specialists in consti-
tutional law and human rights manifested against the governmental proposal of
submitting to popular consultation the decriminalization of abortion. According to
the specialists, this is a matter of public health that should be discussed in a
dialogical way and human rights themes cannot be the subject of plebiscites,24
given that the answer of a polarized and conservative society may promote social
setbacks.
The progressists, as well as the populists, believed that governments should be
free of corrupting influences. For progressists, democratic culture is developed
gradually and is a fertile field for democracy to blossom.
Thus, people would be more prepared as long as they were instructed, educated to
get involved in a rational deliberation over important public matters. In this sense,
every one of them would have the opportunity and the obligation of discussing such
matters through dialogue.
Culture would be even more democratic if more people, groups, or movements
participated in these deliberations that may vary in political, economic, and social
aspects. This conception of democratic culture is consistent with the populist notion
that the power structures should become more open to the population both
24
Batagelj (2019).
References 19
economically and politically. Thus, populist politics tends to merge democratic

culture and popular culture, while progressivism tends to separate them both.
For Balkin,25 the state of the art of a democratic system consists in the unification
of these two approaches for the substantiated promotion of democratic and popular
culture.
The American progressivist political movement was won over by liberalism in
the 1950s. According to Balkin,26 there is a tendency of using the word “progressist”
as a synonym (or euphemism) for “liberal” or “left.”
For Balkin, the connections established between progressivism and liberalism
make the latter susceptible to “populist” attacks from the right. This was the position
adopted, for example, by the modern Republican Party in the United States. With the
objective of disguising the conservative elitism, it bet on the “populist rhetorical,”
meaning, the distortion of the characteristics of populism as a political movement.
Although progressivism has symmetric flaws, for Balkin,27 it is easier to realize
its defects in the structure of the political system. They include, for example, elitism,
paternalism, authoritarianism, excessive and improper respect for isolationism,
disdain for the popular values, fear of popular domination, factual and moral
knowledge confusion, meritocratic arrogance. History, however, teaches us that
populism has recurrent pathologies and it is especially important to recognize
them a neutralize them. These include fascism, nationalism, anti-intellectualism,
persecution of unpopular minorities, magnification of political outsiders, distortion
of the virtues of the masses.
After all, is this new populism transfused as a hero or villain of democracy?
References
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Arendt, H. (2013). Origens do totalitarismo: antissemitismo, imperialismo, totalitarismo.
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Balkin, J. M. (1995). Populism and progressivism as constitutional categories. The Yale Law
Journal, 104(7), 1935–1990, 1942.
Batagelj, J. (2019, March 19). Los derechos humanos no se plebiscitan. Page 12. Sociedad.
Retrieved March 19, 2019, from https://www.pagina12.com.ar/102464-los-derechos-
humanos-no-se-plebiscitan
Dantas, I. (1985). Poder Constituinte e Revolução: breve introdução à teoria sociológica do direito
constitucional (2nd ed., p. 18). Jalovi.
Gouvêa, C. B. (2019). A categoria teórico-abstrata do poder constituinte híbrido e a crise dos
sistemas democráticos: materializando novos sentidos para a internacionalização do poder
constituinte originário. Final Post-Doctoral Internship Report. Federal University of
Pernambuco.
25
Balkin (1995, pp. 1935–1990, 1943).
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Balkin (1995, pp. 1935–1990, 1950).
27
Balkin (1995, pp. 1935–1990, 195).
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Chapter 3
A Structuring Method for Understanding
the Dimensions of Populism
Is it possible for the Rule of Law to be used as a political weapon, that is, does
populism threaten it? In reference to Maravall,1 this hypothesis cannot be material-
ized, because we are discussing a weapon that does not present tension or contra-
diction. On the other hand, in Fuller’s2 opinion, the Rule of Law is capable of
subjecting human conduct to the governance of rules, however, the “sharp knife of
the law” can also be used for substantially immoral ends.
The Rule of Law should be considered in both procedural and formal terms;
which means that it does not only express formal restrictions but commitments
which imply in a certain interpersonal state attitude in a collaborative form with
the institutions that compose the institutional design. It can be seen, also, as a myriad
of institutional arrangements rooted in normative commitments, many of them
strongly associated with liberal democracy and materialized through democratic
liberal constitutionalism.
In this substantive conception, it is associated with: constitutionalism; the sepa-
ration of powers and the system of checks and balances; human, civil, political,
economic, and social rights; judicial review of powers; access to justice; ideally to an
international legal order capable of insisting and invoking the rule of law, protection
and promotion of human rights.3
According to Lacey,4 if used for discriminatory, oppressive, arbitrary, authoritar-
ian, or anti-institution goals, this counts as “abusive legalism” or “autocratic consti-
tutionalism.” And in this case, an essential point that deserves consideration is the
contestation ways existent in the Rule of Law. There are contestations over the
content and its requisites, and there are contestations on what it means. Both of these
1
Maravall and Przeworski (2003).
2
Fuller (1969, p. 96).
3
Lacey (2019).
4
Lacey (2019).

22 3 A Structuring Method for Understanding the Dimensions of Populism
forms of contestations, for Waldron,5 are fed. According to the author, the main idea
is that, somehow, the respect toward the law may constrain the exercise of human
political power, making it less dangerous, more benign, and solidary.
Every political dispute waged in the context of the Rule of Law is, in itself, a
tribute to the presence of the “Rule of Law” and this does not mean that there are
“friends or enemies.” However, the idea, according to Waldron,6 is that the Rule of
Law must be in accordance and really serving people who inquire and discuss about
what counts as “Rule of Law” and regarding some decision or a set of decisions that
it should control from the signs contested by society and defined in the Constitution.
In a society governed by men, the persuasion for the formation of a new
consensus must be constant, because law and legalism are instrumental elements
resulting from self-reflective practices. This argumentative presence is a self-
referential for society. However, it is possible to imagine a kind of “false legalism”
that in a solipsistic way builds such arguments to lend political decisions a certain
degree of legitimacy.
The crisis of democratic liberal constitutionalism represents also the gradual
collapse of a semi-direct democracy representation model. The system has some
basic characteristics and forces: (1) the recognition of the minimum basic rights and
the respect to people’s basic rights and to the citizen’s political rights, including
association, meeting, and expression freedoms, through the rule of law protected by
the courts (constitutionality control); (2) the existence of procedural and substantial
limits to the exercise of power; (3) a government with limits on the exercise of
powers; (4) authoritarian government rejection; (5) the separation of powers between
the Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary; (6) the free, periodic, and contrasted
election of those who occupy decision-making positions in each of the powers;
(7) submission of the State, and of all its tools, to those who received the delegation
of power from citizens; (8) possibility of revising and updating the Constitution in
which the principles of democratic institutions are shaped; and (9) the notion of
constitutional supremacy.
The described model is not finished and ready, it will be updated in the field of
democratic contestations, with cracks that theory is still unveiling. Thus, liberal
democracy is built around the social power relations that constantly adapt to the
Evolution of these relations but privileging the power that is already crystallized in
the institutions. For Castells,7 we cannot affirm that it is representative, unless the
citizens think they are being represented.
The fundamental political actors, most of the time, may differ on politics, they
agree, however, in keeping the monopoly of power inside a table of possibilities
preestablished by themselves through the political system. For example, parties may
limit renovation through the competition among its leaders, pushing control and
decision away from its militants. With that, once again an election will be held,
5
Waldron (2017).
6
Waldron (2017, p. 143).
7
Castells (2018, p. 12).
3 A Structuring Method for Understanding the Dimensions of Populism 23
which is dominated, at this moment, by electoral marketing and by the communica-

tion strategies with few or no debate, as observed in the 2018 presidential elections
with the refuse by candidate Jair Messias Bolsonaro in debating with other candi-
dates and, therefore, also with the militants and the electors. The system works
autonomously in relation to the citizens. Brazil’s presidential candidate Jair
Bolsonaro, leader in the polls for the second round elections in 2018, was the first
candidate for the position that did not participate in the debates in the second round
elections since the re-democratization, when the country returned vote for president
after 29 years of fasting.8
Politics becomes professional and politicians become a social group that defends
their common interests above those of those they claim to represent. Thus, a political
class that transcends ideologies and takes care of its oligopoly manifested in the
system via a populist9 movement is formed. This crisis, already announced by
Levitsky and Ziblatt,10 has some characteristics in which politicians treat their rivals
as enemies, intimidate free press, and threaten to reject election results.
The strength and stability of institutions depend on their effectiveness in people’s
minds. If the subjective link between what citizens think and want and the actions of
those whom we elect and pay for is broken, what is called a crisis of political
legitimacy takes place, namely, the majority feeling that the actors of the political
system do not represent us. This mismatch is self-correcting in the liberal democracy
system with the plurality of options and periodic elections to choose these
preferences.
The globalization of economy and communication undermined and disrupted the
national economies, limiting the capacity of the nation-state to respond within its
scope to problems that are originally global, such as financial crises, violation of
human rights, the pandemic, climate change, the economy or terrorism, according to
Castells.11
The resulting social inequality between valued and devalued, for the author, is the
highest in recent history12 (recalling that the text was written in the old world, that is,
it started in the state before the COVID-19 pandemic), such that, in addition to
inequality, there is a polarization between rich and poor. This argument was built
prior to the outbreak by the World Health Organization of the COVID-19 pandemic
on March 11, 2020. According to Shalal and Nebehay, the pandemic has driven the
global economy to stagnation and plunged the world into a recession that will be
worse than the financial crisis of decades ago, information given by the Head of the
International Monetary Fund. The crisis generated by the pandemic has accentuated
8
Padiglione (2018).
9
Populist movement is understood as the way it manifests itself in the social, political and legal
context.
10
Levitsky and Ziblatt (2018, p. 13).
11
Castells (2018, p. 18).
12
Shalal and Nebehay (2020).
economic differences between countries, social inequality, unemployment, and the

increase in poverty.13
In order to increase the competitive capacity of their countries, a new form of state
was created—the network state—based on the institutional articulation of nation-
states, which do not disappear but become nodes of a supranational network to
which they transfer sovereignty in exchange for participation in globalization man-
agement. The European Union represents a bold construction in response to global-
ization. This crisis of representation of interests is joined by an identity crisis: the less
control people have over the market and over their State, but they withdraw into their
own identity that cannot be dissolved by the vertigo of global flows. These people
take refuge in their nation, in their territory, in their God14 and the occurrence is that
the citizens’ political identity, built from the State, is being replaced by diverse
cultural identities, carrying meanings beyond politics.
At the root of the crisis of political legitimacy is the financial crisis, transformed
into an economic and employment crisis. On the edge of the precipice, governments
prefer to save the market and, thus, country by country, governments have inter-
vened, highlighting the problems arising from liberal democracy, which argues the
harmfulness of State intervention in the markets.15 Even more damaging and
revealing are the austerity policies imposed by great powers, such as Germany and
the European Commission, putting on a German model straitjacket without paying
attention to the conditions of each country.16 At the moment when more sacrifices
were demanded of citizens to get out of the crisis, Castells argues that, in some
countries, and in Spain in particular, a series of cases of political corruption began to
be revealed that ended up radically undermining confidence in politicians and
parties. Airfields are open for the new awakening of contemporary populism.
3.1 The Semantic Vacuum of Populism
First, there is a need for a minimal definition of what contemporary populism is. It is
imperative to reduce its semantic complexity, that is, to verify what are the funda-
mental outlines of populism and who are the populists in the specific cultural-
political context in order to immediately understand their variable properties to the
inflection of their senses and their purpose.
The doctrine establishes a broad agreement on the variable property of populism
materialized by the charismatic leader in the form of political discourse.17
13
Capomaccio (2020).
14
Castells (2018, p. 19).
15
Castells (2018, p. 21).
16
Castells (2018, p. 22).
17
Lacey (2019).
3.1 The Semantic Vacuum of Populism 25
The charismatic leader can be characterized in two different ways: the personal
one, who can navigate in two different directions, the one who exercises supreme
control over the party or movement with centralized power or the one who estab-
lishes an unmediated and emotional relationship, often segmented; and the radical,
which can subvert an established authority structure or constitute a new authority
structure. Juan Perón is mentioned, chosen in 1946 in Argentina; Andreas Papan-
dreou, elected in 1981 in Greece; Alberto Fujimori, elected in 1990 in Peru; Silvio
Berlusconi, elected in 1994 in Italy; Viktor Orbán, elected in 1998 in Hungary; Hugo
Chávez, elected in 1998 in Venezuela; Rafael Correa, elected in 2006 in Ecuador;
Alexis Tsipras, elected in 2005 in Greece; Donald Trump, elected in 2016 in the
United States of America18) and Jair Messias Bolsonaro, elected in 2018 in Brazil.
According to Weber, “in charismatic domination, one obeys due to affective devo-
tion to the person of the lord.” The subjection, in this case, occurs, in particular, due
to the magical or extraordinary abilities attributed to the charismatic leader: revela-
tion, heroism, and eloquence (intellectual and oratory power).19
As for the charism, it is worth mentioning two aspects: the first is that, among the
forms of domination presented by Weber, charisma is the one that brings about the
greatest transformations in the historical plane, but it is also one of the most unstable
due to the fact that the charismatic leader needs to give continuous evidence of his
extraordinary ability. If the leader is considered a warrior “hero,” he will have to put
himself in a state of chronic war against his enemies, which could contribute to
understanding the warmongering and conflicting style of President Jair Bolsonaro,
who is seen by his followers as a brave ex-captain who faces powerful political
elites, judicial courts, from other countries. The second aspect is the fact that
the charism is a nontransferable personal quality, resulting in consequences such
as the vacuum problem in the succession line of power and the tendency to routine
the charism that weakens its anti-institutional character.
According to Lacey, this is a highly moralized approach to the political argument
that presents itself as “we, the people” and is often conceived in ethnic or national
terms and incorporated by a leader who speaks and expresses the will of the
“undifferentiated” community against a “Corrupt political elite.”
In Lacey’s view, populism can take forms of right and left and is fundamentally in
conflict with the principles of liberal democracy, because it is monistic rather than
pluralistic; monarchical rather than periodic; and with a vertical view of power and,
under certain conditions, tends towards autocracy.
Tóth20 established some characteristics of populism: it is part of constitutional
democracy; uses the majority political system instead of consensus; it is aimed at the
popular masses instead of prioritizing political elites; it is nationalist instead of
cosmopolitan; it is illiberal rather than liberal; is religious and not secular. It
represents a process of constitutional change via a formal or informal power
18
Tóth (2019).
19
Weber (1999, pp. 327–330).
20
Tóth (2019).
movement, in which it increasingly departs from democratic principles, gaining

power through the rules of the game and reshaping the Constitution to serve its
aspirations. Formal movement is considered to be constituted by the normative way
through, for example, constitutional amendments, decrees, laws, provisional mea-
sures, decree of state of exception; and informal movements those materialized
through the action of the leader, movement, or populist party that is consolidated
through the variables of populism such as rhetorical speeches and demagogues with
particular styles of extremist communication, intimidation of the free press, explo-
ration of the popular feeling of discredit in institutions, systematic use of the media
environment through social networks, unrestrained use and promotion of
misinformation and fake news, among others.
The links between populism and erosion of the rule of law will depend on many
circumstances and these variables or characteristics must be accommodated to the
specific political system and context.21
The transitology22 of contemporary research on populism ended up establishing
some typologies and/or definitions that are “contrary to liberal democratic constitu-
tionalism” from some categories that are focused on the study of democracy,
constitutionalism, and the choice of authoritarianism as a keyword.
Democracy, categorized as: defective,23 illiberal,24 populist,25 democratic
leader.26 Constitutionalism, illustrated as: abusive,27 authoritarian,28 populist,29
autocratic legalist.30 And, in the choice of authoritarianism as a keyword opposite
to democracy, to perceive its different forms such as semi-authoritarianism,31 com-
petitive authoritarianism,32 electoral authoritarianism,33 and furtive
34
authoritarianism.
The research presented shows that populism is consolidating itself in political
systems considered hybrid, because it condenses, at the same time, in democracy and
illiberalism through political manipulations aimed at guided and managed institu-
tional changes. Guided institutional manipulations are intended to promote political
stability and successful economic changes through the government leader. The
21
Lacey (2019).
22
Tóth (2019).
23
Bogaards (2009), Merkel (2004), and Pleines (2012).
24
Zakaria (1997), Bell et al. (1995), and Karatnycky (1999).
25
Mair (2002), Clark (1998), and Mudde (2004).
26
Körösényi (2005) and Pakulski and Körösényi (2012).
27
Landau (2013), Kosař and Šipulová (2018), and González-Jácome (2017).
28
Tushnet (2014) and Pozas-Loyo and Ríos-Figueroa (2019).
29
Blokker (2018) and Landau (2018).
30
Corrales (2015) and Scheppele (2018).
31
Ottaway (1999, 2013).
32
Levitsky and Way (2010) and Levitsky and Loxton (2013).
33
Schedler (2009).
34
Varol (2014).
managed are those in which the nation, through the majority vote, makes the choice.
These choices are influenced in a propagandistic way through different methods
such as: fake news, promotion of advertising on social networks, among others. In
this way, the leader organizes the elections and their results.35
The political systems of newly democratized nations have transitioned between
democracy and autocracy. The authoritarian regime can be characterized when:
governmental authority is arbitrary; it is not limited by laws, elections, or votes;
imposes obedience at the expense of freedom of the rule of law or other democratic
principles; there are deficiencies in political pluralism; weak democratic institutions;
fundamental rights denied and unenforceable; there is no system of checks and
balances. Values completely rival to those of democracy. In this sense, the countries
of North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and China are considered under the aegis of the
authoritarian regime.36
These meanings belong to a huge gray zone of ambiguities and can be measured
by degrees, since no system is totally fair, legitimate, and democratic, but they can
satisfy most of the conditions established by the democratic system.
For example, emerging democracies, such as that of Timor-Leste, Cambodia,
Haiti, are in full development, that is, going backward and forward in the standards
of liberal democratic constitutionalism and can speak of a bipolar division between
democracy and authoritarianism. In this sense, the doctrine has expressed this
deviation from the democratic standard,37 as degradation of democracy,38 regres-
sion,39 decay,40 and death.41
Balkin42 presents the new phenomenon as a “new type of autocracy” with the
identification of a totalitarian political system, with an absolute ruler, guiding
government actions by imposing coercion and violence, with strong mobilizing
ideology, one-party regime, militarism, and militarization of politics. This change
occurs in a peaceful and coordinated way, as power is legitimized through multiparty
elections and referendums. Its manifestation finds a guardhouse in the context of
economic and social crises, that is, in not realized promises by liberal democratic
constitutionalism.
The problem found in the terminological definitions of populism for Tóth43 is that
no paradigm, no single system of concepts, no typology can claim a monopoly in
trying to solve all the problems arising from it.
35
Tóth (2019).
36
Tóth (2019).
37
Multiparty systems; regular elections; universal suffrage; protection of fundamental rights;
constitutionality control.
38
Diamond et al. (1999).
39
Huq and Ginsburg (2018).
40
Daly (2019).
41
Levitsky and Ziblatt (2018).
42
Balkin (1995, pp. 1935–1990).
43
Tóth (2019).
In this way, Tóth sought to organize the definition consisting of primary and
secondary indicators for the realization of the new populist political system that is
intended in the democratic system.
Among the primary indicators, we are dealing with a change in the democratic
conception that materializes toward a third path not yet foreseen in the theory: the
one of democratic illiberalism. Amid these indicators, there is the forge of a pseudo-
constitution that does not follow a regular construction pattern, as in the case of
Venezuela, Ecuador, and Hungary. Voting practices for the composition of national
constituent assemblies are hegemonic, although there are multiparty elections.
However, all actions are managed to exclude opposition from the discussions and
the drafting of the new constitution.
Popular participation is limited to accepting the new constitution via referenda
and national consultations, which are manipulated and managed. The electoral
system and electoral records are also modified, as was the case in Zimbabwe and
Senegal. The ability of immigrants to vote is hampered, as was the case in Venezuela
with Chávez. Mass vehicles are manipulated—Hungary, Russia, and Turkey.
Finally, the delay in regular elections is used as a strategy—Lebanon and Congo.
Another indicator is the maintenance of an institutional facade balance. The
populist leader keeps a set of formal democratic institutions subverting the system of
checks and balances based on his actions. In Kyrgyzstan, in 2010, the Constitutional
Court was abolished. The leader appointed leaders to compose the institutions and
main governing bodies with breaking traditions. As an example, the appointment of
Augusto Aras to the position of Attorney General of the Republic, the highest post of
the Federal Public Ministry, by the President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, in September
2019 is cited. With the decision, Bolsonaro left aside the traditional triple list
prepared by the National Association of Attorneys of the Republic (ANR), which
had chosen, in the first place, the deputy general attorney Mário Bonsalia.44
In Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro, via Twitter, identified the Supreme Court has
as one of his enemies on October 28th, 2019.45 The demonstration came through the
dissemination of a video in which a group of hyenas attack a lion. In the respective
video, the feline is identified as “President Bolsonaro” and the hyenas are being
identified as various institutions and organizations in Brazilian society. Among the
enemies of the president are the party itself, the Social Liberal Party (PSL), and the
Supreme Federal Court (STF). The Brazilian Bar Association (OAB), the United
Nations (UN), the Workers Party (PT), Veja Magazine, Folha de São Paulo news-
paper, the Movimento Brasil Livre (MBL), the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB),
Rede Globo de Televisão, Greenpeace Brasil, the Socialist and Freedom Party
(PSol), the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), the Landless Rural Workers
Movement (MST), the Jovem Pan radio, Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT),
Rouanet Law, Força Sindical and Democratic Labor Party (PDT). At the end of the
video, another lion appears to help the president and is identified as a “patriotic
44
DW Made for Minds (2019).
45
Conjur (2019).
conservative.” The video ends with the message: “We are going to support our
president until the end and not attack him. There is already the opposition to do this.”
The dean of the Supreme Federal Court, Minister Celso de Melo, reacted when asked
about the video posted by President Jair Bolsonaro’s official profile, which com-
pared the Court to a hyena.46 For the minister, comparing the Supreme Court to a
hyena is an absurd and rude attitude because: “falsely identifying the Supreme Court
as one of its opponents,” “despite of characterizing an absolute lack of “gravitas”
and of appropriate presidential stature, it also constitutes the hateful (and deeply
regrettable) expression of those who do not know the dogma of the separation of
powers.” Celso also recalls that it is “imperative that the President of the Republic—
who is not a presidential monarch,” as if our country absurdly was a jungle in which
the lion prevailed with absolute and unlimited powers—know that, in a civilized
society and with a democratic profile, there will never be free citizens without an
independent judiciary.
Another example, which also occurred in Brazil, was when the President of the
Republic Jair Bolsonaro shared the call for a hostile act to Congress and the Federal
Supreme Court scheduled for March 15th, 2020. Leaders from different parties
expressed disagreement over the video broadcast by President Bolsonaro. The
President of the Chamber of Deputies, Rodrigo Maia, defended the respect for
institutions and the democratic order and said that creating tensions does not help
the country to evolve.47 The dean of the Court, Minister Celso de Mello, affirmed,
after the act, that: “This very grave call, if really confirmed, reveals the dark face of a
president of the republic who ignores the value of the constitutional order, who
ignores the fundamental meaning of separation of powers, which demonstrates an
unworthy vision of those who are not up to the height of their (. . .)”.48
At first, it is noticed, in these manifestations of the President of Brazil, some
variable properties manifested in the populist movement; in this case, the denial of
the legitimacy of political opponents by encouraging violence through the use of the
“new media environment.” This stance demonstrates, as widely explained by pop-
ulist doctrine, a strategic plan for the rise or perpetuation of power by the populist
leader.
The subsequent primary indicator is the construction of a hyperexecutive with the
expansion of constitutional competences, government mandate, and expansion of
the justifications for instituting a state of exception. The executive, in these specific
cases and who do not manifest themselves concurrently, is typically favored with
unrestricted and undefined competences through, or not, the constitutional text. The
leaders intend to consolidate power and remain in office indefinitely. For
Scheppele,49 Hungary is an example of an archetype in which laws, constitutional
revision, and institutional reform are used to materialize this indicator.
46
Santos (2019).
47
Chamber of Deputies (2020).
48
Conjur (2020).
49
Scheppele (2018, p. 545).
And, finally, the restrictions imposed on fundamental rights, mainly establishing

censorship of freedom of expression, culture, and the press; prosecuting and defam-
ing journalists and political activists while propagating and manipulating the popular
masses.
Recently, in Brazil, Ordinance 1576/2019 suspended the Notice, for a period of
180 days, promoted by the National Film Agency (Ancine) for the selection of
audiovisual projects that would be shown on public TVs. For the Federal Public
Ministry, the rule was motivated by discrimination against projects with themes
related to lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, and transvestites, among which the
documentaries Reverse sex, transversal, afronte and Religare queer, were criticized
by President Bolsonaro in video published. However, it is possible to state that
Brazil, through its institutions, has reacted to President Jair Bolsonaro’s “pseudo”
populist stance. For example, because there are indications that the Ministry of
Citizenship acted in a discriminatory manner against homosexuals and transsexuals,
the 11th Federal Court of Rio de Janeiro granted urgent protection to compel the
Union to continue the bidding process.50
Other backlash effects in relation to the theme were also perceived within the
framework of formal power structures. An Action for the Failure to Comply with a
Fundamental Precept was filed (ADPF 614) filed by the Sustainability Network with
the Supreme Federal Court and which deals with the freedom of artistic, cultural,
communication and information and eventual freedom against Presidential Decree
9.191/2019 that changed the structure of the Cinema Council. Minister Carmen
Lúcia, rapporteur of the action, called a Public Hearing to address the issue. For the
Minister, due to the legal and social relevance of the matter conveyed in the action,
“the audience of specialists, representatives of public authorities and civil society
and people with experience and authority in the Brazilian sector responsible for the
creation is convenient, production and dissemination of all democratic forms of
artistic, cultural expression and audiovisual communication.”51 The Culture Com-
mittee of the Chamber of Deputies approved, on October 23rd, 2019, a proposal that
makes it clear that artistic manifestations cannot be typified as an apology for crime,
since the Constitution guarantees artistic expression, regardless of censorship or
license.52
In view of this semantic dichotomy of populism, Pappas53 considers the follow-
ing formula:
50
Rodas (2019).
51
Federal Court of Justice (2019).
52
Nobre (2019).
53
Pappas (2019).
1. That populism is (x) with variable properties of (x).54

2. and if (Y)55 presents (x).
3. therefore (Y) is populist.
According to Pappas,56 five methodological problems plague the study of popu-
lism today: the lack of gender specification; essentialism; conceptual stretching; the
negative pole of the concept; and its poor operationalization.
The gender problem can be perceived by studying the literature and refers to
several species, that is, phenomena, including political parties and social move-
ments,57 ideologies or beliefs,58 specific discursive patterns,59 political strategies,60
representation modes,61 or specific political styles.62 Within this context, it is not
possible to determine which gender populism belongs to, which ends up causing
confusion when extracting its semantic range and the inflection of its senses.
Regarding the lack of essential nature, the literature ended up addressing a series
of characteristics with a set of attributes with essentialist properties. Rooduijn63
established at least 12 properties: (1) based on literature—based on ideas focused on
popular centrism, anti-elitism, homogeneity of people, direct democracy,
exclusionism, proclamation of the crisis; (2) based on style—simplistic language,
direct communication style, polarization, image of political outsider; (3) based on
the organization—centralization of the leader, freely defined relationships. In this
sense, the notions employed are so vague that it is difficult to establish a character-
ization for the purposes of rigorous investigation.
Conceptual elongation refers to literature that uses disparate qualitative phenom-
ena to define populism such as, for example, Maoism, Peronism, Nazism. Thus,
different cultural phenomena are grouped around the world, from medieval or
pre-capitalist movements or nationalist, nativist systems and ideologies.
Two opposing positions of populism have been suggested by the literature:
elitism and political pluralism. However, according to Pappas, both positions are
problematic. What is elitism? Does the term refer to elitist parties or elitist ideas?
Does not political liberalism represent democratic elitism?
Likewise, it occurs with the term “political pluralism.” Modern populism always
develops in a pluralist way or when it is denied we have just faced political monism.
If we consider political pluralism as opposed to populism, populism would be a
54
Variable properties can represent, for example, a certain type of ideology, discourse, style,
strategy, political mobilization.
55
Charismatic leader, party, party system, political system.
56
Pappas (2019, p. 36).
57
Ver Di Tella (1965), Dix (1978), and Germani (1978).
58
Wiles (1969), Laclau (2005), Howarth (2014), and Mudde (2004).
59
Laclau (2005), Hawkins (2009), and Mouffe (2018).
60
Weyland (2001) and Betz (2002).
61
Roberts (2013).
62
Kazin (1998) and Moffitt (2016).
63
Rooduijn (2014, p. 578).
monist. However, it manifests in the pluralist democratic system, therefore, we

would be experiencing a false synonym.
And, finally, deficient operationalization occurs because every conceptualization
must have some type of operationalization that can be measured, that is, the use of
clear indicators that can define technical observational and experimental criteria.
The greater its properties, the greater the number of operations. Most of the efforts
evidenced by the literature are related to populism variables that are linked by
distinct cultural and political modalities.
To establish a minimum semantic range of populism, a parameter that contains
only the core of the concept must be determined by extracting its variables that will
be treated as the focus of investigation and not as meanings. In other words, there
may be numerous variable properties of populism found in different political and
cultural contexts without losing their semantic core.
Populism can be defined as democratic illiberalism and has become, according to
the doctrine, essentially an “illiberal” democratic response.64
3.2 Populism and Its Manifestation in Limbo of Liberal

Democracy
The new production of populists emerges when the market is the victim of economic
and financial crises and, also, in the absence of “liberalism,” which defends indi-
vidual rights, capitalism, democracy, secularism, gender equality, racial equality,
internationalism, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, of the press, represen-
tative democracy and the rule of law. Therefore, liberalism and populism have
different theoretical principles and political objectives.
The discussion involving power in the post-war globalized world is centered on
the forms of resistance exercise,65 on the political and subject emancipation, on its
definition and on the forms of power of this citizen.66 In times of bureaucratization,
unbridled corporatism, and assembly, nothing more complex than enforcing the
rules of the game.67
The conception of a “liberal democracy” seemed to triumph in the western
world—England, the United States, France68—enshrined in the idea of freedom
64
Democratic illiberalism represents the disintegration of the system in which liberalism and
democracy are in conflict. The term iliberalism has been widely used by doctrine. See: Zakaria
(1997), Mounk (2018), and Puddington (2017). For Puddington, illiberalism involves a rejection of
liberal values and democratic norms in the specific political context.
65
The Constitution of Timor-Leste, for example, foresees in its Art. 11 the valorization of resistance
as a recognition against foreign domination and the contribution of all who fought for national
independence.
66
Hincapíe and Restrepo (2012).
67
Bobbio (1986).
68
Goyard-Fabre (2003, p. 225).
3.2 Populism and Its Manifestation in Limbo of Liberal Democracy 33
and equality recognized by the American Declaration of Independence of 1776 and

by the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen proclaimed in France in
1789: “men are born and remain free and equal in rights.”
The existence of so-called “liberal democratic” or “liberal democracy” regimes
leads us to believe that liberalism and democracy are interdependent.69 In the first
case, a certain conception of the State is understood, where it has limited powers and
functions; in the second, several forms of government are understood, in particular
those in which power is not in the hands of one or a few, but of all.
As informed by Hobhouse,70 the first condition of free government is not made by
arbitrary determination, but consolidated by rules of law that will lead to the
subjection of the ruler. Both observations echo what was said by Locke71—man’s
natural freedom is nothing more than not being subject to any land and not being
subjected to the will or legislative authority of man other than that established by the
consent of the community. Liberalism claims that freedom against attacks on people
and tyrannical whims cannot exist without the rule of law.72
There is a view73 that this theory finds its place, as well, in the following
postulates: politics is a means for the pursuit of ends, these being rooted in a sphere
of social freedom pre-existing to politics itself; the democratic process serves to
place the State at the service of society, which will become an administrative
apparatus, structuring itself as an economic system based on trade between private
persons; policy must be oriented toward pursuing these interests before an admin-
istration that has become specialized power for collective purposes.
It is also considered a conception that establishes limits to the regime both with
respect to its powers and its functions, translated into the idea of a “minimum
state”.74 In the rule of law, public authorities of any degree are subject to the general
laws of the country, constituting a purely formal limit. But there is also the subjec-
tion of laws to material sources, recognizing some fundamental rights that are
constitutionally guaranteed and, therefore, inviolable.
In a strong sense, which is characteristic of liberal doctrine, they are integral parts
of the constitutional mechanisms that prevent or hinder the arbitrary and illegitimate
exercise of power. Its control by specialized (legislative, executive, and judicial),
autonomous and independent arms is born with a strong ethical charge, with the
criticism of paternalism, having its main reason for being in the defense of the
autonomy of the human person.
Participation within political power is resolved through many individual free-
doms, claimed and won by citizens. It can also be understood as a manifestation of
69
Bobbio (2000).
70
Hobhouse (1964).
71
Locke (2010).
72
Tamanaha (2008).
73
Canotilho (2003).
74
Bobbio (2000).
that particular freedom that achieves the right to assemble or associate to influence
the country’s own policy.75
The development of representative regimes in which, based on these ideas, the
limited powers of the State can appear in two directions: gradually gains in the
voting right, that initially was restricted to one piece of citizens, the sex culture,
extending from a gradual evolution for all; and in the multiplication of representative
bodies, these composed of elected members.76
This process is inserted in the state structure as a guarantee, consisting of a more
quantitative than a qualitative transformation of the representative regime. This does
not mean that it is part of the democracy line in defending individual freedoms and
setting limits for public authorities. I take into account that equality of rights—which
would imply, by logic, universal suffrage—, sometimes finds its justification in the
property as a guarantee element.77
Throughout the nineteenth century, the debate around democracy was develop-
ing, mainly, through a confrontation between the political doctrines dominant at the
time: liberalism and socialism.78 This is perceived by the insurmountable contradic-
tion between freedom and equality, which ends up explaining the basis of a belief in
social progress that aims to seal a close alliance between doctrines.79 It was upward
socialization that brought the fundamental rights of the second dimension to the
constitutional height during the second half of the twentieth century. With effect, the
entire process of open society, which consecrates the participatory society, is
unworkable and doomed to failure if there is not, consequently, the advent of
institutional frameworks that provide a system that incorporates in its bases the
principles of justice inherent to that modality of State.80 These principles are
objectively developed to materialize the declaratory discourse of fundamental rights
and, according to Bonavides,81 there will only be functioning if there is profiling in
political institutions alongside participatory democracy, which is, of necessity, in
theory and in praxis, the organ of execution.
There is not much difference in the relationship between democracy and social-
ism, whose democratic ideal represents an integral and necessary element, but is not
constitutive.82 Integral, because there is a strengthening of the popular base in the
State and necessary, because, without this effort, there would be no possibility of
achieving that deep transformation of society, from the perspective of socialists.
The egalitarian principle that dominated political life resulted in the emergence of
social rights. The Social State has its foundations structured in the crisis of the
75
Bobbio (1998c).
76
Bobbio (1998c).
77
78
Bobbio (1998b).
79
80
Bonavides (2009).
81
Bonavides (2009, p. 10).
82
Bobbio (1998c).
Liberal State, whose standards did not fit the collective needs, at a time when it began
to admit that the abstentionism of the state entity needed to be overcome, expanding
its performance in terms of social and economic relations.83
This process of changing from the Liberal to the Social State takes place in
different ways: through the criticism of a democracy that is only representative; the
consequent resumption of some themes of direct democracy; and the request for
popular participation and the control of power, which, from below, must extend to
political decision-making bodies. The change stemmed from political demonstra-
tions and protests across Europe, by the excluded,84 in response to social and
economic inequality and other reflexes of the Liberal State.85
Since then, the notion of opposition between the State and man as a subject of
rights has come to be questioned, whose rights should be realized through state
action, responsible for protecting and guaranteeing economic and social well-being.
Some of the distinguishing features of this new form of state with respect to the
representative regime: the state must be not a parliamentary body, but a working,
executive and legislative at the same time; the electoral system must be extended to
all parts of the state apparatus, such as the army, the judiciary, and the bureaucracy;
the commune is made up of elected municipal councilors and can be revoked at any
time; the decentralization of their own functions, as in “rural communes,” which
would have sent their representatives to a national assembly.86
In this way, the new type of empowerment must take place in the very places of
production and is exercised not by the abstract citizen of “formal democracy,” but by
the working citizen through “factory councils.” These bodies will expand in all
sectors of society where there are important decisions to be made. The state system
would be a federation of unified councils, through ascending groupings, up to the
various territorial and administrative levels of the State.87
Considering the lessons learned and the way in which the opposite theories post
about fundamental values, it can be understood that liberal and socialist doctrines do
not consider democracy incompatible with their own principles—on the contrary,
they even understand it as an important part of its peculiar belief.
There would be no reason, therefore, to fail to take democratic liberalism and
democratic socialism into account.88 Certainly, a theory initially hostile to democ-
racy, such as the elitist one, has been reconciled with it, since it is necessary to
83
Gouvêa (2015).
84
Leal (2000).
85
Barretto (2010).
86
Democracia e Socialismo. In: Bobbio, Norberto; Matteucci Nicola; Pasquino, Gianfranco.
Dicionário de Política. Trans. Carmen C. Varriale et al.; Coord. Trans. João Ferreira; Rev. Geral
João Ferreira e Luis Guerreiro Pinto Cacais. Vol. 1, 1st ed. Brasília: Publishing company
Universidade de Brasília, 1998, p. 325.
87
Bobbio (1998c, p. 325).
88
Bobbio (1998d).
understand a method or a set of procedural rules for the constitution of government

and for the formation of political decisions, in addition to an ideology.
Democracy will be compatible with theories of diverse fundamentals and ideo-
logical content. The characteristics ended up allowing an orientation toward certain
values, such as the peaceful solution of social conflicts, the elimination of institu-
tional violence, the relay of the political class, tolerance,89 among others.
Among the associations of the republican tradition, there is a similarity that runs
through the mere formal concept in the distinctions: in liberalism, there is a marked
presence of the limitation of state power that, for its operationalization, needs an
administrative apparatus that becomes a specialized power for social purposes; in
socialism, the understanding of the democratic process involves popular control with
decentralization of power. These ended up revealing that, in the essence of the
concept of democracy, it would be necessary to contemplate not only the element
that is the agent—actors of the decision—, but also what are the mechanisms that
allow its formation. For Sellers, it was the study of the ancient republican tradition
that brought contemporary theories to constitutional government and, in this con-
ception, ensured that, for the advancement of any science, it is necessary to under-
stand the reason and the reality that it affects. First, it thinks about the government’s
purpose—justice and the common good; then in the method—laws; then, in tech-
nique to guarantee success—control and balance conceived over constitutional
architecture.90
In contemporary political theories that emphasize the democratic-liberal tradition,
the characteristics of institutional design tend to be resolved and to be exhausted in a
more or less broad cast, such as: (1) the maximum political body is performed by the
legislative function and must be composed of members directly or indirectly elected
by the people, in periodic elections; (2) with the legislative body, there must be other
institutions with elected officials, such as local government bodies or the head of
state; (3) wide openness to citizens to exercise political rights, provided that the
majority is reached; (4) voters have equal votes; freedom to choose their leaders,
according to their own opinion, in a free dispute between political parties that fight
for the formation of a national representation; (5) any single or blocked list election
is excluded as democratic; (6) the principle of numerical majority is valid, and
various ways of majority can be established according to criteria of opportunities
not defined once and for all; (7) no decision taken by the majority should limit the
rights of the minority, especially the right to become a minority on equal terms;
(8) government agency must enjoy the confidence of parliament or the chief exec-
utive, who in turn is elected by the people.91
It is observed that the procedures demonstrate how to reach decisions and not
“what to decide.” Democratic legal science considers the essential precepts of legal
individualism to be acquired, but agrees that, once these values are reserved, it is
89
Bobbio (1998d).
90
Sellers (2015).
91
Bobbio (1998a).
necessary for the law to endeavor to place the social in its considerations.92 Thus, the
set of these rules, by itself, is not able to find all the answers to all the questions that
are posed in social reality. It is also not possible to define what are the criteria that
must be observed for a regime to be considered “democratic.” What can certainly be
said is that a form that does not observe any rules cannot be considered democratic,
at least until the behavioral meaning of democratic has been defined, in Bobbio’s
words.93
The separation of powers is a declining technique subject to gradual overcoming,
Bonavides94 already warned us, which must be imposed by new requirements of
balance and accommodation to constitutional schemes whose thinking is no longer
based on preponderant reasons of formalism in the protection of rights, according to
the classic tenor of its initial elaboration and the main purpose of the old liberalism.
Another meaning that comprises forms of political regime is one that assigns a
formal and substantial qualifier. The first is characterized by the so-called “universal
behaviors,” through the use of which decisions of different content can be taken, as
shown in liberal and democratic regimes, alongside social and democratic ones. The
second, because it makes predominantly reference to certain contents inspired by
ideals characteristic of the tradition of democratic thought with great emphasis on
egalitarianism.
Thus, formal democracy is built, as a government of the people, and a substantial
one, as government for the people, which is aligned with the prospects of power
constriction. The concept of “equality” can be considered, then, as a specific and
historically determined form of legal compliance, as the access of all common
jurisdiction. And it applies in the area of rights when it covers all those so-called
fundamental, considering the rights that must be enjoyed by all without discrimina-
tion. This cast modifies itself from time to time, from people to people and, therefore,
there is indeterminability in its fixation.
Equality encourages men to think of a single, uniform, and strong government.
This is the government that nations tend nowadays, but individual independence and
local freedoms will always be a product of art.95
There is differentiation in the construction process at the beginning of a great
democratic revolution or when war between the different classes just arises. In the
first, the people are strengthened to centralize power and public administration in the
hands of the government with the purpose of decentralizing the power of the
“aristocracy.” At the end of this revolution, it will be this unsuccessful class that
tries to hand over the direction to the State of all businesses, because it fears the
“small tyranny” of the people, who have become their peers and, many times, their
lords.
92
93
Bobbio (1998a).
94
95
Tocqueville (2000).
Representation is one of the parameters considered essential to democracy today,

according to the idea that government officials receive their mandate from the
governed and must act in their place.96 It reaches its complexity due to the various
techniques for its development, which obeyed, in the history of political ideas, two
logics that are important to distinguish: that of the imperative mandate and that of the
representative.
The first is the model recognized by feudal law—the “imperative mandate”—in
which the representative or the elected would be the “mouth of the represented,”
being obliged by instructions, without being able to depart from them and perform
the act that the principal ordered him to perform.
Recognizing the artificiality present in this mandate, as there is no possibility to
gauge what is wanted by the represented, in modern times the idea of “representa-
tion” was coined which obeys a logic different from the “imperative mandate”—
which does not necessarily reflect a maturation of the notion of democracy as a
socio-political ideal.
Representatively, the governors occupy a different position from the governed
and, in this sense, the people do not deliberate for themselves. But as the elections
are repeated, the nation has an effective means of exerting some influence over the
rulers. It is a collective delegation granted by the people to the group that will
represent them. In this idea, there is an affinity of values between a given social
segment and the respective representatives. The elected is the representative from the
point of view of the valuation inclusion of the one who elected him.
This principle is based on the following postulates, according to Canotilho97:
legal exercise, constitutionally authorized, of “domain functions” made in the name
of the community by state sovereign bodies; direct or indirect derivation of the
legitimacy of dominance from the principle of popular sovereignty; exercise of
power with a view to pursuing the purposes or interest of the Community.
It reaches its foundation in popular correspondence, but it can also be considered
a “substitution of the sovereignty of the people,” which eliminates its critical,
political and exclusive character and imposes a legal subject with limited political
rights, among them the vote, densely controlled by the constitution. and the laws.98
Generically, collective deliberations are taken by those who are part of it—people
elected for this purpose.
This legal turn is the exponential identification of “democracy in liberalism,” that
is, a progressive tendency capable of altering political discussions to the constitu-
tional limits that must be natural for this ideal.99
The nature of the government cannot be understood without reference to its
particular temporality, according to Manin.100 The author believes that leaders, in
96
97
Canotilho (2003, p. 293).
98
Hincapíe and Restrepo (2012, p. 107).
99
Gouvêa (2016, p. 45).
100
Manin (1995).
addition to being distinct individuals who occupy a different position, also retain in
their decisions a certain independence from the will of the governed. They do not
represent a regime that strictly forces them to implement their wishes, as the indirect
form of government by all.
In liberalism, as a post-war Western philosophy, the plurality of social divisions is
recognized, while in populism, there is the exercise of adversarial policies. In
liberalism, political practice is based on moderation and consensus; in populism,
there is a polarization of politics. Liberalism is based on the rule of law and the
recognition of minority rights, that is, on the heterogeneity of groups. Populism
advocates in favor of popular homogenization with a harmonious majority and with
virtuous and hardworking people.
Liberalism in the political system aims to induce a form of overlapping consen-
sus, on which, once reached, conflicting doctrines will endorse political arrange-
ments, since the principle involves mutual tolerance, the acceptance of rivals as
legitimate and not as enemies. The bet is on constitutional legality from the majority
system, but not to exercise tyranny but to represent the people and their protection.
There is, therefore, an essential tripod in liberalism: political moderation and the
search for consensus; the reconciliation of different social classes; and the rule of law
and protection of minorities in the state organization that will be enshrined in the
liberal democratic system.
When economic inequality becomes stronger and disbelief in politics intensifies,
liberal democracy is in crisis. Populism manifests itself in the limbo of liberalism,
that is, in the failure of liberal elites to fulfill their liberal promise—which has led
disillusioned citizens to vote against liberalism. There is a deficit in political
legitimacy when there is a decreasing capacity to respond to the rising expectations
of society. In this sense, there is a decline in social confidence, the disengagement of
citizens from the dominant policy, which ends up representing the erosion of social
capital.
Democracy, in the populist view, carries conservative and socialist elements with
an emphasis on the privileged majority and the segregated minority. It appreciates
polarizing confrontation and does not seek to promote consensus. It uses, as liber-
alism, the majority system, however, to speak and defend “the people,” since it
prioritizes collective life and is strategically planned according to the majority. The
individual loses its prevalence as the most important unit in the political system.
Populism rests its beliefs in ethical and moral institutions, the derivation in the
belief of the social and moral justice of the sovereign people that has priority over
minorities, including the elites of society. The logic of the vote, in this view, is in the
morally sanctified will of the sovereign people that is incorporated in the action of
the elected leader who will serve them, regardless of the normality of formal
institutions or other legal restrictions.101
Philosophy disrespects minorities and their fundamental rights, sacrifices consti-
tutional legality, their customs and traditions, and is ready to violate the rule of law to
101
Pappas (2019, p. 56).
serve the general will. They tend to use undemocratic means to reach the masses
through elections co-opted with the use of data and artificial intelligence. According
to information, Cambridge Analytica used a personality test, via Facebook, called
“Big Five” to obtain information from users who took the test, and also from their
friends, without permission. Is believed that Cambridge Analytica consultancy has
obtained, in an improper way, data from 87 million users. With this data in hand,
Cambridge Analytica was able to target ads for Facebook timelines to people with
specific personalities. Cambridge Analytica offered its services to the Donald Trump
presidential campaign in 2016. An example of how the data might have been used in
the campaign: Cambridge Analytica would know which people on Facebook would
have the right profile to receive ads advertising specific candidate flags. These ads
would be “shaped,” considering people’s fears, needs and emotions.102 They employ
mechanisms of exception, that is, common rules for the State of crisis and the State
of emergency provided for under the Constitution to defend the interests of the
people.
As already explained, liberal and populist democracy is different from authori-
tarianism. This represents a political system, both on the left and on the right, which
is undemocratic and appears in different forms in the authoritarian political system:
in a civil, military, ideological, technocratic way. However, populism, remaining
unchecked in the democratic system, may lean towards autocracy and/or populism.
In liberalism, the relationship between State, individual, and society focuses on
institutions and the rule of law; in populism, the relationship is justified based on the
empire of ethics and morals; and in authoritarianism, this connection is justified by
coercion, political repression.
In this sense, for Pappas103 it will be considered populist if scores on all five
indicators: participation in competitive elections; keeps loyalty to the rules and
procedures of democracy; defends the homogenization of society; promotes political
polarization; and employs the majority system at the expense of the rule of law.
3.3 The Semantic Range of “Populisms”
It is important to mention that the “force” and complexity of liberalism are situated at
different levels and that overlap as: political theory, ideology, and a set of moral
injunctions for human interaction that materialize via the constitution. Freeden and
Stears104 assume that liberalism has unusual capacities for durability and adaptabil-
ity in different political systems, although, in particular, it has succeeded in pene-
trating democratic political systems, because it has implemented concepts such as
102
BBC News (2018).
103
Pappas (2019, p. 58).
104
Freeden et al. (2013, pp. 329–330).
3.3 The Semantic Range of “Populisms” 41
rights, obligations, political obligations, justice, equality, and freedom itself in the
center of the stage more than any other ideology.
According to the authors,105 liberalism is one of the dominant ideologies and
studied in various fields of science, developed robustly by both political philosophy,
political science, and law, but it is one of the most misunderstood. In this way, it is
necessary to conceive that liberalism is not a single phenomenon, but a meeting with
family similarities and contrasting contemporary formations. However, theories
demonstrate that there are elements of liberalism that are widely accepted, despite
their multiple varieties, such as pluralism, progress, and well-being.
Classical liberalism is described as an individualistic creed that celebrates a
particular form of autonomy and freedom that involved the development and
protection of systems of individual rights, social equality, and restrictions on the
exercise of political power. The rights considered of the first dimension106 and
foreseen in the western constitutions represent the materialization of classic
liberalism.
The study of liberalism has changed dramatically over time and in the concep-
tions and forms of the state. Today, multiple “liberalisms” seem to dispute position
in the political debate in the current definition of populism. It is also necessary to
point out that liberal traditions in continental Europe can contrast with those of the
English-speaking world, for example, with different forms of liberalism associated
with different types of institutional arrangements.
In view of this, there is a significant capacity to attribute a confusion to what is
meant by “liberalism” in the context of democratic decay, depending on the ideo-
logical and disciplinary context of each of the institutional designs in which it was
incorporated. For the purposes of this research, the term liberalism is associated with
the constitutional study of the nineteenth century, based on the idea of freedom and,
in its name, committed to limiting political power both internally, through its
division, and externally, for the reduction to a minimum by society functions.107,
108
In Scheppele’s words, liberal constitutionalism or government limited by con-
stitutional restrictions that has advanced in time since the recognition of the rights of
individuals: the right to be governed under self-limited and controlled authority and
whose normative legitimacy is the touchstone by democratic means and which is
currently contextualized in contemporary constitutionalism.109
Liberal constitutionalism110 is a democratic system that, at the very least, must
include: civil and political rights employed via the democratic process; the
105
Freeden et al. (2013, pp. 329–330).
106
These are rights linked to the value of freedom, constituted through civil and political rights.
107
Miranda (2011, p. 33).
108
This statement is supported by the following theories: Paine (2019), Madison (1979), Humboldt
(2004), Constant (2010), and Tocqueville (1998).
109
Scheppele (2018, pp. 558–559).
110
DEM-DEC. Concept Index. Available at https://www.democratic-decay.org/index#anchor-link-
Illiberalism. Accessed on Nov 23rd, 2019.
availability of neutral voting machines; and the stability, predictability, and publicity
of the legal political regime based on the rule of law,111 which requires more than
regular elections. This term reflects the way in which liberalism, constitutionalism,
and democracy have become conceptually connected in recent decades, especially
since the third wave of redemocratization from the 1970s112 on. So, although there is
a highly complex interaction of the three elements of liberal constitutional democ-
racy, in states where there is democratic decay, the mutual antagonisms between
liberalism, constitutionalism, and democracy arise in different ways.
These conflicts, according to Tocqueville,113 could offer singular facilities for the
implantation of despotism, showing how most of the princes of France had already
used the ideas, feelings, and demands that this same social state used to borne to
extend the spheres of power. This phenomenon has never seen, in the past centuries,
a sovereign so absolute and so powerful that it tried to administer, alone and without
resorting to secondary powers, all parts of a great empire. For the author, the idea of
such a project had never been presented itself to the human spirit and, if any man had
occurred to conceive it, the insufficiency of knowledge, the imperfection of admin-
istrative processes and, above all, the natural obstacles that inequality raises would
soon have it removed from the execution of such a vast design.
Tocqueville recognizes that if despotism were to establish itself in today’s
democratic nations, it would assume other characteristics: it would be broader and
milder, and it would degrade men without harassing them.114 Autocrats, in the
relationship between state, society, and individual, use the use of coercion to
establish the exercise of their power. Liberalism operates in this relationship via
democratic institutions. Populists, on the other hand, manage the relationship by
operating through belief in anti-establishment ethical and moral institutions to
entrench their command and control.
The demarcation of populism as democratic illiberalism can accommodate a
whole class of political phenomena that develop in the liberal democratic system
including leaders, political parties, party systems, and political systems—whether
from the position or from the opposition; ideologies; political speeches; rhetorical
ways of highlighting the causes of a cure for the erosion of democracy; use of
symbolisms; strategic policies; political packages; etc. It can also be used to check its
“power capacity,” such as the accommodation of its public policies in the system; in
the struggle against democratic institutions via popular calling or polarizations;
among others. The cesarean political regime is similar to populism. In this system,
whose name is due to Julius Caesar, a Roman statesman between 101 and 44 B.C.,
the unitary and absolute government is legitimized by the people by acclamation or
plebiscite. It is “one of the forms of degeneracy of political regimes, maintaining, in
111
DEM-DEC. Concept Index. Available at https://www.democratic-decay.org/index#anchor-link-
Illiberalism. Accessed on: November 23rd, 2019.
112
For more information see Huntington (1984).
113
Tocqueville (1998, p. 362).
114
Tocqueville (1998, p. 363).
3.3 The Semantic Range of “Populisms” 43
appearance, the previous forms of freedom, but to desecrate it, a counterfeit of

freedom is generated.” For Maltez, “it was the case of the principality in Rome
and Bonapartism, data that both led to an individualized power with the consequent
cult of personality.” For the author, “Caesarism, if forms of parliamentary represen-
tation were admitted, always made them depend on police and military power.
Above all, he assumed the direct dialogue between the popular masses and the
leader, considered a direct representative of a single and indivisible sovereignty.”115
This definition of populism has a binary concept that combines two distinct
characteristics: those of semi-direct democracy and those of illiberalism. Therefore,
phenomena that score in both classes will be considered populism. So, populism is
always democratic, but never liberal. Represents the denial of liberal.
Such attributes allow establishing a traceable relationship through a set of specific
indicators for its operationalization and empirical tests on the manifestations of the
populist parties or movements in a given context and political system.
It also serves as a mapping purpose, in order to transmit theoretically relevant
elements about contemporary political populism to create tools that can prevent the
erosion of the democratic system.
How to distinguish the populist from the non-populist? It is possible to make this
analysis from the main aspects of populism such as democratic illiberalism and its
corresponding populist narrative themes.116
All forms of government are ideal types and can only be seen by approximation,
by variables. Populism, beyond its definition, has variable properties. These factors
appear in a mutable way in the cultural-political context and must be fruitfully
analyzed at the empirical level for a better understanding of the phenomenon of
populism, in this way it is perfectly possible to define the existence of
“populisms”.117
It is noteworthy that the individual, party leader, party system, or political system
does not recognize the plurality of social divisions, political moderation, and con-
sensus. The rule of law uses the vertical view of power and insults minority rights.
Variable properties118 can be manifested through different cultural and ideolog-
ical political mobilizations; intimidation of the free press; the rejection of election
results; the weakening and attacks on institutional safeguards; the massive use of
intelligence and data control and surveillance services; the polarization of sectarian
politics by charismatic leaders; the routine of the charism; rhetoric and demagogues
speeches as particular styles of extremist communication; formulation of policies
driven by impulses and subject to sudden changes and upheavals because it is
115
Maltez (2004).
116
In Table 3.1, we see the main aspects of populism and its corresponding narrative themes in
Pappas’ view, but this role is not terminative.
117
See Mudde (2000), Schmitter (2007), Tarchi (2008), Hadiz and Robison (2017), De La Torre
(1992), Chakravartty and Roy (2017), Schmitter et al. (2007), and Lins (2020).
118
Strategies commonly used in specific political contexts in order to increase the movement’s
political strength.
Table 3.1 Main aspects of populism as democratic illiberalism and its corresponding populist
narrative themes
Main characteristics of Main beliefs or
populism as democratic attributes of populist Key elements of the populist leader’s
illiberalism voters narrative
Perception of a single political Victimization Against: markets, political elites,
divide dividing society imperialist nations
Social and political polariza- Resentment About: socioeconomic inequality,
tion and antagonistic policies political exclusion, national
dependence
Majoritarianism and disrespect Redemption In favor: social justice, sovereignty of
for Rule of Law the people, national independence
Fonte: Table taken from Pappas (2019, p. 115)
designed to respond to the political climate of the moment; anti-democratic behav-

ior; the rhetorical use of government policies and actions; exploring the popular
feeling of disbelief in institutions; the segregationist political agenda; the systematic
use of the media environment on social platforms such as WhatsApp, Twitter,
Facebook; the unrestrained use and promotion of misinformation and fake news;
the subversion of the constitutional process and the rejection of the rules of the game;
tolerance or encouragement to violence; the excessive use of referenda; the propen-
sity to restrict liberties and culture; the use of political and religious moralism;
mythical politics; the politicized inspection body; populist governance119 of the
use of military power in politics and the “militarization of politics,” among other
behaviors that fit the anti-democratic and illiberal principles. These variables120 are
supported through formal and informal movements directly or indirectly in the field
of democratic illiberalism.
With the purpose of extracting the inflection of their senses from the semantic
range, we consider that populisms are conceptual-instrumental in nature and can be
defined as democratic illiberalism with variable properties. They represent a certain
type of ideology, discourse, strategy, mobilization, and political action in the specific
cultural and political context. It is celebrated through formal and/or informal move-
ments directly or indirectly in the democratic system by a charismatic leader who
represents and leads an anti-establishment force resting his beliefs in moral and
ethical institutions with the purpose of consolidating and legitimizing a populist
political regime under the mantle of popular sovereignty and democracy. To subvert
democracy, you have to become democratic.
119
Populist governance, for Issacharoff, represents a form of corruption of democratic governance
by populist action that reflects the corruption of popular sovereignty itself. The populist intends,
through political actions, in the short term, immediately, without concern for the future, to reward
and favor a clientelist universe. See: Issacharoff (2020).
120
These variables were extracted from the vast literature that revolves around populism and do not
constitute a terminative role. For more information see references.
References 45
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Chapter 4
Primary Indicators in the Bolsonarist
Movement
If the people embrace democratic values, democracy will be

saved. If the people are open to authoritarian appeals, then,
sooner or later, democracy will have problems.
(Levitsky and Ziblatt)
Chapter 3 of the research, with analysis designed to extract the semantic range and
answer the question “what is populism?”. In this way, the links between populism
and the erosion of the rule of law will depend on many circumstances and these
variables, or characteristics, must be accommodated to the system and the specific
political context.
In this chapter, the method of analysis was designed to apply the definition of
populisms and answer the following hypothesis: the political and normative actions
undertaken by Jair Messias Bolsonaro in the Brazilian political system could be
characterized as a populist movement in its formal and/or informal aspects, directly
or indirectly? Within this perspective, variable properties are attributes that allow to
establish a traceable relationship through a set of specific indicators for its
operationalization and empirical tests.
The Brazilian political system has transitioned between democracy and autoc-
racy. The authoritarian regime can be characterized when: governmental authority is
arbitrary; it is not limited by laws, elections, or votes; imposes obedience at a cost of
freedom of the rule of law or other democratic principles; there are deficiencies in
political pluralism; weak democratic institutions; abrogated and unenforceable fun-
damental rights; there is no system of checks and balances. The values are rivals of
democracy. In this sense, the countries of North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and China are
The information extracted to contextualize aspects of Bolsonaro’s populist movement were

mapped, for the most part, by journalistic sources, seeking to establish a reference standard:
name of the source; publication date and link for access. We also tried to present the direct
citation of its content, which is highlighted, in order not to alter and maintain the reliability of the
information published through the various media, such as social networks, blogs, newspapers,
electronic magazines, among others.

52 4 Primary Indicators in the Bolsonarist Movement
considered authoritarian regimes.1 As stated in the previous chapter, these meanings

belong to an immense gray area of ambiguity and can be measured by degrees, since
no system is entirely fair, legitimate, and democratic, but they can satisfy most of the
conditions established by the democratic system.
The 2018 presidential election in Brazil brought the victory (with 55.13%2 of the
vote) of Jair Messias Bolsonaro, an extreme right candidate considered an authori-
tarian leader by Levitsky and Ziblatt.3
Based on the work of Juan Linz,4 Levitsky and Ziblatt developed a set of four
warning signs that can help to recognize an authoritarian leader: they reject, in words
and actions, the democratic rules of the game; they deny the opponents’ legitimacy;
tolerate and encourage violence; and give indications of willingness to restrict civil
liberties of opponents, including the media. For Levitsky,5 the decline of democracy
begins at the polls and one of the ways to protect democracy is to prevent author-
itarians from being elected: “(. . .) when a politician demonstrates one or more of
these behaviors, we must be concerned and, more importantly, we must not elect
him.”
Levitsky understands that there is no perfect security device to identify the
autocrats, but the research carried out shows that the majority of the elected
candidates passed the test of the four warning signs showing clear authoritarian
signs. In other words, the great majority behaves as authoritarian as a candidate,
makes authoritarian speeches and attacks democratic institutions when elected.
Should we open the doors of democracy to possible authoritarian and extremist
leaders?
Levitsky and Ziblatt’s research indicators showed that as in the United States in
2016, Brazilians, in 2018, were facing the specter of an authoritarian candidate (Jair
Messias Bolsonaro) for the presidency. And the test was applied in its entirety6:
Does the candidate reject the democratic rules of the game?
Throughout his career, going back to the 1980s, the candidate praised the military
dictatorship and challenged the legitimacy of democracy after 1985. In 1993, he declared:
“I am in favor of the dictatorship”; he demanded the closure of Congress in 1992. He
declared, on another occasion, that what happened in 1964 was not a coup; and questioned
the legitimacy of Brazil’s democratic system, saying it was manipulated; appointed a
general as the vice president who, at various times, indicated support for a military coup.
Bolsonaro stated categorically, in a speech given at the event with the Brazilian community
1
Tóth (2019).
2
Superior Electoral Court (2019).
3
Levitsky and Ziblatt (2018, p. 32).
4
Linz and Stepan (1978).
5
Fundação FHC. Como morrem as democracias? Por Steven Levitsky. 2018. (38: 39). Available at:
https://youtu.be/8bX7EdK0-1M. Accessed on: October 24th, 2018.
6
Fundação FHC. Como morrem as democracias? By Steven Levitsky. 2018. (38: 39). Available at:
https://youtu.be/8bX7EdK0-1. Accessed on: October 24th, 2018.
4 Primary Indicators in the Bolsonarist Movement 53
in Miami, that the 2018 elections were rigged so that he did not win in the first round, in
order to cast severe doubts on the fairness of the election.7
Does the candidate tolerate or encourage violence?

In 1998, Bolsonaro said the military should have killed 30,000 people; encouraged the
police to kill criminal suspects; welcomed death squads in Rio de Janeiro; justified the
massacre of 19 rural workers in Pará in 1996.
Does the candidate deny the legitimacy of party rivals?

Bolsonaro called President Fernando Henrique Cardoso corrupt and said that he
should have been killed during his term; if he takes over the government, he will treat the
Landless Movement as a terrorist group.
Does the candidate indicate a willingness to restrict opponents’ civil liberties?

Bolsonaro endorsed the use of torture and justified police killing against left-wing
activists and politicians.
It is important to mention that even politicians considered corrupt did not

threaten democracy as authoritarian ones. Brazil, at the time, in 2018, was facing
a real polarization problem, presenting different types of anti-democratic elitisms.
For the authors, Bolsonaro is a completely authoritarian figure. And this sets him
apart from all his main rivals in the 2018 presidential race. In addition to Jair Messias
Bolsonaro, candidates for the Presidency of Brazil were: Fernando Haddad, from
PT; Ciro Gomes, from PDT; Geraldo Alckmin, from PSDB; Marina Silva, from
Rede; Alvaro Dias, from Podemos; Henrique Meirelles, from MDB; João Amoêdo,
from Novo; and Guilherme Boulos, from PSOL. On the one hand, most people in the
center and center-right feared that the left party Partido dos Trabalhadores
(PT) would want to perpetuate itself in power and, on the other hand, the left
party PT accused the opposition parties of using illicit means to remove it from
power and, at a later time, would be using illegal means to keep it out of the
structures of power.8 Both sides see the other as an existential threat, as dangerous
and undemocratic.
This extremist polarization is taking place in a context in which mass support for
democracy is being eroded. Levitsky concludes, and already predicting the future,
that Brazil may be heading toward one of these critical moments and that the
Brazilian elites, the political parties, must stop supporting Bolsonaro under any
circumstances and defend democracy. Since this was the historic mistake that Italian
liberals made, a mistake that German conservatives made, and that is the mistake
that American Republicans made.
7
See: https://veja.abril.com.br/politica/bolsonaro-fala-em-fraude-para-tirar-foco-da-economia-diz-
ministro-do-stf/; https://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/justica/noticia/2020-03/tse-e-ministros-do-stf-
defendem-lisura-de-urna-eletronica; and https://www.brasil247.com/poder/rosa-weber-desmonta-
fake-news-de-bolsonaro-e-nega-fraude-na-eleicao-de-2018-620hb96k
8
Fundação FHC. Como morrem as democracias? Por Steven Levitsky. 2018. (38: 39). Available at:
https://youtu.be/8bX7EdK0-1M. Accessed on: October 24th, 2018.
The current Brazilian context highlights the highly contested nature of liberal
policy. In addition, we are experiencing one of the biggest global crises triggered by
the pandemic of the new coronavirus (COVID-19), which is spreading human
suffering at the global level.9 Therefore, the watchwords are integration, coopera-
tion, and solidarity—in the official statement, made on March 20th, 2020, the
Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, stated that “more than
ever, we need solidarity, hope and political will to face this crisis together.”10
According to Guterres, this is a humanitarian crisis that requires coordinated,
decisive, and innovative policies.
The pandemic triggered by the new coronavirus (COVID-19) ended up potenti-
ating the formal and informal populist movement, directly and indirectly, of Jair
Messias Bolsonaro.
For analysis purposes, Tóth’s11 primary indicators will be applied to verify
Bolsonaro’s populist movement toward the attempt to legitimize the populist regime
and governance.
4.1 The Fabricate of a Pseudo Constitution
On September 13th, 2018, the vice-president candidate, General Hamilton Mourão,

supported that Brazil creates a new constitution, leaner and based on “immutable
values and principles,” but not necessarily through a Constituent Assembly.12
According to him, “the ideal process would involve a commission of notables,
who would then submit the text to a plebiscite, for popular approval—something
that, currently, does not fit the hypotheses provided by law.” He also stated that “a
constitution does not need to be made by the people.” He defended that the idea is
not undemocratic and said that there have already been constitutions in Brazil that
were in force without having passed through Congress. Regardless of whether the
movement has not been consolidated, the indicator appears clearly in the speech of
the current vice president.
9
Castelo Branco and Gouvêa (2020).
10
Available at: https://nacoesunidas.org/chefe-da-onu-pede-solidariedade-esperanca-e-resposta-
global-coordenada-para-combater-pandemia/
11
Tóth (2019).
12
Folha De São Paulo. Published.: September 13th, 2018. Available at: https://www1.folha.uol.
com.br/poder/2018/09/vice-de-bolsonaro-defende-nova-constituicao-sem-constituinte.shtml.
Accessed on: September 13th, 2018.
4.2 Imitation of Institutional Checks 55
4.2 Imitation of Institutional Checks
Although Bolsonaro maintains the set of formal democratic institutions, he subverts

the system of checks and balances based on his movements. According to Rodrigues
and Oliveira,13 Bolsonaro (a far-right politician and scientific denialist), since he
took the position in January 2019, has opened a daily fight against Congress and the
Federal Supreme Court (STF), showing a clear resistance to deal with the checks and
balances system and democratic institutions.
Through Twitter, the current President of Brazil identified the Federal Supreme
Court as one of his enemies on October 28th, 2019. It is assumed that the popular
demonstration that took place on March 15th, 2020 was a direct reaction to the
speech of the Chief Minister of the Institutional Security Office, General Augusto
Heleno, who called the Congress “Blackmailer.” General Heleno argued that the
President should make it clear to the population that he is under pressure and cannot
be cornered, in which he also noted the following: “We cannot accept these guys by
blackmailing us. Fuck it.”14
In a disclosure made on February 26th, 2020, on Twitter, Bolsonaro shared videos
created and featured by him, whose motto is to call supporters to go to the streets to
support “Bolsonaro” and reject the “Brazil’s enemies.” In a second video, this time
shared by WhatsApp, he attacked politicians from different parties, STF ministers,
and National Congress members.15 For the Dean of the STF, Minister Celso de
Mello,16 “This very grave call, if really confirmed, reveals the dark face of a
President of the Republic who ignores the value of the constitutional order, who
ignores the fundamental meaning of the separation of powers, who demonstrates an
unworthy vision of who is not up to the highest position that he exercises and whose
act, of unmistakable hostility to the other Powers of the Republic, translates a
gesture of ominous disregard and unacceptable degradation of the democratic
principle!!! The President of the Republic, whoever he may be, although he may
do a lot, cannot do everything, as he is prohibited, under penalty of incurring a
crime of responsibility, to transgress the political-legal supremacy of the Constitu-
tion and the laws of the Republic!”.
He also shared the call for a hostile act to Congress and the Federal Supreme
Court scheduled for March 15th, 2020.17 On this day, ignoring the pandemic crisis
13
Rodrigues and Oliveira (2020).
14
Folha De São Paulo. Published: February 19th, 2020. Available at: www1.folha.uol.com.br/
mercado/2020/02/general-heleno-diz-que-bolsonaro-e-alvo-de-parlamentarismo-branco-na-
discussao-sobre-orcamento.shtml. Accessed on February 19th, 2020).
15
Migalhas. Published: February 26th, 2020c. Available at: https://www.migalhas.com.br/quentes/
320877/video-em-apoio-a-bolsonaro-ataca-congresso-e-stf-politicos-e-artistas-reagem. Accessed
on: February 27th, 2020.
16
Os Constitucionalistas. Published: February 26th, 2020. Available at: http://www.
osconstitucionalistas.com.br/celso-de-mello-o-presidente-da-republica-nao-pode-tudo. Accessed
on: February 26th, 2020.
17
See note 151.
and participating in a pre-government act,18 the president urged the population to

participate in the demonstration against the National Congress and the STF.
On April 19th, 2020, President Jair Bolsonaro attended the protest against social
isolation and democratic institutions. Hundreds of people called for military inter-
vention, the closure of the National Congress, and the Supreme Federal Court.
Bolsonaro, in front of the Army headquarters, spoke to the group that supported the
closure of the National Congress and the Federal Supreme Court; as well as
supporting the institution of a new AI-519. The agglomerations challenged social
distance and the Regional and Local Decrees
On May 3rd, 2020, the President participated in a popular act, held at the
Esplanada dos Ministérios, in which agglomerated protesters criticized the Supreme
Federal Court and the National Congress. According to him: “It is a spontaneous
demonstration, in defense of democracy, to govern without interference to work for
the future of Brazil. (. . .) We will not admit any more interference.”20
On May 7th, 2020, Bolsonaro asked the population to participate in the demon-
strations scheduled for May 15th and said that politicians who are afraid of the street
do not serve to be politicians.21 The article also describes that as the movement’s
agenda has criticisms of Congress, the president’s action generated a reaction from
heads of government.
The President of the Chamber of Deputies, Rodrigo Maia, affirmed that
Bolsonaro’s support for the demonstrations is an attack on public health and goes
against the guidelines of health authorities.22, 23 “The world is going through an
unprecedented crisis. The American Central Bank and New Zealand’s have just
lowered interest rates; in Germany and Spain, governments enact the closure of
borders. There is a global effort to contain the virus and the crisis. Here,
the President of the Republic ignores and disallows his Minister of Health and the
Ministry’s technicians, ignoring the pandemic and encouraging people to take to the
streets. This is an attack on public health that goes against the guidelines of his own
government,” he said.
18
Uol. Published: March 30th, 2020a. Available at: https://noticias.uol.com.br/saude/ultimas-
noticias/redacao/2020/03/30/oms-volta-a-defender-isolamento-social-e-a-unica-opcao-que-temos.
htm. Accessed on: March 30th, 2020.
19
Institutional Act No. 05.
20
BBC News Brasil. Published: May 3rd, 2020. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/
brasil-52518123. Accessed on: May 3rd, 2020.
21
Gaucha ZH Política. Published: May 7th, 2020. Available at: https://gauchazh.clicrbs.com.br/
politica/noticia/2020/03/bolsonaro-chama-populacao-para-manifestacoes-do-dia-15-
ck7hyo5hi01d801qpse30c62u.html. Accessed on: May 7th, 2020.
22
Chamber of Deputies. Published: Mar 15th, 2020a. Available at: https://www.camara.leg.br/
noticias/645682-para-maia-apoio-de-bolsonaro-as-manifestacoes-e-um-atentado-a-saude-publica/.
Accessed on: 15 de mar de 2020.
23
All citations referring to the Chamber of Deputies were obtained through the contents of the
Câmara Notícias portal, whose source is “Agência Câmara de Notícias”.
On May 22nd, 2020, the STF released the recording of the ministerial meeting
that took place on April 22, which shows, according to the Diário de Pernambuco,24
some key points:
Bolsonaro’s attack on state and municipal chiefs of government: Bolsonaro appears upset
when referring to the governors of São Paulo, João Doria, and of Rio de Janeiro, Wilson
Witzel and the mayor of Manaus, Arthur Virgílio Neto. “The guys want our hemorrhoid.
This shit of São Paulo’s governor, this manure of Rio governor, a shit mayor of Manaus”,
said Bolsonaro. Then, the President of the Republic said that he would interfere in his
ministries if the names that make up the first echelon of the government were not in line with
his own ideals. “Whoever does not accept my way, my family, God, Brazil, freedom of
expression, free market, is in the wrong government,” said Bolsonaro. “Whoever doesn’t
accept that, is in the wrong government.”
Federal Police interference statements: “I have already tried to change people from our
security in Rio de Janeiro officially and I couldn’t. This is over. I will not wait to unfair f. my
whole family, or friend of mine, because I cannot change someone from the safety that
belongs to the structure. It will change; If I cannot change, I change his boss; if I cannot
change his boss, the minister changes. And period. We are not here to play,” said the
president.
Education Minister Abraham Weintraub threatens STF and parliamentarians: The Minister
of Education, Abraham Weintraub, threatens the Supreme Court ministers and parliamen-
tarians of the National Congress, whom he called bums. “If it is up to me, I put these bums
all in jail, starting with the STF,” said the minister after referring to Brasília as “a field of
corruption and privilege” and asking to “finish” the capital, the Brazilian political center,
where the three fundamental pillars for the exercise of the democratic system are concen-
trated: the Executive, Legislative and Judiciary powers. The minister also attacked indig-
enous peoples and other ethnic groups. “I hate the term indigenous people, I hate it,” he
said. “We need to stop with this peoples and privileges thing, there is only one people, the
Brazilian,” he concluded.
The Minister of State for Women, Family and Human Rights, Damares Alves, calls for the
arrest of mayors and governors: “The pandemic will end, but governors and mayors will
respond to lawsuits and we will even ask for the arrest of governors and mayors. And we are
raising the tone and speeches are coming. Our ministry is starting to be tough with
governors and mayors,” said Damares.
The President also reinforced the idea of arming the population as a way to avoid
a dictatorship, according to the People online.25 “How a dictatorship starts? Dis-
arming the people. The greatest good of man? Your freedom,” he wrote. In the
video, Bolsonaro demands action from the Minister of Defense, Fernando de
Azevedo e Silva, and the former Minister of Justice, Sérgio Moro. “That’s why I
want, Minister of Justice and Minister of Defense, that the people arm themselves!
24
Diário De Pernambuco. Published: May 22nd, 2020. Available at https://www.
diariodepernambuco.com.br/noticia/politica/2020/05/ataques-ao-congresso-ao-stf-e-a-
governadores-confira-os-principais-p.html. Accessed on: May 22nd, 2020.
25
O Povo Online. Published: May 23rd, 2020. Available at: https://www.opovo.com.br/noticias/
politica/2020/05/23/bolsonaro-publica-trecho-de-video-de-reuniao-e-reforca-ideia-de-armar-
populacao.html. Accessed on: May 22nd, 2020.
Which is the guarantee that a son of a bitch will not appear to impose a dictatorship
here! That it is easy to impose a dictatorship! Super easy! A shit of a mayor makes a
shit of a decree, handcuffs and leaves everyone inside the house. If people were
armed, they would go to the street,” said the president in the video. In the passage,
Bolsonaro also mentions that, if he were a dictator, he would want to disarm the
population.
The reactions to the declarations in the political, institutional, and social circles
were chaotic.26 As, for example: the governor of Maranhão, Flávio Dino (PCdoB),
said that the statements revealed in the video of the meeting generate an “immense
demoralization and loss of legitimacy” of the Bolsonaro government. The governor
of São Paulo, João Doria (PSDB), stated that the meeting demonstrates a “disre-
gard for democracy” by the government; Senator Randolfe Rodrigues (Rede-AP)
said that he intends to sue the participants for their speeches at the meeting and
classified the video as “absurd.” Former candidate for vice-presidency of the
Republic Manuela d’Ávila (PCdoB-RS) highlighted that the only issue that was
not addressed in the video of the meeting was the coronavirus pandemic. It was an
evaluation like of political analysts. Philosopher Pablo Ortellado, professor of the
Public Policy Management course at the University of São Paulo, said that
Bolsonaro’s video is ambivalent: on the one hand, it has a lot of popular appeals,
it is anti-system populist discourse in its pure state; on the other hand, it is full of
illegalities and disrespect for institutions. It will earn points with voters and scare
the political class, the press, and the STF. Anthropologist Rosana Pinheiro-
Machado estimates that the video strengthens the president at the base. “I found
Bolsonaro’s level very similar to the 2014 video that projected him and that said
‘fuck yourself’ repeatedly. For his base, I thought it was good. He swears at
politicians, speaks of communist threat and arming the population. President Jair
Bolsonaro, on the other hand, merely repeated the slogan of his campaign: Brazil
above all!
One of the aspects of the meeting that draws the most attention to Minister Celso
de Mello of the STF is the difficulty for the current government to deal with
constitutional democracy, according to Paduan.27 “It is a great obstacle, they do
not know how to live with the rules, they do not know the role of each state
institution. For this reason, they believe that the STF interferes in the work of the
Executive. The problem is that this president and his ministers present unconstitu-
tional proposals. They do not want to respect, for example, the attributions of states
and municipalities, as they tried to do with the quarantine issue, and then, there is no
way, the STF is activated. We are here for this: to assess whether the Constitution is
being complied with. It is not the STF that wants to disturb the Executive. It is the
Executive who has to propose measures within the Charter terms.”
26
BBC News Brasil. Published: May 23rd, 2020. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/
brasil-52779251. Accessed on: May 20th, 2020.
27
Veja. Published: May 22nd, 2020. Available at: https://veja.abril.com.br/politica/reuniao-
presidencial-mostra-um-clube-de-aloprados-diz-ministro-do-stf/. Accessed on: May 22nd, 2020.
Two variables are relevant for a “gambling for resurrection” movement to be

successful: institutions need to prove to be effectively incapable of “causing a short
circuit in the rationality of the fear mechanism” and to be considered as promoters or
catalysts of a crisis scenario.28 In this sense, for Benvindo, there is a very difficult
balance between governance and necessary institutional restrictions, which, in the
situation of populist governments, also means that they can opportunistically use the
difficulty of moving forward with their agenda as an argument to attack institutions
For the author, although Bolsonaro is promoting destructive public policies in
areas where he can act unilaterally—environmental protection, promotion of culture,
social policies—his relationship with Congress shows growing disorder and distrust.
Therefore, his populist action follows the traditional path identified by variable
properties: attacks on Congress, the political system, the Supreme Court, and the
press.
The second variable presented by the author is popular support. According to
him, this is the “Achilles heel of the current scenario in Brazil,” because, despite
Bolsonaro’s approval rate has dropped sharply since his election in January 2019, it
still represents about a third of the electorate at the time. It seems that there is a
threshold above which some of Bolsonaro’s supporters can turn against him: they
may be at his side now in an environment in which democracy still exists, but if that
scenario changes, the “rationality of fear” may lead to defensive behavior against
more damaging authoritarian actions. In the author’s words, there are certainly
reasons for concern and one of them would be the fact that Bolsonaro is still a
competitive candidate for re-election in 2022 after so many signs of erratic and
authoritarian behavior.
The Bolsonarist populist movement demonstrates a deep disrespect for demo-
cratic values and principles and, consequently, for the democratic state governed by
rule of law. Bolsonaro encourages, supports, urges, and participates in this move-
ment by speaking to this popular mass with undemocratic behaviors.
About 30 protesters set off fireworks in the direction of the Supreme Court on
Saturday night.29 Minister Alexandre de Moraes wrote, through his Twitter profile:
“The Supreme Court will never bow down to cowardly assaults by true criminal
organizations financed by anti-democratic groups that disrespect the Federal Con-
stitution, Democracy and the Rule of Law. The law will be strictly enforced, and
justice will prevail.” According to the publication, another minister of the Supreme
Court, Luís Roberto Barroso, joined the choir. “There are now some
pre-Enlightenment ghettos in Brazil. Irrelevant in the number of members and the
quality of the demonstrations. But that does not make its performance any less
serious. Institutions and good people should limit these groups. There is a difference
between militancy and banditry,” he tweeted.
28
Benvindo (2019).
29
El País. Published: June 14th, 2020. Available at: https://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2020-06-15/stf-
reage-a-bolsonaro-e-apoiadores-diz-que-usara-todos-os-remedios-para-defender-corte-e-
democracia.html#?sma¼newsletter_brasil_diaria20200615. Accessed on: June 15th, 2020.
In a statement, the President of the Supreme Federal Court and the National
Council of Justice, Minister Dias Toffoli, disclosed that, on the night of June 13th,
2020, Brazil experienced another attack on the Supreme Court, which also symbol-
izes an attack on all democratically constituted institutions. According to the note,
these actions have been financed illegally and attitudes have been reiterated and
stimulated by a minority of the population and by members of the State itself, despite
the attempt at dialogue that the Supreme Court tries to establish with everyone,
Powers, institutions, and civil society, for the progress of the nation. The statement
concludes that the STF will never be subject, as it has not been, in its entire history,
to any type of threat, be it veiled, indirect or direct, and will continue to fulfill its
mission.30
Ministers Cármen Lúcia, Celso de Mello, and Edson Fachin, of the second Panel
of the STF,31 at the opening of the session on June 16th, 2020, expressed concern
about the scenario that is being sought to build on the stage of the country’s
sociopolitical relations. According to her, this scenario has nothing eventual and
spontaneous, as it is instigated and encouraged by few citizens who refuse to accept
the values of humanity, of individual, social, and institutional respect and who “do
not seem to be concerned with making democratic coexistence difficult.” For the
minister, it is unacceptable that the experience of freedom obtained with the
promulgation of the 1988 Constitution, consolidated over three decades, is threat-
ened by the action of people uncommitted to Brazil, with democratic principles and
with the objectives of the Republic. “Let it not be considered that the action of a few
will lead to a different result than democratic coexistence; let it not be considered
that any fear or weakness will be installed in the members of the Brazilian judi-
ciary,” she warned.
The Minister reinforced that, as civil servants to whom the Constitution assigned
the role of ensuring the rule of law, the Supreme Ministers act with tranquility, but
mainly with courage and dignity, to honor the National Constitution and guarantee
its application to all and by everyone. “Attacks against institutions, against judges
and against citizens who think differently turn against everyone, against the coun-
try,” said Cármen Lúcia. According to her, it cannot be doubted that the Supreme
Court will remain present and active, fulfilling institutional commitments with the
Republic. “The Supreme Federal Court has a past to be revered, and the Brazilian
citizen has a future to be assured, a future that has a democratic guarantee in the
Constitution,” she asserted. Minister Edson Fachin endorsed the words of the
president of the Class and said that Minister Cármen Lúcia captured “the essential
need that we have to get out of the crisis without leaving democracy.”
For Minister Celso de Mello, it is “inconceivable” that a residue of strong
authoritarianism still survives, within the Brazilian state apparatus, which
30
Federal Court of Justice. Published: June 14th, 2020e. Available at: http://portal.stf.jus.br/
noticias/verNoticiaDetalhe.asp?idConteudo¼445439. Accessed on: June 14th, 2020.
31
Federal Court of Justice. Published: June 16th, 2020b. Available at: http://portal.stf.jus.br/
noticias/verNoticiaDetalhe.asp?idConteudo¼445606&tip¼UN. Accessed on: June 16th, 2020.
contemplates disrespecting judicial decisions. “This speech is not typical of a

statesman committed to respect and democratic order and who submits to the empire
of the Constitution and the laws of the Republic,” said the dean. According to him, it
is necessary to resist the legitimate weapons of the Constitution and the laws of the
Brazilian State, because, without independent judges, there will never be free
citizens.
Former presidents of the Republic rejected aggression against the STF and
expressed support for the Court. The report states that ex-presidents of the Republic
José Sarney, Fernando Collor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Luiz Inácio Lula da
Silva, Dilma Rousseff, and Michel Temer expressed their rejection of the attacks
suffered by the Supreme Court (STF), last Saturday night (13th), and rendered total
solidarity to the Court, in defense of democracy and respect for republican
institutions.32
Activist Sara Winter, one of the leaders of the armed militia that commands
attacks against the Supreme Federal Court, was arrested by the Federal Police on
Monday (6/15), as determined by Minister Alexandre de Moraes, according to
Consultor Jurídico magazine.33
The report informs that the decision was taken in the scope of an investigation
that investigates antidemocratic acts promoted, as the investigation pointed out,
with the support of politicians. Sara Winter is one of the leaders of the “300 do
Brasil” group, which camped at Praça dos Três Poderes in Brasília under the
pretext of supporting President Jair Bolsonaro, with calls for war and armed
members. Five other people were also arrested, all connected to the group, all on
a temporary basis, as requested by the Attorney General’s Office.
Police Inquiry No. 4,828,34 issued by the Directorate for Investigation and
Combat of Organized Crime and signed by Federal Delegate Denisse Dias Rosas
Ribeiro, points to evidence of the involvement of Oswaldo Eustáquio,35 one of the
32
Federal Court of Justice. Published: June 15th, 2020a. Available at: http://portal.stf.jus.br/
33
Legal Advisor. Published: June 15th, 2020. Available at: https://www.conjur.com.br/2020-jun-
15/sara-winter-presa-brasilia-ordem-alexandre-moraes. Accessed on: June 17th, 2020.
34
Minister Alexandre de Moraes, rapporteur of Inquiry 4,828, which investigates anti-democratic
demonstrations, made public, based on the Binding Precedent 14, the decision of this Tuesday
(30th) in which he renews the temporary arrest of Oswaldo Eustáquio Filho, as well as the
manifestations of the Federal Police and the Attorney General's Office regarding this determina-
tion. The minister’s objective is to avoid journalistic publications of incomplete sections of the
prison extension. Federal Court of Justice. Published: June 30th, 2020c. Available at: http://portal.
stf.jus.br/noticias/verNoticiaDetalhe.asp?idConteudo¼446572&tip¼UN. Accessed on: Jun 30th,
de 2020. For full access to Police Inquiry N. 4,828 see: http://www.stf.jus.br/arquivo/cms/
noticiaNoticiaStf/anexo/ManifestacaoPF.pdf
35
Oswaldo Eustáquio Filho, according to the Valor Econômico, is one of the digital influencers that
integrates the core of the support base for President Jair Bolsonaro. Valor Econômico. Published:
June 30th, 2020. Available at: https://valor.globo.com/politica/noticia/2020/06/30/moraes-
prorroga-prisao-temporaria-do-blogueiro-bolsonarista-oswaldo-eustaquio.ghtml. Accessed on:
June 30th, 2020.
digital influencers that integrates the support base core for Bolsonaro and which is
related to actions of considerable harmful potential, taking into consideration that his
manifestations, promoted both on social media and physically on the street, have
instigated a portion of the population that, with ideological affinity, has been used to
drive extremism from the speech of polarization and antagonism, by illegal means,
to the Powers of the Republic, more precisely the Supreme Federal Court and the
National Congress.
For Finchelstein,36 there is a clear coup supported by a post-fascist leader who
would like to be a fascist dictator. On the one hand, Bolsonarists have the right to
organize and participate in any meetings they want. But a demonstration against
Congress and the independence of the powers is closer to fascist acts or pro-Pinochet
demonstrations than to a democratic demonstration. It is in the hands of citizenship,
the opposition, the press, and the independent powers to defend Brazilian
democracy.
4.3 The Break of Brazilian Democratic Traditions
The break of Brazilian democratic traditions is present in Bolsonaro’s populist

movement. Academic freedom has, on countless occasions, suffered an imminent
attack.
In February 2018, the Ministry of Education threatened the teacher who offered a
course entitled “The 2016 coup and the future of democracy in Brazil.” The
discipline, offered by the Political Science course at the University of Brasilia
(UnB), provoked an immediate reaction from the Minister of Education who asked
for an investigation into the possibility of its creators having committed “adminis-
trative impropriety.” 37
The Legislative Decree Project 5/20, proposed by Congresswoman Margarida
Salomão, intends to supersede the ordinance of the Ministry of Education that
requires specific authorization for the promotion of public competitions for teachers
in universities.38 Through the ordinance, the secretaries of the Secretariat of Higher
Education and the Secretariat of Professional and Technological Education, both
linked to the Ministry of Education, will disclose, together with the federal educa-
tional institutions, “the limits for the provision of authorized positions in the
equivalent teacher positions and in the reference frameworks of technical-
administrative servants in education for the year 2020.”
36
Betim (2020).
37
Folha De São Paulo. Published: February 22nd, 2018. Available at: https://www1.folha.uol.com.
br/poder/2018/02/ministerio-da-educacao-pede-apuracao-de-disciplina-da-unb-sobre-golpe-de-
2016.shtml. Accessed on: February 23rd, 2020.
38
Chamber of Deputies. Published: February 27th, 2020. Available at: https://www.camara.leg.br/
noticias/639480-projeto-susta-decreto-do-ministro-da-educacao-sobre-concursos-para-professores-
em-universidades/. Accessed on: February 27th, 2020.
4.3 The Break of Brazilian Democratic Traditions 63
On April 30th, 2019, Education Minister Abraham Weintraub told the newspaper
O Estado de São Paulo that the universities of Brasília, Federal Fluminense (UFF)
and Bahia (UFBA) would have reduced transfers.39 According to him, “universities
that do not have the expected academic performance and are promoting ‘mess’
would be included in this criterion. According to him, there were taking place at
universities, political events, party demonstrations and parties inappropriate to the
university environment.”
In May 2019, it was announced in Folha’s Coluna Panel, that the Minister of
Education, Abraham Weintraub intends to cut graduate scholarships that finance
research that he considers as ideological bias.40
In May 2019, the federal government excluded humanities courses from the
CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development)41 scientific
initiation scholarships. With the measure, undergraduate students from areas such
as education, law, economics, social sciences, and philosophy will not be able to
access the 25,000 scholarships offered by the federal agency. The exclusion of these
areas from the public notice could even be considered unconstitutional, according to
the president of the Research Committee of the USP Law School, Ranieri. “It is in
the Humanities that the philosophical and political thought is built that provided the
Rule of Law, the separation of powers, human rights, the democratic regime,
civilizing conquests in which the Law has a fundamental role.”42
And, recently, Provisory Act 979 of June 10th, 2020,43 which sets the possibility
of establishing provisional rectors, as reported by Moreira,44 is an arbitrary measure
contrary to university autonomy. The law provides for the “appointment of pro
tempore officers to federal institutions of higher education during the period of the
public health emergency.” In this sense, it suspends public consultations in progress
to define the triple list to be submitted to the president for the appointment of future
rectors. In addition, it authorizes the Minister of Education to appoint rectors and
vice-rectors for an uncertain temporary period. Moreira concludes that the measure
suppresses university autonomy by installing an exception measure with no causal
link to the pandemic; does not indicate its relevance and urgency, but only prohibits
39
NSC Total. Published: April 30th, 2019. Available at: https://www.nsctotal.com.br/noticias/mec-
cortara-verba-de-universidades-por-balburdia-diz-ministro. Accessed on: April 30th, 2019.
40
Diário De Goiás. Published: May 1st, 2019. Available at: https://diariodegoias.com.br/ministro-
da-educacao-quer-cortar-bolsas-que-tenham-vies-ideologico/. Accessed on: May 1st, 2020.
41
O Tempo. Published: April 30th, 2020. Available at: https://www.otempo.com.br/brasil/governo-
exclui-humanas-de-edital-de-bolsas-de-iniciacao-cientifica-1.2331733. Accessed on: May
1st, 2020.
42
Estadão. Published: May 8th, 2020. Available at: https://politica.estadao.com.br/blogs/fausto-
macedo/limitacoes-tematicas-das-bolsas-cientificas-ferem-a-constituicao-e-as-leis/. Accessed on:
June 10th, 2020.
43
Provisional Measure N. 979, of June 9th, 2020. Available at: http://www.in.gov.br/en/web/dou/-/
medida-provisoria-n-979-de-9-de-junho-de-2020-261041611. Accessed on: June 10th, 2020.
44
Moreira (2020).
elections and authorizes appointments, disobeying Article 6245 of the Federal

Constitution; frontal assault on Article 20746 of the Federal Constitution, any
suppression, no matter how large or small, implies an insatiable disrespect for the
constitutional precept. The measure is blatantly unconstitutional and undemocratic.
As a last act, before leaving the ministerial portfolio, Minister Abraham
Weintraub announced, on June 18th, 2020, that he will leave the Bolsonaro govern-
ment. The decision was communicated by video, posted on his profile on social
networks, in which he appears alongside President Jair Bolsonaro.47 Weintraub
revokes a quota ordinance for blacks and indigenous people in postgraduate school.
The report published by the UOL48 portal reports that the revoked ordinance of May
11th, 2016, was, at the time, signed by the then Minister of Education, Aloizio
Mercadante. Mercadante’s determination obliged federal higher education institu-
tions to present a plan for the “inclusion of blacks (blacks and browns), indigenous
people and people with disabilities in their postgraduate programs (master’s,
professional master’s and doctorate), as policies of affirmative actions.”
Although the list of attacks on public universities is extensive, it is important to
mention that public universities carry out more than 90% of science in Brazil,49 their
autonomy is constitutionally protected and, at the present time, they have contributed
to various actions, measures and research to combating COVID-19.
Positive effects of restraining the populist movement in Brazil can be seen, for
example, through the backlash effect exercised by the legislative and judicial
powers, civil society, nongovernmental organizations, social movements. In the
colloquial plane, for Valle,50 the word has as primary meaning a sudden and intense
reaction movement in response to an equally abrupt change in the movement’s
trajectory, that is, a reaction in the opposite sign.51
The Brazilian Democratic Party (PDT) filed a Direct Unconstitutionality Action
(ADI) 6,458 with the Supreme Court [Federal], whose object is Provisional Act
(MP) 979, issued on June 9th, 2020. For the party, the norm promotes “intense
offenses” to the right to education and university autonomy and imposes a kind of
45
In case of relevance and urgency, the President of the Republic may adopt provisional acts, with
the force of law, and must immediately submit them to the National Congress, which, being in
recess, will be extraordinarily called to meet within 5 days.
46
Universities enjoy didactic-scientific, administrative and financial and patrimonial management
autonomy, and will obey the principle of inseparability between teaching, research and extension.
47
. Veja. Published: June 18th, 2020. Available at: https://veja.abril.com.br/politica/weintraub-
deixa-o-ministerio-da-educacao/. Accessed on: June 19th, 2020.
48
Uol. Published: June 18th, 2020b. Available at: https://educacao.uol.com.br/noticias/2020/06/18/
weintraub-revoga-portaria-de-cotas-para-negros-e-indigenas-em-pos-graduacao.htm. Accessed on:
June 18th, 2020.
49
Folha De São PaulO. Published: April 21st, 2019. Available at: https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/
colunas/reinaldojoselopes/2019/04/universidades-publicas-produzem-mais-de-90-da-pesquisa-do-
pais-resta-saber-ate-quando.shtml. Accessed on: April 21st, 2019.
50
Valle (2013).
51
Gouvêa and Castelo Branco (2019).
4.3 The Break of Brazilian Democratic Traditions 65
“educational gag” that violates the teaching principles listed in Article 20652 of the
Federal Constitution, such as the freedom to learn, teach, research, and disseminate
thought, art, and knowledge; the pluralism of ideas and pedagogical concepts; and
the democratic management of public education.53 Among countless other argu-
ments, the PDT states that “under the subterfuge of the urgency of the pandemic,”
the President of the Republic used a constitutional prerogative “to promote demo-
cratic retrogression and to vilify constitutional rights such as education, university
autonomy and free circulation of ideas,” which, in his view, shows a clear abuse of
power and deviation from the purpose of the MP.
The Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) mobilized students,
faculty, and staff on the morning of June 12th, 2020, in Porto Alegre, protesting
for the parity of votes in choosing the president of the institution and in favor of
democracy.54
The President of the Congress and the Senate, Davi Alcolumbre, affirmed that he
returned to the government the Provisional Act that expands the powers of the
Minister of Education, since, the MP violates the principles of the Federal Consti-
tution that deal with the autonomy and democratic management of federal
universities.55
In face of the imminent and flagrant unconstitutionality of Provisional Act
979 and the chain backlash effects, Bolsonaro edited Provisional Act No. 981, of
June 12th, 2020,56 which revoked the 979.
And, finally, in relation to the last act of the former Minister of Education, which
revoked the induction of affirmative actions in postgraduate courses, such as access
to blacks, indigenous people, and people with disabilities, according to the portal of
52
Article 206. Teaching will be based on the following principles:
I—Equal conditions for access and permanence at school.
II—Freedom to learn, teach, research, and disseminate thought, art and knowledge.
III—Pluralism of ideas and pedagogical concepts, and the coexistence of public and private
educational institutions.
IV—Free public education in official establishments.
V—Valuation of teaching professionals, guaranteed, in accordance with the law, career plans for
the public teaching profession, with a professional minimum wage and admission exclusively
through public examinations and titles.
VI—Democratic management of public education, according to the law.
VII—Quality standard guarantee.
53
Federal Court of Justice. Published: June 10th, 2020d. Available at: http://portal.stf.jus.br/
54
Correio Do Povo. Published: June 12th, 2020. Available at: https://www.correiodopovo.com.br/
not%C3%ADcias/ensino/entidades-se-unem-em-ato-contra-mp-que-d%C3%A1-poder-a-
weintraub-para-nomear-reitores-1.435210. Accessed on: June 20th, 2020.
55
Uol Notícias. Published: June 12th, 2020. Available at: https://noticias.uol.com.br/politica/
ultimas-noticias/2020/06/12/alcolumbre-vai-devolver-ao-planalto-mp-que-alterava-escolha-de-
reitores.htm. Accessed on: June 12th, 2020.
56
Available at: http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2019-2022/2020/Mpv/mpv981.htm.
Accessed on: June 12th, 2020.
the Chamber of Deputies,57 11 draft legislative decrees were presented to the

Chamber with the aim of nullifying ordinance 545/20.
4.4 Superior Executive, Extension of Justifications

to Institute a State of Exception and Rivals as Enemies
Bolsonaro, on June 11th, 2020, in a live transmission on social networks, made a

serious request to the population. He asked people to enter public and/or field
hospitals and film beds destinated to the COVID-19, to see if they would be
empty or not. The “invasion” recommended by Bolsonaro would serve for the
images to be produced and passed on, then, as “evidence” to the Federal Police.58
According to Adler, responsible for journalistic information, the recommendation
given by the president was for the population to “find a way to enter and film” in
public hospitals.
Bolsonaro, according to the report, also said that some governors are making a
“political gain” from deaths related to COVID-19. For the president, managers are
attributing deaths for other reasons like coronavirus to “blame the federal
government.”
In a report published by Gomes,59 researcher Matheus Falcão, from the Center for
Research in Health Law at the University of São Paulo, stated that Bolsonaro’s
conduct is inadvisable for several legal reasons. “The health system patient is in a
vulnerable situation, he will have a whole set of rights that will protect his privacy,
dignity and confidentiality of treatment.” The patient may not want people to know
that he is in the hospital. Falcão also stated that entering a room in the ICU to
record videos can cause discomfort to patients. “Will the person access the
restricted area of the hospital, disrupting the entire hospital administration proce-
dure? What is the person encouraging by giving this statement? It can negatively
impact the service’s functioning.”
The irresponsibility at the limit is the statement made by Fleck.60 According to
her, it is worth remembering that deaths due to COVID only enter the count of the
57
Chamber of Deputies. Published: June 18th, 2020b. Available at: https://www.camara.leg.br/
noticias/669796-projetos-anulam-portaria-do-mec-que-acabou-com-cotas-em-pos-graduacao/.
58
Correio Braziliense. Published: June 11th, 2020. Available at: https://www.correiobraziliense.
com.br/app/noticia/politica/2020/06/11/interna_politica,863124/bolsonaro-recomenda-invadir-
hospitais-arranja-jeito-de-entrar-e-film.shtml. Accessed on: June 12th, 2020.
59
Terra. Published: June 11th, 2020. Available at: https://www.terra.com.br/noticias/coronavirus/
bolsonaro-incentiva-invasao-de-hospitais-para-filmar-leitos,
d6d91d6b5d4ede0c0afeaa23f1b5d16fuukb4x1w.html. Accessed on June 12th, 2020.
60
Huffpost. Published: June 12th, 2020. Available at: <https://www.huffpostbrasil.com/entry/
bolsonaropopulacao-invadir-hospitais_br_5ee380c7c5b6f2cb034fd7b4>. Accessed on: June
12th, 2020.
4.4 Superior Executive, Extension of Justifications to Institute a State of. . . 67
states after the diagnosis is confirmed by laboratory examination—which can take

days and, precisely for that reason, there is a delay in the registration of deaths from
the disease. It also reports that the information that the case is suspected of covid
serves so that all the service that will be done with the body of the person who died
keeps the necessary care to avoid possible contamination. Today, according to data
from the state secretariats, Brazil has more than 40 thousand deaths per COVID. It
is unbelievable and causes deep indignation that the person at the head of the nation
treats this matter with such lightness.61 The opinion ends by stating that Bolsonaro’s
attitude may put even more people at risk, since, when entering hospital units with
people contaminated by COVID-19, the possibility of contagion is real. Not to
mention the violation of patient privacy and the whole ethical issue involved—but
what does our president really know about ethics?
Minister Gilmar Mendes, of the STF, sharply criticized the speech in which
President Jair Bolsonaro incites his supporters to invade hospitals.62 The report
states that, also through social networks, the minister recalled that “breaking into
hospitals is a crime—stimulating too. The Public Ministry (PGR and State MPs)
must act immediately. It is shameful—not to say ridiculous—that public officials lend
themselves to stimulate conspiracy theories, putting public health at risk.” For
criminal lawyer, Jacqueline Valles, by encouraging people to expose themselves
to a serious risk by invading hospitals, the president may have incurred three crimes
described in the Penal Code.63 Therefore, “The speech can be framed in articles
268, 286 and 287. By encouraging his followers to invade hospitals, the president
urges people to commit crimes against public health and apologizes to crime,” she
explains.
In a continuous act, Bill No. 3,311/20 was introduced, which criminalizes
unauthorized photographic or cinematographic recording in a health establishment.
The expected penalty is imprisonment from 1 to 8 months or a fine, which will be
applied twice if the crime occurs during a period of a public health emergency,
pandemics, and epidemics.64
Author of the proposal, deputy Alexandre Padilha (PT-SP) says that political
groups and some authorities have encouraged invasions in health establishments
and hospital rooms. He talks about news from the press showing state deputies from
Espírito Santo invading hospital after the request of the President of the Republic,
Jair Bolsonaro, for the population to enter the establishments to check if the beds
61
Huffpost. Published: June 12th, 2020. Available at: https://www.huffpostbrasil.com/entry/
bolsonaropopulacao-invadir-hospitais_br_5ee380c7c5b6f2cb034fd7b4. Accessed on: June
12th, 2020.
62
14/gilmar-critica-pedido-invasao-hospitais-bolsonaro. Accessed on: June 14th, 2020.
63
14/gilmar-critica-pedido-invasao-hospitais-bolsonaro. Accessed on: June 14th, 2020.
64
Chamber of Deputies. Published: June 16th, 2020. Available at: https://www.camara.leg.br/
noticias/668978-projeto-torna-crime-fotografar-ou-filmar-estabelecimento-de-saude-sem-
autorizacao/. Accessed on: June 17th, 2020.
are, in fact, occupied. Padilha explains that the objective of the project is “to
reinforce the protection of those who perform functions in health establishments,
preserving the intimacy and smooth functioning of a service that is so relevant to
society.”
4.5 Restricted Fundamental Rights
Bolsonaro extinguished hundreds of federal councils through Decree 9,789 of April

11th, 2019. The extinct groups, according to Conjur,65 work with representatives of
the government and civil society to create, execute, and monitor the actions of public
and state agencies. The councils foreseen “in the bylaws or in the statute of a federal
educational institution” and those that have been created or changed after the
inauguration of the president, as of January 1st, 2019, are out of the rule. The
report says that the minister of the Civil House, Onyx Lorenzoni, said that today
there are about 700 deliberative bodies and that number should drop to 50. For him,
the councils were created with a “completely distorted view of what is representation
and participation of the population.” “They had as their genesis an ideological
vision of the governments that preceded us to weaken the representation of society,”
commented.
The complaints of various entities—such as the Brazilian Bar Association, the
Vladimir Herzog Institute, the National Campaign for the Right to Education,
Amazon Watch, Ethos Institute, Article 19, Missionary Indigenous Council, Society
for Threatened Peoples—to the Rights Council of UN affirms that Brazil lives
“serious attacks” that “erode the rule of law and democracy in the country.”66
Among them:
1. “The human rights situation in Brazil deteriorated dramatically in the first year
of the Bolsonaro government.”
2. “The paralysis of the demarcation of indigenous, quilombola and traditional
territories, coupled with high-level hate speech and responses to burning in the
Amazon lead to an ethnocidal process.”
3. “Censorship and intimidation occur through criminalization and sexist attacks
on journalists, a ban on classic books and a hostile climate towards artists and
scientists.”
4. “The breakdown of secularism and the denial of gender and racial equality
policies legitimize the escalation of hatred against LGBTIs, women, blacks and
religious minorities.”
65
Legal Adviser. Published: April 14th, 2019. Available at: https://www.conjur.com.br/2019-abr-
14/presidente-jair-bolsonaro-extingue-centenas-conselhos-federais. Accessed on: April 14th, 2019.
66
UOL. Published: March 10th, 2020. Available at: https://noticias.uol.com.br/colunas/
jamil-chade/2020/03/10/na-onu-mais-de-80-entidades-pedem-apoio-internacional-contra-
bolsonaro.htm. Accessed on: March 10th, 2020.
4.5 Restricted Fundamental Rights 69
5. “Bolsonaro has treated the press and journalists as his enemies,” warned
Gustavo Huppes, on behalf of different press organizations in the country.
6. “According to a report by the National Federation of Journalists, in 2019 almost
ten attacks on the press were carried out by the president each month,” he said.
“The attacks are not only mandatory through statements but also through
concrete measures. Newspapers were banned from covering presidential trips,
for example.”
7. “Sexist and misogynistic offenses, with the clear intention of damaging credibility
and intimidating female journalists are becoming more common and applied by
government officials, including the president himself.”
8. Among the journalists cited is Constança Rezende, in addition to Patrícia
Campos Mello, Vera Magalhães and Miriam Leitão. “They are victims of a
smear campaign, especially through social media, which has been publicly
supported by the president, important authorities and members of the Brazilian
Congress.”
9. Only in 2019, more than 35 international complaints were filed against the
government.
Bolsonaro used a bad word and speech incompatible with his position, returned to
insult the press to talk about Folha de São Paulo journalist, Patrícia Campos Mello,
in an infamous and misogynistic pun. According to the report, the president’s
statements about the journalist were repudiated by several entities and their repre-
sentatives, who considered the episode an attack on democracy. Abraji and the OAB
Press Freedom Observatory published a joint note in which they repudiated
Bolsonaro’s sexist attack. “The attacks on journalists carried out by the president
are incompatible with the principles of democracy, which the health depends on the
free circulation of information and the supervision of the authorities by the citizens.”
The Union of Professional Journalists of the State of São Paulo said, in a note, that “it
is already clear that the current government is a declared enemy of press freedom and
journalism” and that, according to a count made by the National Federation of
Journalists (Fenaj), Bolsonaro delivered 116 attacks on the press. “When performing
today an act that can be classified as injury, it becomes liable to criminal liability.
The President of the Republic is not above the law, and his unworthy conduct—
especially considering the position he holds, which requires decorum—cannot
remain unpunished.” FENAJ says that “insults and offenses of a sexist and misog-
ynistic nature will not pass.” “May our cry of repudiation serve to stop such
behaviors, coming from anyone, especially the representative of the Nation, who
should defend the entire population and, above all, the silenced majorities of rights.”
ABI—Brazilian Press Association called the aggression a “coward” and asked the
PGR to denounce the president for parliamentary honor non-conformity. The speech
also provoked reactions in Congress. Congresswoman Maria do Rosário condemned
the statements and pointed out that they aim to divert the focus from the complaints
made by the journalist. Senator Kátia Abreu expressed solidarity with the journalist
and said that all women deserve to be treated with dignity, especially by the
country’s great authorities. Venetian Senator Vital called the president’s repeated
sexist statements serious and unacceptable. “He has far exceeded the acceptable
limit.” For deputy Marcelo Nilo, Bolsonaro “went beyond the limits of imagination”
with sexual offenses against the journalist. Congressman David Miranda said that
Bolsonaro’s statements cause “shame to the chair of the Presidency.” 67
The Arns Commission, the Brazilian Bar Association, and the Vladimir Herzog
Institute, among other organizations, sent, on April 1st, 2020, a petition68 to the
United Nations High Commissioner (UNHCR) requesting that Brazilian authorities
be investigated for celebration and apology for the military coup of 1964.69 The
pleading informs that on March 31st, 2020, Bolsonaro, in a press conference in front
of the federal government headquarters, referring to the coup of 1964, declared that it
is “the day of freedom.”70 In this sense, Bolsonaro usually makes frequent state-
ments denying proven facts about the atrocities in this context, such as, for example,
the promotion of the book “A verdade sufocada,” by a notorious torturer, General
Brilhante Ustra, who defends human rights violations as a State legitimate policy. As
stated in the news, according to the report of the National Truth Commission, during
the military dictatorship, there were 434 forced disappearances and political mur-
ders, deaths of peasants and indigenous people, arrests for political reasons, press
censorship, and many other human rights violations. In Brazil, civil society is
attentive and, through entities, has signed international commitments to do justice,
reparation, and guarantee the right to memory and truth. It was also requested that
the UN carry out an official mission to Brazil in order to assess the behavior of the
President of the Republic and national authorities, who have been in favor of the
coup, and to dismantle the policies of Memory, Truth, and justice. The authorities’
attitudes are considered by the entities as a “negationist act.”
Instituto Anjos da Liberdade,71 a nongovernmental institution, filed a criminal
complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Bolsonaro for crimes
against humanity. Fundamentally, the complaint focuses on torture and the extermi-
nation of indigenous populations, vulnerable, and racial groups. The report
describes, among others, that several videos in defense of torture are available on
YouTube and with the following content: an explicit tribute to Colonel Ustra,
recognized as a torturer at the time of the Brazilian military dictatorship; weakened
67
Migalhas. Published: February 19th, 2020b. Available at: https://www.migalhas.com.br/quentes/
320687/em-mais-um-ataque-a-imprensa-bolsonaro-ofende-jornalista-queria-dar-o-furo-contra-
mim. Accessed on: February 19th, 2020.
68
Available at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1G6OuX4nU3pp5BQI3yZZBJzNmI3ieca4l/view.
69
Arns Comission. Published: April 6th, 2020. Available at: https://comissaoarns.org/blog/2020-
04-06-organiza%C3%A7%C3%B5es-pedem-a-onu-investiga%C3%A7%C3%A3o-por-apologia-
ao-golpe-militar/. Accessed on: June 24th, 2020.
70
YouTube. Published: March 31st, 2020. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v¼oZoxt0idbd8&feature¼youtu.be&fbclid¼IwAR1Og-IIFZwRKmWCIXtUMkI67jfqK1-
55YOjEKZ0fPsWVOYEJl47gSDof4g. Accessed on: March 31st, 2020.
71
The Anjos da Liberdade Institute was created in 2002 and has been developing projects in the
areas of human rights throughout the national territory in the most diverse fields of Law and
Citizenship. For more information see: https://institutoanjosdaliberdade.org/.
4.5 Restricted Fundamental Rights 71
the mechanism to combat torture through Decree 9,831 of June 11th, 2009; made an
apology that favors genocide, including the cultural.
More than 200 Brazilian entities filed a complaint72 against Bolsonaro to the
United Nations (UN) against Brazilian management in prisons.73 The institutions
state that the Brazilian state must be questioned about the absence of emergency
measures to control the exponential growth in the number of infected and killed in
prisons; by the selectivity of the Judiciary and public security agents with regard to
the common profile of prisoners (poor and black); and the unhealthy conditions of
the prison units, among other points. “The Brazilian prison perpetuates immeasur-
able violations of rights, which are further intensified in a context of a pandemic.
The lack of measures to prevent the uncontrolled spread of covid-19 inside prisons is
progressively culminating in the death of people deprived of their liberty,” states the
document.
Bolsonaro sanctioned Law 14,021 of July 7th, 2020,74 which provides for social
protection measures to prevent contagion and the spread of COVID-19 in indigenous
territories; creates the Emergency Plan to Confront COVID-19 in indigenous terri-
tories; stipulates measures to support quilombola communities, nonindustrial fish-
ermen, and other traditional peoples and communities to combat COVID-19; and
amends Law No. 8,080 of September 19th, 1990, in order to ensure the provision of
additional resources in emergency and public calamity situations. However, the Law
was sanctioned with vetoes and, among them, the government’s obligation to supply
drinking water, hygiene and cleaning materials, Internet facilities, and basic food
baskets for the villages.75
On July 8th, 2020, Minister Barroso, of the STF, determined, in a preliminary
injunction,76 that the federal government adopt a “series of measures to protect
indigenous peoples.” Among them, the following stand out: creation of sanitary
barriers; planning with the participation of communities in plan against the coro-
navirus, actions to contain invaders in reserves, and access of all indigenous people
to the Indigenous Health Subsystem.
72
Available at: https://www.conjur.com.br/dl/brasil-denunciado-onu-avanco.pdf.
73
Conjur. Published: June 23rd, 2020. Available at: https://www.conjur.com.br/2020-jun-23/brasil-
denunciado-onu-avanco-coronavirus-presidios. Accessed on: June 23rd, 2020.
74
Available at: https://www.migalhas.com.br/arquivos/2020/7/AFC228B1171BF5_Lei2.pdf.
Accessed on: July 08, 2020.
75
Migalhas. Published: July 8th, 2020a. Available at: https://www.migalhas.com.br/quentes/
330368/bolsonaro-sanciona-lei-sobre-protecao-a-indigenas-durante-pandemia-fornecimento-de-
agua-potavel-foi-vetadob?U¼2017B8D3_573&utm_source¼informativo&utm_medium¼1178&
utm_campaign¼1178. Accessed on: July 8th, 2020.
76
The Supreme Court’s Statement of Non-Compliance (ADPF) 709 is considered by the Supreme
Court to be a highly complex issue, with great impact and repercussions as a result of the covid-19.
Available at: http://portal.stf.jus.br/processos/detalhe.asp?incidente¼5952986. Accessed on: July
8th, 2020.
The young Brazilian democracy has been resistant in trying to prevent the
legitimation of Bolsonaro’s populist movement through the backlashing effects of
democratic institutions, civil society, and nongovernmental organizations.
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demic; drinking water supply has been vetoed. Migalhas. Retrieved July 8, 2020, from https://
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br/noticias/2020/06/18/weintraub-revoga-portaria-de-cotas-para-negros-e-indigenas-em-pos-
graduacao.htm
Chapter 5
Variable Properties of Populisms
in the Bolsonaro Government
The myth of the yoke

(Thomas Turner)
The populist movement has formal, informal, direct, and indirect aspects that
constitute variable properties of populisms. These are strategies commonly used in
different specific contexts and are intended to increase the political strength of the
populist movement. In Bolsonaro’s populist movement, the use of political and
religious moralism, the unbridled impetus for misinformation and fake news, the
polarization of politics, and the militarization of politics.
5.1 The Use of Political and Religious Moralism
The recourse to the cultural myth that privileges morals and religion1 would have the
purpose of transfiguring reality in order to provide a destiny to individuals or
societies and be a source of meanings capable of converting the individual into a
carrier of meanings.2 In Conrado’s opinion,3 Bolsonaro has very successfully
invested in a typical symbolism related to the fundamentalist use of the Bible.
Using the current evangelical language, it was invested with a kind of “messianic
anointing” to realize a “manifest destiny” declared many years ago by
neo-Pentecostal evangelical jargon: “Brazil is of the Lord Jesus” (strategically
transmuted for electoral purposes in “Brazil above all. God above all”). According
to the author, Bolsonaro appropriated the believers’ own religious language,
claiming to have a “divine mission” in the verbose anti-leftism found in moral
guidelines, especially those related to sexual and reproductive rights. He declared
himself “in favor of the family,” in evangelical terms: against abortion, the rights of
1
Castelo Branco (2004).
2
See: Castelo Branco (2011).
3
Conrado (2019).

78 5 Variable Properties of Populisms in the Bolsonaro Government
LGBTI people, against the legalization of marijuana, in favor of the armament of the
“good citizen” and criminal punitivism.
Ambassador Fábio Mendes Marzano, Secretary for National Sovereignty and
Citizenship Affairs, said that one of the main changes generated by the country’s
new administration was to put religion in the process of formulating public policies,4
showing the break of secularism laid down in the 1988 Constitution. According to
him, there is still a threat against Christianity and religious freedom must also
include the possibility of converting those who have no religion.
Law 14,0195 of 2020 ended up making it mandatory to use masks for circulation
in public spaces, on public roads, and on public transport due to the COVID-19.
Religious temples and other closed places received special attention from the
Bolsonaro government. According to the Migalhas portal,6 the rule was sanctioned
with seventeen vetoes. One of them was the section that refers to the use of masks in
commercial and industrial establishments, religious temples, educational establish-
ments, and other closed places where people meet. In justifying the veto, Bolsonaro
explained that there was “possible violation of domicile because it encompasses a
comprehensive concept of places not open to the public.” On July 6th, 2020,
Bolsonaro extended the vetoes, this time no longer requesting wearing masks in
prisons; establishments will no longer need to post signs informing the correct way
to use protective equipment and establishments in operation do not need to provide
employees with individual protection materials for free.7
5.2 The Use and the Unbridled Intensification

of Disinformation and Fake News
Research conducted by Freedom House8 has shown that the October 2018
presidential elections were a turning point in Brazil for the unbridled use and
promotion of misinformation and fake news as digital interference in elections.
4
Uol. Published: November 28th, 2019. Available at: https://noticias.uol.com.br/colunas/jamil-
chade/2019/11/28/governo-bolsonaro-cristaos-hungria-diplomacia-itamaraty.htm. Accessed on:
November 19th, 2019.
5
Available at: https://www.migalhas.com.br/arquivos/2020/7/D9CF893B63F033_lei.pdf.
Accessed on: July 3rd, 2020.
6
Migalhas. Published: July 3rd, 2020a. Available at: https://migalhas.com.br/quentes/330193/
bolsonaro-libera-uso-de-mascara-em-templos-religiosos-mas-obriga-uso-em-espacos-publicos?
U¼2017B8D3_573&utm_source¼informativo&utm_medium¼1169&utm_campaign¼1169.
Accessed on: July 3rd, 2020.
7
Migalhas. Published: July 6th, 2020b. Available at: https://migalhas.com.br/quentes/330284/
bolsonaro-amplia-vetos-e-desobriga-uso-de-mascaras-em-presidios?U¼2017B8D3_573&utm_
source¼informativo&utm_medium¼1175&utm_campaign¼1175. Accessed on: July 6th, 2020.
8
Freedom House is a non-governmental institution that works to defend human rights and promote
democratic change, with a focus on political rights and civil liberties. It acts as a catalyst for freedom
5.2 The Use and the Unbridled Intensification of Disinformation and Fake News 79
Investigations9 indicated that unidentified actors organized cyberattacks against

journalists, government entities, and users politically engaged by Bolsonaro
supporters, who even spread homophobic rumors, fake news, misinformation,
and false images on YouTube and WhatsApp and continued after his inauguration.
The UN launched a global initiative called Verified, with a Portuguese version,
Verificado,10 to combat disinformation from a social collaboration project. For the
UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, as the COVID-19 spreads, a tsunami of
disinformation and hate was triggered, which ends up creating conditions to foment
violence and divide communities. The crisis demonstrates the crucial need for access
to free, reliable, factual, multilingual, targeted, accurate, clear, and scientific
information.
A manifesto prepared by doctors, researchers and nurses, and signed by hundreds
of professionals from the United States, Italy, and Brazil,11 demanded a new policy
from Facebook, Twitter, and Google, requesting, in summary, that the technology
giants must alert and notify each person who saw or interacted with misinformation
about health on their platforms, share a well-prepared correction prepared by
independent fact-checkers and reduce the reach of posts with lies, “removing
harmful misinformation and the pages and channels of those who promote this
type content.”
A Brazilian version of the Sleeping Giants12 account, inspired by the United
States’ model and represented by a collectivism of cyberactivists, combats funding,
hate speech, and fake news. The movement aims to persuade companies to remove
their advertisements from the far-right media and publish fake news. It barely
planted a flag on Brazilian soil and already has more than 370,000 followers.
This movement ended up generating reactions at the highest level of government,
according to El País.13 In the information, the first to react was Carlos Bolsonaro,
councilor and son of Bolsonaro, who complained about Banco do Brasil’s decision
to veto ads in Jornal da Cidade Online. The Communication Secretary of the
government, Fábio Wajngarten, said that he would circumvent the situation in
favor of independent vehicles. After these protests, the bank’s marketing sector,
managed by Antônio Hamilton Rossell Mourão, son of Vice President Hamilton
Mourão, lifted the advertising restriction on the website.
through a combination of analysis, advocacy and action. For more information see: https://
freedomhouse.org/.
9
Shahbaz and Funk (2019).
10
Verified. Available at: https://shareverified.com/pt. Accessed on: July 05th, 2020.
11
El País. Published: May 12th, 2020. Available at: https://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2020-05-12/
contra-o-feijao-que-cura-coronavirus-e-outras-mentiras-profissionais-de-saude-cobram-acao-das-
gigantes-da-tecnolo. Accessed on: May 12th, 2020.
12
The Twitter account profile was created on March 18th, 2020 and to date, July 5th, 2020, has
375,900 followers.
13
com-crescimento-recorde-sleeping-giants-irrita-tropa-de-choque-bolsonarista-dentro-e-fora-do-
governo.html#?sma¼n. Accessed on: May 20th, 2020.
Choosing his brother, Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro (no party—SP) was another influ-
ential figure of Bolsonarism to complain about the articulation of the Sleeping Giants in
Brazil. On his YouTube channel, the president’s son expressed concern about what he called
“the left’s newest strategy for destroying conservative blogs.” The news affirms that,
according to him, the movement is a “virtual militia” and “a pre-ordered ideological patrol,”
calling on the business community to “not bow to the politically correct.” The deputy took
the opportunity to publicize two profiles created on Twitter with the objective of opposing
the Sleeping Giants (one of them, however, has already left the air for breaching the rules of
the platform).
In recent news carried by UOL14, Brazil does not adhere to the commitment of
130 countries to fight against fake news, or rather, to establish a commitment not to
spread misinformation—infodemia, in the middle of the pandemic. According to El
País,15 part of the misinformation regarding the new coronavirus and how to prevent
its spread comes directly from Bolsonaro’s mouth through his social networks. The
company that manages Twitter said it was the first time it deleted a post from a
Brazilian president. Deleted publications violated the rules of use by potentially
putting people at greater risk of transmitting coronavirus.16
After Twitter, Facebook, according to published information, also deleted from
their platforms, on March 30th, 2020, a Bolsonaro’s publication that featured a video
of a walk, against the recommendations of social isolation made by WHO to contain
the advance of the pandemic
The President of the Chamber of Deputies, Rodrigo Maia, defended, on July 4th,
2020,17 the need for a legal framework that allows the accountability of internet
platforms and the identification and punishment of those who finance the spread of
fake news, a phenomenon that, in his understanding, has the objective of weakening
democracy by attacking institutions.
In the mapping carried out by Freedom House in Brazil, journalists who wrote
critical stories about Bolsonaro faced threats and harassment. In this sense, the
boycott campaigns reached around 700 artists, journalists, and intellectuals who
expressed opposition to Bolsonaro, their names were distributed in WhatsApp
groups days after the election. Accounts belonging to Bolsonaro’s political move-
ments and critical journalists have also been hacked and some activists have fled the
country due to threats.
14
Uol. Published: June 17th, 2020. Available at: https://noticias.uol.com.br/colunas/jamil-chade/
2020/06/16/brasil-nao-adere-ao-compromisso-de-130-paises-contra-fake-news-na-pandemia.htm.
15
contra-o-feijao-que-cura-coronavirus-e-outras-mentiras-profissionais-de-saude-cobram-acao-das-
gigantes-da-tecnolo. Accessed on: May 12th, 2020.
16
Correio Brazileiense. Published: March 30th, 2020. Available at: https://www.correiobraziliense.
com.br/app/noticia/politica/2020/03/30/interna_politica,841314/depois-do-twitter-facebook-
tambem-apaga-postagem-de-bolsonaro.shtml. Accessed on: March 30th, 2020.
17
Chamber of Deputies. Published: July 4th, 2020. Available at: https://www.camara.leg.br/
noticias/673725-e-preciso-responsabilizar-plataformas-e-financiadores-de-fake-news-diz-maia/.
Accessed on: July 4th, 2020.
5.3 The Polarization of Policy 81
5.3 The Polarization of Policy
The battle between governments and democratic institutions serves as a trigger for
the breakdown of the system’s ruin, since the problems are structural and polycentric
and are already settled in the Brazilian system.18
Polarization is capable of making it possible to close your eyes and cover up the
absurdities that happen, because, otherwise, the enemy would come to power.19
According to Mendonça, many people do not consider themselves to be
Bolsonarists, but ignore the absurdities of the president in relation to gender,
LGBT’s, indigenous people and whatever, because otherwise Lula, the great corrupt,
will return to power—and what will it be from us? He concludes that polarization
gives carte blanche to those in power and results in constraints that, in other
circumstances, would not be admitted. For the author, the polarized world is a
world in which whoever is in power matters much more than in more stable
situations.
Bolsonaro has often been seen in public places in the Federal District without a
mask, especially on weekends, often embracing followers.20 According to the news,
this behavior contradicts a decree of the district government, of April 23rd, which
made the use of facial protection equipment mandatory in all public spaces in the
Federal District. Judge Renato Coelho Borelli, of the 9th Civil Court of the Federal
District, granted an injunction that obliges Bolsonaro to wear a protective mask
against the COVID-19 in all his public appearances.
In the middle of the pandemic, first of all, it is necessary to remove political
polarization, the “political war” between the Union and the States. The Bolsonaro
government clearly treats its rivals as enemies and intimidates them in a formal and
informal way.
The states and municipalities of Brazil, in the absence of an integrated federal
regulation, are establishing their own rules to adopt measures to face the spread of
the new coronavirus at the regional and municipal levels.21
At the epicenter of the crisis, in which life is at risk, and in view of the collapse of
the ways and inputs for the control of the pandemic, the competence for action is
centered on the figure of the head of state—this statement comes from the fact that
the “War” against the “invisible enemy.” The Defense Minister, Fernando Azevedo,
declared, in an official statement made on March 18th, 2020, that “this is a war
against an invisible, ferocious, dedicated enemy.”22
18
19
Mendoça (2020).
20
Conjur (2020).
21
22
Available at: http://g1.globo.com/globo-news/videos/v/ministro-da-defesa-sobre-o-coronavirus-
estamos-em-guerra-contra-um-inimigo-invisivel/8409915/. Accessed on: March 20th, 2020.
For Castelo Branco and Gouvêa,23 it is up to the head of state, in this case, to
reassure the population, to establish metrics and an integration plan for national
control and defense, in addition to opening the dialogue with the governors, who are
at the end of the line. This constitutes, in fact, the exercise of political centralization
in the name of national security and defense, thus acting as a statesman—such as,
among others, French President Emmanuel Macron, determining general strategies
and the use of the army in epidemic’s containment efforts; and Spanish President
Pedro Sánchez, decreeing a general quarantine in the country, since the gradual
containment policies did not prevent the increase in infections and deaths caused by
the virus.24
According to the authors, the chief task of the head of state is to create a national
system and integrate the various state subsystems so that together, coordinated by a
higher authority and with common purposes, they decide on joint actions. For
example, we could mention the concept and application of the National Mobilization
System (SINAMOB) in order to integrate efforts from the Union to combat the
pandemic.25 In this way, the harmful effects of the political conflict between the
Union and States in terms of preventing and combating the New Coronavirus are
reiterated, with Brazilian society as the main victim.26
The current moment demands unity of the country and coordinated, integrated,
and solidary action by all the actors involved—“the effort to contain the accelerated
spread of the global virus cannot admit weaknesses inside or outside the State,
represented by political disagreements and populist speeches.”27
5.4 The Militarization of Politics
The militarization of politics can be produced by transferring functions traditionally

aimed at civilians to the military, but the main distortion is to attribute to the military
the decision-making body of the most relevant political issues for the nation. In this
sense, there is a distortion of the civil–military relationship, a conversion of the
relationship into military–civil, therefore subordination of the civilian to the military,
from the president to the general. The war is no longer the unfolding of politics and
politics is now commanded by the military. It is a condition for the state of exception
to be naturalized at any time.28
23
Castelo Branco (2020).
24
Agência Brasil. Spain decrees quarantine because of coronavirus. Available at: https://
agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/internacional/noticia/2020-03/espanha-decreta-quarentena-por-causa-do-
coronavirus. Accessed on: March 20th, 2020.
25
Guedes (2020).
26
27
28
Castelo Branco and Gouvêa (n.d.).
5.4 The Militarization of Politics 83
According to the authors,29 generals do not talk in the crisis and when submitted
to the State, their relations are vertical, because they are not democratic in their
formation. Militarization derives from military ethos, from a military ideology that
includes the central idea of military expertise, and discipline. When war is no longer
controlled by politics, it can turn to the field of hunting the internal enemy and turn
against the people themselves, as has already happened in the history of Brazil.
For this reason, the guarantor of the democratic system must be subordinated to
civil authority, since there is the presence of a democratic, horizontal, dialectical, and
controlled relationship. The source of legitimacy for the civil authority that submits
military authority is the elections.30
We observe, in contemporary Brazilian politics, a process of inversion of Clau-
sewitzian aphorism, whose realization translates into the militarization of politics:
instead of the war being commanded by politics, politics becomes commanded by
war. Thus, politics become warlike and war loses its instrumental character, so that a
sword is no longer a tool for democratic national defense. The erosion of civilian
control over the military instrument poses a threat to democratization.
The gradual reversal of the democratic balance constituted by the civil–military
relationship through the subordination of civil authority to a military authority tends
to sharpen an aspect of militarism: warmongering.
Despite the semantic breadth of militarism, when the military assumes political
leadership in democracies, there is a primacy of the warlike sense of militarist
ideology. With the inversion, politics becomes commanded by the logic of war,
converting any form of opposition into a faction, opponents into criminals, opposi-
tion parties (to the government) into enemies.
Warlike action reduces the political field on the battlefield in which the force of
authority is replaced by the authority of force, it is no longer agreements, coalitions,
the exchange of interests that dictate democratic political practice, but the imposition
of the will for fear, for the threat of the use of force. In this sense, the war takes the
inner direction, intestinal, ceases to be thought in the light of a strategy of deterrence,
readiness, defense, directed outward, in order to repel external threats. It enters the
field of domestic politics, deepening divergences to the point of replacing demo-
cratic political tension with warlike hostile tension. There are no opponents, oppo-
sition, discussion, persuasion aimed at forming an opinion and the will to have
enemies, belligerence, persecution with the potential for civil war.
Politics subordinated to war, precisely civil authority subordinated to the war-
mongering sense of militarist ideology, makes war a blind act of passion, devoid of a
political objective.31 The trinity of war, composed of the original violence, hatred,
and animosity that Clausewitz endeavored to direct outside the states—and before
him several modern political philosophers—became a guiding ingredient in govern-
ment actions.
29
30
31
Clausewitz (2014, pp. 27, 34).
War, dissociated from its political motive, tends to violence, has the propensity to
become autonomous in a way that stops being an instrument of politics, a means, and
becomes an end in itself. The war, therefore, “[...] always arises from a political
situation and results only from a political reason. War is a political act. However, if it
were a completely autonomous act, a manifestation of absolute violence, as it could
be concluded from its pure concept, war would take the place of politics, from the
moment it was caused by it, it would eliminate it and it would follow its own laws as
an entirely independent thing, such as a projectile which, once launched, can no
longer be directed in other direction than the one that which was imprinted by prior
aim.”32
Research carried out by political scientist Castelo Branco demarcates the milita-
rization of politics in the Bolsonaro government.33 Castelo Branco, who is a scholar
of the relationship between civilians and the military, points out that the participa-
tion of the Armed Forces in a civilian government reached an unprecedented level in
the Bolsonaro administration—and that this divides the military among the opinion
that thinks it is possible to do more for the country from within the government and
the side that senses wear for an institution that has recovered credibility in the last
decades.
Castelo Branco34 also notes a growing involvement of the military in politics—
with more than 900 candidates in 2018. And says that the sending, by the President
of the Republic, of videos alluding to demonstrations against Congress and the
Supreme Court undermines democratic institutions.
The author concludes that the Bolsonaro government is a militarized government.
There are more than 6157 in the first, second, and third stages. It is a number that
has never existed since the military dictatorship. It is a number higher than that
existing in military dictatorship governments.
The proposal of Bolsonaro’s government plan, called “The road to prosperity,”35
established a strong indication toward the militarization of politics. The part of the
plan for national defense and the guarantee of law and order highlighted and praised
points related to:
Among institutions, groups, people or activities, whose image was attacked by left-wing
ideological indoctrination, certainly the Armed Forces of Brazil are among those that
suffered the most. There was a clear intention to deconstruct the image of this Nation’s
backbone, after all, they are the last obstacle to socialism.
It should be noted that the Armed Forces of Brazil have a history that makes us proud.
For example, Brazilian heroes fought against National Socialism in World War II. We were
32
Clausewitz (2014, p. 26).
33
O Globo (2020).
34
Coordinator of the Political Studies Laboratory in Defense and Public Security (LEPDESP), a
kind of think tank, a laboratory focused on strategic discussions of thought and reflection on issues
of social policy, political strategy, military and defense, linked to the State University of Rio de
Janeiro (UERJ).
35
For full access to Jair Messias Bolsonaro’s government proposal, see: https://flaviobolsonaro.
com/PLANO_DE_GOVERNO_JAIR_BOLSONARO_2018.pdf
the only country in Latin America to fight the Nazis. Later, other heroes prevented the
seizure of power by left-wing forces planning a communist coup in Brazil in 1964, according
to the editorial: Julgamento da Revolução—O GLOBO, October 7th, 1984.
Currently, the Nation looks to the Armed Forces as a guarantee against barbarism.
(...) Our Armed Forces need to be prepared, through research and technological devel-
opment, with the participation of military institutions in the scenario of combating all types
of violence.
In addition, in the role of national consolidation, we must remember the participation of
the Armed Forces in the process of health care and education of the population, especially in
remote areas of the country.
The government plan represents a serious distortion of the caput of Article 142 of
the Brazilian Federal Constitution36 that deals with the armed forces. As permanent
and regular institutions with their own principles, they are subject to civil authority
and are intended for the defense of the country, for the guarantee of constitutional
powers, and can only act when provoked. The plan intends to intensify the milita-
rization of the government in order to justify the use of the Armed Forces as a
moderating power, mainly in the fields of public security, health and education, and
with “popular support.” Consequently, it intends to legitimize the populist move-
ment under the supervision of popular sovereignty, which sees the armed forces as “a
guarantee against barbarity.”
Minister Luiz Fux,37 of the Supreme Federal Court, on June 12th, 2020, in Direct
Unconstitutionality Action (ADI) 6,457, partially granted the injunction request
requested by the Democratic Labor Party (PDT) for the Court to give the interpre-
tation as required the Federal Constitution to provisions of laws that deal with the
employment of the Armed Forces, specifically Article 142 of the Federal Constitu-
tion. He highlighted that the Armed Forces’ institutional mission in defending the
country, constitutional powers, and guaranteeing law and order does not accommo-
date the exercise of moderating power between the executive, legislative, and
judicial powers. The leadership of the armed forces is limited in power, excluding
any interpretation that allows its use for undue interference in the independent
functioning of the other powers, relating to the authority over the armed forces,
the material powers attributed by the Constitution to the President of the Republic.
It is worth mentioning that, although subject to civil authority, this prerogative
given by the Constitution to the president of the republic is not absolute. For Minister
Luiz Fux, the use of the armed forces to guarantee law and order is not limited to the
hypotheses of federal intervention, states of defense, and state of emergency, it lends
itself to the exceptional confrontation of a serious and concrete violation of internal
36
Article 142. The Armed Forces, constituted by the Navy, the Army, and the Air Force, are
permanent and regular national institutions, organized based on hierarchy and discipline, under the
supreme authority of the President of the Republic, and are intended to defend the Homeland, the
guarantee of constitutional powers and, on the initiative of any of these, of the law and of the order.
37
STF. Published: June 12th, 2020. Available at: http://www.stf.jus.br/portal/cms/
verNoticiaDetalhe.asp?idConteudo¼445416&caixaBusca¼N. Accessed on: June 12th, 2020.
public security as an alternative after the exhaustion of ordinary and preferential

mechanisms for the preservation of public order. Its performance is collaborative
with state institutions and subject to permanent control of other powers, in accor-
dance with the Constitution and the Law.
The Brazilian Bar Association issued a Legal Opinion38 warning about the
unconstitutionality of the constitutional military intervention proposals, concluding
that the Armed Forces do not exercise the role of Moderating Power. Some signs are
highlighted: the inadequacy of the analogy to the Moderating Power; of the proper
interpretation of Article 142 of the Brazilian Constitution, concluding that the use of
the military apparatus to intervene in the exercise of independence between the
Powers of the Republic is unconstitutional.
Currently, the military occupies more than 36% of the main executive command
posts, controlling 22 ministries, according to Fernando Frazão of Agência Brasil.39
In this sense, the publication, which features an interview with activist Rosa
Cimiana, informs that a brief X-ray of the Bolsonaro administration helps to base
the activist’s concern: only in the ministries, the military represents more than 36%
of the main posts of command, controlling eight of the 22 portfolios.
He also informs that, in addition, they hold strategic positions directly linked to
the Planalto Palace, from whose rooms currently dispatch generals Augusto Heleno
(Institutional Security Office), Walter Souza Braga Neto (Civil House), and Luiz
Eduardo Ramos (Government Secretariat). Major of the Military Police of the
Federal District Jorge Oliveira also joins the account, acting in the General
Secretary of the Presidency of the Republic, as well as the vice-president, Hamilton
Mourão.
In this way, the strong presence of members of the Armed Forces in the govern-
ment is still felt in other areas of management, such as leadership and advisory
positions linked to the Executive Power, which also include some activities with the
Legislative Power.
The report identifies that, in these positions, the Bolsonaro government had, only
in the first 9 months of his mandate, 2500 military personnel, according to a survey
made at that time by the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper, through the Access to
Information Law (LAI).
It also highlights that the Professor of the Federal Institute of Ceará (IFCE), the
historian Airton de Farias, points out that the current configuration is somewhat
different from what happened in the country after the collapse of the military regime,
when the Armed Forces became more overshadowed and isolated from important
38
Opinion in full available at: https://www.conjur.com.br/dl/forcas-armadas-nao-poder-moderador-
oab.pdf. Accessed on: August 30th, 2020.
39
Brasil De Fato. Published: April 1st, 2020. Available at: https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2020/
04/01/em-divida-com-o-passado-militares-ganham-espaco-com-bolsonaro-e-comemoram-
ditadura. Accessed on: April 1st, 2020.
spaces of political decision. In the interval between the end of the dictatorship and
the most recent history of the country, he points out that “very few military
personnel” managed to occupy strategic positions in the Executive, considering
the range of possibilities from state-owned companies to the highest government
level.
The historian and former federal deputy Manuel Domingos Neto was also heard,
who stated that the return of Armed Forces agents to tactical spaces of political
decision also requires more complex angles of analysis, and cannot be reduced to
the weight still given to the plots created by military wing.
But, for Domingos Neto, it is not possible to underestimate the role that has, in
the political scenario, the relationship that the country has with the memory and
crimes committed by the dictatorship.
For Krischke, who is the founder and leader of the Justice and Human Rights
Movement, the oldest organization active in Brazil in this area, other aspects of the
actions of the military that today make decisions between the walls of the Planalto
Palace and the Esplanada dos Ministérios40 also draw attention. He mentions, as an
example, the fact that some interlocutors in the segment are helping to “maintain at
least institutionality” in the midst of the Bolsonaro government, marked by political
chaos and unstable relations with governors, parliamentarians, and other groups.
Krischke mentions as a prominent exponent the advisor of the Institutional
Security Office Eduardo Villas Bôas, who enjoys great influence and prestige
among colleagues in uniform. Commander of the Army between 2015 and 2019,
the general continued to lead the institution even after being affected by a degener-
ative disease that put him in a wheelchair. The activist highlights the fear that was
behind the scenes, especially on the part of the general, with his departure from
office. The threat would lie in the eventual arrival of the power of his two probable
successors to the front line of the Army, who were seen as unpleasant figures in the
democratic regime. Third in line, General Edson Pujol, took office in January 2019,
at the beginning of the Bolsonaro government, after their compulsory retirement.
The current commander is seen as more discreet and moderate.
The report also emphasizes that within this same framework of analysis, Profes-
sor Airton de Farias points out that the military segment does not have a homoge-
neous profile, being marked by political-ideological asymmetries that call attention
throughout the trajectory of the Armed Forces in Brazil.
“They never were and are not the same. In 1964, you had, for example, left-wing
military—some Communists, even—who, of course, will pay a very high price.
Several went to retirement, to reserve, others were arrested, others joined armed
resistance groups, of a nationalist character,” he highlights. The historian also
40
Brasil De Fato. Published: April 1st, 2020. Available at: https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2020/
04/01/em-divida-com-o-passado-militares-ganham-espaco-com-bolsonaro-e-comemoram-
ditadura. Accessed on: April 1st, 2020.
stresses that the differences were also manifested, for example, in the face of the
alliance with foreign capital, vigorously defended by a more liberal side that became
known as the “Sorbonne group” or “castelist,” in reference to the general and
dictator Castelo Branco (1964–1967), enthusiastic of this trend. “And there was
also a harder, more nationalist group, which, although it did not see foreign capital
as an enemy, believed that it would be up to the State to play a decisive role—it was a
very conservative nationalism—to increase prosperity and national sovereignty,”
adds Farias.
This was the trace that seemed to manifest itself, when, for example, in the first
month of the Bolsonaro government, rumors emerged that the country would allow
Americans to install their own military base on Brazilian soil. The cogitation came
10 months before the National Congress approved the controversial Alcântara
Agreement, and the military core of the government dealt with trying to bury the
idea based on the defense of national sovereignty, an element that is generally dear
to the doctrine of the Armed Forces.
Airton de Farias points out that, in general, in his 27-year history as a federal
deputy, Bolsonaro carried that mark, with the manifestation of nationalist positions
at certain times. “If he [the president] is sincere in his liberalism, I don’t know.
Perhaps time will show, but it is certain that Guedes and his liberal measures are
often held back by pressure from Bolsonaro and these military men, let’s say, more
hard-liners, who still have a conception of a State if not totally interventionist, at
least one State that acts in some areas considered strategic for these groups of the
barracks,” concludes Farias.
The newspaper Correio Braziliense published that military personnel impose
hardlines at the Ministry of Health and warn that they will search through servers’
social networks. According to the news, the Ministry of Health sent an e-mail with
“Ethics tips” to all servers that must be followed on social networks. In one of the
points, the ministry makes it clear that it will start monitoring everything that is
published. “Anyone who sees your profile or posts on social networks, whether on
WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and others, is also seeing comments, photos and
information from a public agent. Social networks are very useful and practical
tools, but they must be used carefully.”
In another point, the message says that professional advancement can be defined
according to what is disclosed in social networks: “The public function is integrated
into the private life of each public servant and, therefore, the facts verified in the
conduct of the daily routine in their private life may increase or decrease their good
concept in functional life.” More: “Dignity, decorum, zeal, effectiveness and aware-
ness of moral principles are greater primacy that should guide the public servant,
whether in the exercise of their position or function, or outside of it.”
The report also highlights that civil servants also complain about the censorship
of health care data for women. Two ministry officials were dismissed for dealing
with abortion cases provided for by law, which, necessarily, should be included in
the folder document on the subject. Not only: information about the health of blacks
was taken down. The number of military personnel in the civilian positions of the
Bolsonaro government will be determined by the Federal Court of Accounts.41, 42
The TCU plenary unanimously approved a proposal to survey the number of
active and reserve soldiers occupying civilian positions in President Jair Bolsonaro’s
government. According to the report, Minister Bruno Dantas, in proposing the
survey, pointed out that the allusions to a possible excessive militarization of the
civil public service have recently been constant. His Excellency quoted a statement
on Monday, 15, by Minister Luís Roberto Barroso, in an interview on the Roda Viva
program, which highlighted the risks of militarization of the government’s civil
sectors. The news highlights that the tangent object had already been mentioned in
a recent procedure judged in the TCU (000.690/2020-1),43 “because there was an
initial attempt by the government to direct all temporary hiring to inactive military
personnel, which ended up reversing in the face of quick action by this Court,
provoked by the Public Prosecutor’s Office.” Minister Bruno Dantas, stated that
“in this context, I consider important that society knows exactly how many military,
41
According to the Federal Constitution of Brazil, in its Article 71, the Federal Court of Accounts is
an external control body, in charge of the National Congress, which has the following powers: to
assess the accounts rendered annually by the President of the Republic upon opinion that must be
prepared within 60 days of receipt; judge the accounts of the administrators and other persons
responsible for public money, assets, and values from direct and indirect administration, including
foundations and companies instituted and maintained by the Federal Government, and the accounts
of those who cause the loss, misplacement or other irregularity of which results in damage to the
public purse; to assess, for the purposes of registration, the legality of the acts of admission of
personnel, in any capacity, in the direct and indirect administration, including the foundations
instituted and maintained by the Public Power, except for appointments to the position of filling in
commission, as well as that of the retirement, change and pension concessions, except for subse-
quent improvements that do not alter the legal basis of the concession act; carry out, on its own
initiative, the Chamber of Deputies, the Federal Senate, technical or inquiry commission, inspec-
tions and audits of an accounting, financial, budgetary, operational, and patrimonial nature, in the
administrative units of the Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary branches, and others entities
referred to in item II; to supervise the national accounts of supranational companies with share
capital participation by the Union participates, directly or indirectly, under the terms of the
constitutive treaty; inspect the application of any funds transferred by the Union through an
agreement, covenant, adjustment or other similar instrument, to the State, the Federal District or
the Municipality; provide the information requested by the National Congress, by any of its Houses,
or by any of the respective Commissions, on accounting, financial, budgetary, operational, and
patrimonial inspection and on the results of audits and inspections carried out; apply to those
responsible, in the event of illegality of expenditure or irregularity of accounts, the sanctions
provided for by law, which will establish, among other commissions, a fine proportional to the
damage caused to the treasury; sign a deadline for the agency or entity to adopt the necessary
measures for the exact fulfillment of the law, if illegality is verified; suspend, if not met, the
execution of the contested act, communicating the decision to the Chamber of Deputies and the
Federal Senate; represent the competent authority about irregularities or abuses found.
42
Migalhas. Published: June 17th, 2020c. Available at: https://www.migalhas.com.br/quentes/
329164/tcu-vai-apurar-numero-de-militares-nos-cargos-civis-do-governo-bolsonaro?
U¼2017B8D3_573&utm_source¼informativo&utm_medium¼1126&utm_campaign¼1126.
43
Court Union Accounts (2020).
active and inactive, currently occupy civilian positions, given the risks of distortion
of the armed forces that this may represent, considering their institutional role and
the differences between the military and civilian regimes.”
Militarization of education. Militarization of schools and narrative of the quality
of education was the theme of the article published by Luis Ricardo.44 The report
highlights the research carried out by Daniel Calbino Pinheiro, Rafael Diogo
Pereira, and Geruza de Fátima Tome Sabino,45 with the theme “Militarization of
schools and the narrative of the quality of education.” The militarization of schools
in the current government is based on Decree No. 9,665, of January 2nd, 2019, and
on the document launched on July 11th, 2019 called “National Commitment for
Basic Education,” which proposes: “The creation of military schools traditional” in
all states, managed by the federal sphere (navy, army, and aeronautics); and the
expansion of shared management between civil and military society, from civic–
military schools, to states and municipalities. The expression “civic-military,”
coined and disseminated by the federal government, is open to questioning. From
the discursive point of view, the approximation between the terms civic and military
suggests a harmonious approach or, perhaps, a balance between these two dimen-
sions in the context of the school. However, as we will see in the course of this
chapter, the transposition of schools to the “civic-military” model has, among other
factors, direct impacts on the autonomy of the faculty and the restriction of funda-
mental freedoms of students. The research concludes with some indicators: the
militarization of public schools has been marked by: (i) greater resources for federal
military schools, (ii) voluntary charging strategies in militarized schools; (iii)
reservation of vacancies for military dependents; (iv) greater access to students
with a high socioeconomic profile. Based on such singularities, it can be deduced
that making political decisions about the budget and changes in the selection
process can increase the quality of other schools, without any need to transform
public schools into militarized schools.
Another factor to be considered is that militarized schools, when adopting
vacancy reservations, select their audience, an action that boosts quantitative
advantages in the pedagogical evaluation processes and in the quality indicators.
However, this reveals a mechanism for the reproduction of inequalities, since the
other public schools receive all social segments in a political context of subsequent
reductions in public investments. Furthermore, under the pretext of increasing the
quality of education, militarization is not only distanced from democratic school
management, but points to inconsistencies in the light of the 1988 Federal Consti-
tution, the Statute of Children and Adolescents (ECA) and the Law of Guidelines and
Bases of Education (LDB 9.394/1996), by allowing the insertion of military teachers
without competitions and graduation in the area, as well as adopting military norms
and rules that violate or restrict the students’ privacy and intimacy.
44
Ricardo (2020).
45
Pinheiro et al. (2019).
It is clear that Jair Messias Bolsonaro uses democracy itself to subvert it. In many
cases, subtly, incrementally, and slowly. Democracy slowly weakens, with small
deviations, usurpation of power, with institutional failures, which often cannot be
perceived.46
Recently appointed, Bolsonaro, in a message sent to Congress in 2019,47 reveals
his plan to militarize politics by promising to conduct a war against internal enemies
that through “a cultural and political operation destined to destroy the most simple
and solidary essence of our people, represented in the values of Judeo-Christian
civilization.” The warlike message of the President, in the midst of a democratic
liturgy to open up the Government’s relationship with Parliament, treats his political
opponents as enemies and condemns them for having conducted a deleterious
process against the essence of the Brazilian people who “began by cultural domina-
tion in the spaces of training and information and went through the occupation of
power in public structures and institutions and, finally, came to the Government
itself.”48
The Bolsonaro government’s message to Congress corresponds to a paradigm
shift in relation to previous newly elected governments, since the
re-democratization. While messages from previous governments translated into
words of hope and unity, the president’s statement is a continuation of his bellicose
stance during the criminalization of political elections in order to justify militariza-
tion through its initial stage of transferring political office to military
The Bolsonaro Government’s warlike declaration on crime and opponents is clear
when it states that: “This is over! The Brazilian Government declares war on
organized crime. Moral war, legal war, combat war.”49 The Government’s perma-
nently belligerent attitude, coupled with a large number of military personnel
occupying traditionally civilian positions, jeopardizes democracy and institutional
confidence. Deviating the Armed Forces from their primary purpose of defending
the country makes the country vulnerable to external tensions. Trying to attract the
Armed Forces to a war against organized crime, against morality, employ them in a
legal war, which reduces the government to an agent of polarization and the military
to a partial force contrary to Brazilian democracy.
For Ferraz, in a year of government it is clear to perceive the populist movement
from continuous attacks on the press, denial of accountability, manipulation of who
will be at the head of the Federal Police, attacks on minority groups by the president,
and several government ministers. Thus, the National Congress is not able to control
the entire authoritarian advance. Even when Brazilian democracy will sustain these
attacks, is it not in danger or likely to suffer something more drastic?
46
Mendoça (2020).
47
Brazil (2019).
48
Brazil (2019, p. 8).
49
Brazil (2019, p. 8).
Following the same route as Ferraz,50 in the first year the government developed a
tripartite form of authoritarian legality by overproducing provisional measures or
decrees that openly violated the rules of the legislation (citing Decree 9,78551, which
released the possession of weapons for a series of categories of workers, subse-
quently revoked by Decree 9,847, of June 25th, 201952); for emptying control and
inspection institutions in the architecture of the executive power; and for allowing
and encouraging the violation of the democratic ethos, stigmatizing minority groups
such as indigenous communities and social activists identified with the left. Mendes
points out that the judiciary and the legislature were obliged to control the extraor-
dinary amounts of executive measures, which ended up generating fatigue of legality
and institutional stress.
According to Finchelstein,53 from the democracy point of view, the assessment
could not be more negative. Bolsonaro, within what is the history of populism, is one
of the most extreme populists that exists. And the closest to fascism. He is a person
who has been degrading democracy in various ways, demonizing the opposition, the
press. For the author, the question goes beyond adjectives. There is an ideology
behind its vulgarity that, at one point, distances itself from populism and approaches
fascism.
According to the author,54 we cannot say that, at this moment, there is a fascist
government in Brazil because, mainly thanks to civil society and the press,
Bolsonaro has not managed to destroy democracy as he would like and as he has
already expressed at different times. But Bolsonaro’s story is the story of a ruler who
tries to destroy this civil and democratic society. It depends on the Brazilians that he
does not succeed.
Constitutions alone are not able to protect, save democracy. The enactment of the
state of exception represents a sovereign political force that manifests itself in the
political field to varying degrees, and may establish a new force and form of exercise
of power by the populist or populist authoritarian leader.
The government has already made decisions, announced policies, and used
rhetoric that is highly damaging to human rights and to the main institutions that
can and should protect those rights.55 For Levine, the president: denounced the press
50
Mendes (2020).
51
Presidency of the Republic. General Secretary. Deputy Director for Legal Affairs. Available at:
http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2019-2022/2019/Decreto/D9785.htm. Accessed on:
August 30th, 2019.
52
Presidency of the Republic. General Secretary. Deputy Director for Legal Affairs. Available at:
http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2019-2022/2019/Decreto/D9847.htm#art60. Accessed
on: August 30th, 2019.
53
Betim (2020).
54
Federico Finchelstein is a historian and author of the works “Do fascismo ao populismo na
história” and “As origens ideológicas da guerra suja”. For more information consult: https://www.
almedina.com.br/9788562938283 e https://www.amazon.com.br/Ideological-Origins-Dirty-War-
Dictatorship-ebook/dp/B00IS5Q8JG
55
Levine (2019).
as an “enemy of the people” and announced measures to “supervise” NGOs; used the
important strategy of autocratic populists, which is the manipulation of language and
the representation of human rights as incompatible with broader social and moral
imperatives.
Since March 2020, Bolsonaro has become the target of at least 16 impeachment
requests, this number is equivalent to 69% of all complaints forwarded to the
Chamber of Deputies.56 Among them are: participation in antidemocratic demon-
strations; crime of responsibility against the free exercise of the powers and consti-
tutional powers of the states; crime of responsibility against the free exercise of
individual and sociopolitical rights; serious violation of the republican principle and
the constitutional mandate of impersonality in public administration; crime against
administrative probity; crime against the country’s internal security, due to his stance
in handling the crisis caused by the new coronavirus; for reckless, irresponsible, and
antagonistic pronouncements; the posture of a “substantially detrimental to the well-
being and protection of life and health of Brazilian men and women, in repeated
dangerous disregard for the seriousness of the health emergency decreed by the
federal government itself”; for disrespecting the rules of social distance and health
security measures. However, Mendes57 admits that removing a president in the
middle of such a serious health emergency is almost unthinkable in a democracy,
as it violates any common sense of political prudence.
Brazil, since the 2018 elections, has been constantly featured in the media around
the world. The highlights are centered on the public health crisis resulting from the
COVID-19, which has already killed more than 60,000 Brazilians,58 and on the
militarization of politics.59 Instead of exaggerating the concentration of power to
face the pandemic, Bolsonaro’s option was to follow an obscurantist policy and open
denial of the harmful effects of the pandemic. This open tension politicized the
pandemic and caused interinstitutional conflicts horizontally60—due to the lack of
respect for science and research, but also, the attempt to evade any responsibility by
blaming States and Municipalities, which ended up naturalizing the pandemic. For
Mendes, this has serious consequences for the management of public policy and
social behavior.
Benvindo61 warns that the current sequence of events in Brazil is nothing less
than frightening, because these movements are radical not only in gravity and
importance, but also in their rhythm. As a political community, we ask whether
56
O Globo. Published: May 21st, 2020. Available at: https://oglobo.globo.com/brasil/novo-pedido-
de-impeachment-contra-bolsonaro-apresentado-camara-dos-deputados-24439381. Accessed on:
May 21st, 2020.
57
Mendes (2020).
58
The data obtained were extracted on June 1st, 2020 on the official website of the Ministry of
Health, Available at: https://covid.saude.gov.br/
59
See: Benvindo (2020) and Mounk (2020).
60
Mendes (2020).
61
Benvindo (2020).
and how we will remain free and democratic.62 For Mendes,63 Brazil under
Bolsonaro’s government mocks at the magnitude of the disease, invests in disinfor-
mation campaigns, or stimulates institutional and social stress, ensuring the worst
public health scenario.
COVID-19 ended up showing the tragedy catalyzed by the federal government
and its effects in the short, medium, and long terms. Bolsonaro mismanaged federal
support for states and municipalities while directly and indirectly harming his
actions to contain, control, and treat the pandemic. This new situation, for Mendes,64
ended up changing the opportunity structure for the concentration of power, because,
instead of weakening institutions of control piece by piece, as determined by the
contemporary autocrat’s primer, the context of the pandemic galvanized more
extreme political conflicts.
In this sense, for Benvindo,65 it was also exposed the weakness of a government
whose continuous threats to democracy seem increasingly desperate boastings,
which ended up accelerating its authoritarian impulses. Another warning invoked
by the author is that, although the incremental degradation of democratic structures
is clear (which includes antidemocratic behavior and the deep lack of apathy for
victims of the COVID-19), it still has the support of a third of Brazilians. According
to him, there is no denying regarding the growing disapproval of the government by
44%66 and 49%67 of Brazilians who reject the performance in the coronavirus crisis,
and invites us to try to understand how and why. One of the ways observed by
Benvindo is that, in Brazil and elsewhere, the typical standards for assessing popular
behavioral dynamics in democracies are under supervision.
“Polarization clouds our perceptions.” This is the sentence that starts Levitsky’s
text,68 which points to three myths: “he will not do what he says”; “He is too
incompetent to threaten democracy”; and finally, “we are able to control it.”
The argument “he won’t do what he says” is a serious mistake. Authoritarian
candidates become authoritarian leaders. Words, in general, become acts and this is
especially true of populists like Bolsonaro.69
The second myth “he is too incompetent to threaten democracy” is equally false
for the author. In his analysis, even seemingly weak and inexperienced politicians
from outside the system are capable of destroying democracy. Which means that in a
62
Mendes (2020).
63
Mendes (2020).
64
Mendes (2020).
65
Benvindo (2020).
66
Research carried out by Data Folha Research Institute. Available at: http://datafolha.folha.uol.
com.br/opiniaopublica/avaliacaodegoverno/presidente/jairbolsonaro/indice-1.shtml. Accessed on:
June 1st, 2020.
67
Data Folha Instituto De Pesquisas (2020).
68
Levitsky (2018).
69
Levitsky (2018).
References 95
crisis, when public discontent is growing, there is no need for talent, experience, or a
coherent plan to subvert democracy. Just a little demagogy.
And finally, the third myth “finally, we are able to control it,” for Levitsky, is the
most dangerous of all. His research shows that the politicians who helped bring
Mussolini, Hitler, Perón, Chávez, and Erdogan to power had one thing in common:
they all underestimated their authoritarian allies. They believed, incorrectly, that
they would be able to control them.
Levitsky concludes that supporting an authoritarian candidate is a dangerous
game that rarely ends well. For the author, Milan Svolik’s70 researches have
shown that, under conditions of polarization such as those prevailing in Brazil
today, people despise their ideological rivals to the point that they are willing to
tolerate authoritarianism on their side. That is how democracies die.
The analytical events described in the chapter demonstrate that this is the recipe
for the path of an authoritarian political regime already perceived by contextual
analyzes of its own, as if there were already a recipe for what twenty-first-century
autocrats and populists must do to achieve their goals.71 According to Benvindo,
step by step there is the degradation of democracy until there is no way back. A
second term would be fatal.
Brazil has a populist and authoritarian president, and, at this moment, the formal
and informal democratic institutions must be present. The systems of checks and
balances are capable of restricting and constraining the movement of the populist
leader. The backlash effect, arising from both formal and informal institutions to
governmental actions composes the current scenario in Brazil, representing the
active and boiling exercise of Brazilian democracy, which has acted in a way to
prevent the legitimation of the populist Bolsonarist movement.
In this sense, the movement’s strength has brought together institutions, civil
society, nongovernmental organizations, political parties to incorporate diffuse
manifestations of popular power in the name of democratic and constitutional
values.
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Chapter 6
Structural Political and Legal Approaches
in Opposition to Populist Governance
All forms of government tend to corruption, because government is exercised by

imperfect men who have not achieved the contemplation of the good and this will
reflect on the system that he will govern—and, therefore, he is destined to degener-
ate. Plato, in Book VIII of Republic,1 describes that the production and intensifica-
tion of economic inequality originates a mass of poor people prevented from
participating in the government, which creates conditions for the decadence of the
oligarchic government. From deep inequality, which causes the poor to take power
for themselves, democracy emerges.
It is observed, then, the transfer of power from the hands of an oligarchic minority
to a large number of excluded individuals who are also represented by a minority.
Men start to have the right to participate in government actions in democracy.
However, for Plato, this new regime, because it is not based on the contemplation
of the good, but on the will of the majority, will also be subject to corruption.
Everyone’s participation in the construction of laws does not guarantee that it will
be fair. The condition for turning it fair is to contemplate the idea of good, of the
common good. This condition must be preceded by a long process of search and
learning, politicization, and education, otherwise, we will be giving a multitude of
ignoramuses the power to decide—and a succession of mistakes will result in
democratic rules.
In this cadence of meanings of Plato, the rules, when confronted with the
exacerbated love for mass freedom, can dissolve the relationship of command and
obedience sculpted by democracy and lead to social disorder. From this disorder
comes another type of government: tyranny. In this context, there is the figure of the
demagogue who travels cities gathering crowds, gathering beautiful, grandiloquent
and persuasive voices, and who presents himself as a protector of the people against
the threat of the seizure of power by the minority.
1
Plato (2010).

100 6 Structural Political and Legal Approaches in Opposition to Populist Governance
The mass, co-opted by the charismatic figure, adheres to it in the perspective of

restoring order. When the demagogue is strengthened, it is revealed who he is: a
tyrant. When tyranny originates, it is from the seed of this protector, and not from
another, that it germinates.
According to Plato,2 when they reach this point, everyone finds the solution to the
tyrant’s famous request to ask the people for bodyguards, better, his army, in order to
keep himself safe and continue his defense movement on behalf of the masses. And
if the tyrant suspects that some of the crowd will stimulate thoughts of freedom that
may lead them away from obedience, he will polarize the speech and turn them over
to enemies. For all these reasons, a tyrant is always in need of waging wars.
Each form of government, in the analytical context of Montesquieu,3 has an
essential principiological nucleus, such as the republic in virtue and the despotism in
fear. Considering that certain governance behaviors are inherently bad, such as
despotism, slavery, intolerance, their definitions end up revealing that this essential
core does not depend on the location of political power, but on the way the
government conducts politics, involving an own historical and cultural approach
and nondescriptive restrictive.
In the past two centuries, all eras have had their main form of anti-liberalism.4 As
an example, in the nineteenth century, there was the alliance of conservative
monarchies with the Catholic Church and, in the twentieth century, the rise of fascist
political regimes. For Galston, the biggest challenge to liberal democracy is not only
in internal subversions, but comes from popular discontent. Populism represents, for
Galston, a distinctive brand of politics: the uprising of the common people against
those whom they consider having excessive political, economic and cultural powers.
They end up drawing lines that provoke the conflict even more and this operates
across different dimensions. Societies that combine their people’s ability to respond
to their will with robust protections for individuals and minority groups are better
able to find a flexible and sustainable balance for democratic liberal competitors,
because history offers no guarantees, but challenges. Among them, the corruption of
politics through governance.
For Soler,5 we are facing a world disoriented by the lack of solid references.
Democratic institutions have failed or shown themselves unable to channel the
frustrations of the population, to alleviate their fears and to promote hopes, causing
perplexities and the inability to make decisions in time to reduce complexities.
It is an unequal world in more than one way. We are talking about inequality
between countries and, above all, within each of the societies; economic inequality;
gender, where awareness levels are increasing, even though progress is too slow and
is in the hands of regressive political or social forces. We also talking about territorial
2
Plato (2010).
3
Baron De Montesquieu (1817).
4
Galston (2020, p. 10).
5
Soler (2019).
6 Structural Political and Legal Approaches in Opposition to Populist Governance 101
inequality, which represents the coexistence of multiple nations and, finally, gener-
ational, material, and expectations inequality.
As a result of these inequalities, as well as the acceleration in the technological
field, we are experiencing an out of sync world. In other words, it advances at very
different rates. There is global and social desynchronization, so we are facing the
challenge of dealing with a new form of inequality, especially after the COVID-19
pandemic.
According to Soler, the second half of 2019 has been especially intense with
regard to the protests6 and, with COVID-19, they have become even stronger and
global, speaking out against government responses to the ongoing pandemic. In fact,
the ability to express disagreement is considered vital to keep a democracy working.7
According to O’Sullivan, it was recognized in Australia in jurisprudence on the
constitutional implicit freedom of political communication, which linked the protest
to maintaining a representative and accountable government. Such as, for example,
in April 2020, when activists organized a car convoy protest in Melbourne to
highlight the situation of refugees in detention and who face an increased risk of
COVID-19 infection due to overcrowding conditions; the protests around the world
that support the “Black lives matter” movement, carried out in the cities of London,
Berlin and Paris, in Europe, in Brisbane, Australia, in Seoul, in South Korea, in
Tokyo, in Japan, in the cities Minneapolis and New York, in the United States for the
end of police brutality. The simultaneous and global acts highlight the growing
dissatisfaction with the police treatment of minorities, whose trigger was the assas-
sination of George Floyd, in Minneapolis, on May 25, 2020.8
The research presented by Soler shows that the movements reproduce learning
that will be intensified in the next decade. The frustrations and anger of the popular
masses are shared, as well as the challenge of democratic institutions to channel them
in order to prevent it from overflowing in the form of violence.
From this point comes another aggravating factor: the political opposition forces
have a clear representativeness issue. For Müller,9 populism is the permanent
shadow of representative politics; however, the populist, even when coming to
power through free elections, is not legitimate to transform the political system to
his own advantage, since populist movements tend to dominate public spaces, use
clientelism, mass corruption, the suppression of any mechanism that might prevent
the development of a critical civil society.
Populism must, therefore, to force defenders of liberal democracy to reflect on
structural and current failures in political representation. It should encourage them to
think about how to deal with the concerns of populist voters, understood as free and
equal citizens, motivated by frustration, anger, and resentment; and prevent the
legitimation of populist governance.
6
Already mentioned with more specifics in previous chapters.
7
O’Sullivan (2020).
8
O’Sullivan (2020).
9
Müller (2017, p. 24).
Populist governance, for Issacharoff,10 represents a form of corruption of demo-

cratic governance by populist action that reflects the distortion of popular sover-
eignty itself. The populist intends, through short-term political actions, immediately
and without concern for the future, to reward and favor a clientelist universe that is
also manifested by the inaction of the executive.11 As an example, the environmental
policies that Bolsonaro has been adopting pose a serious risk to global efforts to
mitigate climate change. In recent years, deforestation in the Amazon has increased
exponentially: from less than 1765 square miles, in 2012, it rose to 3911 square
miles, between July 2018 to June 2019.12 For Nunes, the increase in deforestation is
linked to a series of policies that cut funds for environmental application with a
reduction in protected areas and environmental conservation requirements.13
In his opinion,14 some actions are materialized, such as: he will try to infer and
frustrate the institutional divisions, forcing unilateral decisions in which the benefits
will go to his parties and his supporters and the charges to the opponents; promises of
public policies without any sustainable economic foundation; etc.
Among the variable properties of populisms, the routine of the charism is
enhanced in this field, in which affective devotion goes beyond the figure of the
charismatic subject and is praised for its extraordinary capacities for the realization
of the common good through clientelist and segregationist policies capable of
promote, within the mass, devotion to their transformative practices.
In Brazil, Bolsonaro sanctioned emergency aid, a financial benefit granted by the
Federal Government to informal workers, individual micro-entrepreneurs, self-
employed, and unemployed, whose purpose is to provide emergency protection in
the period of confronting the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, with vetoes
for the protection of indigenous people15 and priority for women heads of families.16
The routinization of the charism increases its popularity, especially considering the
elections, with the creation of new programs for the transfer of segregationist and
clientelist income. Voters of the so-called populist bubble benefit from it.
Populist governance is not aspirational, that is, it is not intended to be an active
instrument of political and social change. For some theorists,17 in order to fulfill this
ambition, boldness must insinuate itself in the institutional design. The basic condi-
tions for social progress and institutional stability must be guaranteed, because the
populist seeks the factual and not just legal effectiveness of his movements.18 In this
10
Issacharoff (2020).
11
Pozen and Scheppele (2020, pp. 1–18, 2).
12
Nunes (2020)
13
Nunes (2020).
14
Issacharoff (2020).
15
G1. Política (2020).
16
G1. Política (2020).
17
See: Scheppele (2003), Villegas (2012), and Botelho (2017).
18
Villegas (2012, pp. 89–90).
sense, Botelho19 mentions constitutional texts that emerged from authoritarian or

totalitarian regimes such as Portuguese, Spanish, and Colombian.
In 2020, the Americas Society Council of the Americas20 released a report that
informs the countries’ ability to discover, punish and prevent corruption in 15 Latin
American countries, including Brazil. The report analyzes 14 key variables, which
include the independence of judicial institutions, the strength of investigative jour-
nalism and the level of resources available to fight white-collar crime. These vari-
ables are subdivided into subcategories that include: legal capacity, democracy and
political institutions, civil society, the media, and the private sector. The variables of
the subcategories are classified as follows: (1) legal capacity: judicial independence
and efficiency, independent anti-corruption agencies and efficiency, access to public
information and government transparency, independence from the Public Ministry
and its investigators, resources and technical knowledge available for combat white-
collar crimes, quality of leniency agreements, level of international cooperation in
law enforcement; (2) democracy and political institutions: quality and applicability
of legislation in financing election campaigns, legislative and arbitration processes,
general quality of democracy; (3) civil society, media and the private sector:
mobilization of civil society against corruption, investment in education, quality of
the press and investigative journalism, communications, and social media.
The survey indicates that Brazil, between 2019 and 2020, had a 10% decline in
the overall score, mainly due to setbacks such as, for example, in the subcategory
legal capacity, which decreased 14% compared to the previous year. The research
shows that some Bolsonaro movements justify the decline, such as breaking the
tradition of appointing the genera attorney, by choosing a prosecutor “in line” with
his ideologies, attempting to infer the functioning of the federal police, etc. These
movements occurred while members of the Bolsonaro family are under investigation
for money laundering, corruption and other crimes. The research concludes by
addressing three critical issues that must be monitored: political volatility, the
independence of the Federal Public Ministry and the Federal Police and the appoint-
ment of judges to the Supreme Federal Court.
The Bolsonaro family’s investigation process will increase political volatility and
failures in investigations may reinforce perceptions that law enforcement was
politically selective; the independence of the Federal Public Ministry and the Federal
Police under Bolsonaro’s administration constitutes a critical issue for Brazilian
democracy as it invests in leadership changes to solidify its power, however, most
of these employees are resisting to direct interference. Bolsonaro will appoint at least
two judges to the Supreme Court and the selection of political figures strictly aligned
with his ideology will raise a new alert for the issue of judicial Independence.
If populism challenges public law, it is necessary to revisit and rethink institu-
tional designs to respond to populism from a structural point of view. According to
19
Botelho (2017, pp. 62–64).
20
Simon and Aalbers (2020).
Alterio,21 to resist populism, public law must take into account the lack of respon-
siveness and responsibility of representative systems and bet on strong systems of
participatory mechanisms to hinder the incorporation of populist movements.
Different contexts and conditions give rise to innumerable demands that the
political parties fail to incorporate, in order to provoke antiestablishment feelings
in the political space. Thus, discussing the roles of participatory systems and the
interfaces between political representatives and the people must be a task that is
allocated as an element of special importance in the context of the populist
movement.
Deliberative democracy encourages and facilitates the exercise of contestation
that emphasizes the plurality of voices.22 Doyle and Walsh suggest that people’s
participation and inclusion in the decision-making process has the potential to
undermine the credibility of populists’ claims to speak on behalf of the entire people.
As an example, the recent integration, via constitutional amendment, of deliberative
mini-publics in Ireland. The deliberative mini-publics consist of selecting citizens at
random who analyze and discuss political issues with the benefit of information from
experts and academics, issuing recommendations.23
Deliberative mini-publics, as a tool to contain populist governance, are an open
and under construction process and can highlight contradictory meanings regarding
their real effectiveness, such as: the duality between citizen participation and polit-
ical convenience; integration and cooperation between deliberative and representa-
tive democracy in the field of institutional design; balanced information on political
and social aspects and not rhetorical and superficial; stage to serve as a source for the
factory of populist rhetoric.24
The research carried by Doyle and Walsh concludes that the deliberative mini-
publics experiment may have strengthened Ireland’s constitutional culture by
reinforcing anti-populist characteristics. Richards Jr25 identifies, among its func-
tions, an important depolarization in authoritarian contexts, because they can encour-
age reflections, decision-making from a plural view and empathy when transmitting
an egalitarian view of the political community that contrasts with the hierarchical
view of politics transmitted by authoritarian political frames. The author describes
the capacity of mini-publics to empower individuals and minority groups, and a new
political organization may arise with the capacity to assess the quality of decisions
produced by the authoritarian leader and by deliberative mini-publics.
Populists, in general, usually use plebiscites and referendums with a certain
frequency to mobilize the popular mass. As an intuitive answer, hampering such
participation systems by coupling new interfaces can help prevent system erosion.
21
Alterio (2019, p. 270).
22
Doyle and Walsh (2020, p. 1).
23
For more information, see: Doyle and Walsh (2020) and Richards (2018).
24
Doyle and Walsh (2020).
25
Richards (2018).
To consolidate this form of corruption in democratic governance, a mechanism

widely used by populists is the doctrines of “unconstitutional constitutional amend-
ment, constitutional interpretation and constitutional substitution.” 26 For Landau,27
they are part of the toolkit of abusive constitutional regimes, especially when used by
authoritarian agents to reshape the process according to their interests, which is also
characterized as a way of corruption in democratic governance.
A series of recent incidents in a diverse group of countries, such as Hungary,
Egypt, and Venezuela, have shown that tools of substitution and constitutional
amendment can be used with the potential to undermine democracy and with relative
ease.28 According to Scheppele,29 who refers us to what she calls “autocratic
legalism,”30 the leader promises to sweep away the dysfunctions of partisanship,
corruption, bureaucracy and begins a constitutional revolution. He is betting on
declining public confidence in political institutions, which is particularly pro-
nounced in flagellated nations.
The thesis formulated by Issacharoff31 and Müller,32 in which the populist
corrupts his own popular sovereignty by writing party or exclusive constitutions,
can be observed in Venezuela of Hugo Chávez, who assumed the presidency of the
country in 1988 with 56% of the valid votes.
Chávez was a populist leader who, according to the Weberian typification, could
correspond to the bearer of charismatic gifts, a kind of messiah who establishes
direct contact with the masses without the mediation of parties or other organiza-
tions.33 He comes to power, also, because he was the best interpreter of the popular
desire for change in relation to the traditional political class, which, necessarily, does
not mean a desire for a deep rupture, since he does not have to represent any deep
feeling of the collective soul, but simply to interpret the feeling of discontent with the
elites that sentimentally appeared on some people.
For Villa,34 without minimizing the importance of his populist endowments,
another reason that leads Chávez to power was the special ability to transform an
act of force (the attempted coup in 1992) into a heroic act, exploring it symbolically
26
See: Albert (2018), Roznai and Kreuz (2018), Barak (2011), Roznai (2013, 2017), and
Bernal (2013).
27
Landau (2013).
28
DEM-DEC. Democratic Decay & Renewal Bringing Democracy Defenders Together. Index.
Abusive constitutionalism. Available at: https://www.democratic-decay.org/index#anchor-link-
abusive-constitutionalism. Accessed on: December 24th, 2018.
29
Scheppele (2018, p. 545).
30
According to the author, this term was used by Corrales (2015). The author ends up expanding the
dimension of the term, since she also uses it not only to describe that the new autocrats use
constitutional rules to consolidate their power, but also emphasizes the deliberate creation of new
rules to consolidate their dominance in political power.
31
Issacharoff (2020).
32
Müller (2017).
33
Villa (2000, p. 141).
34
Villa (2000, p. 142).
as a feat in sacrifice of the masses of the excluded. For Villa, Chávez is not a
basically unpredictable leadership, as is the case with traditional populist and
charismatic leadership, as some of the ideas such as the constituent and plebiscitary
democracy were already mature. In this sense, Chavism cannot be considered as a
movement that sustains itself based on a political outsider that generates the political
fact ipso facto often.35 The political power, through which Hugo Chávez ascended in
1998, can be summed up in two points: undermining the foundations of traditional
political parties and calling on a constituent to draft a new Constitution to replace the
1961 one.
The instrument of this refoundation—the “constitutional substitution”—should
guide its action in relation to the two main guidelines.36 On the one hand, rethinking
state powers by drawing up a new Constitution that would be, for emerging political
actors, a cultural symbol of the new political beginning; and, on the other, to initiate
the great objective of destroying the elite pact through a direct political attack on
institutions, such as traditional parties, Congress and the Judiciary, as well as to
reformulate the role of the Armed Forces and to incorporate new political actors in
conducting the State, thereby creating institutional conditions for the circulation of
its new elites.
At the beginning of the second half of 1999, the Constituent Assembly had
already been summoned and, 6 months later, the Constitution had already been
endorsed in popular consultation.37 In addition to the electoral results that largely
favored Chavism, the developments that led to the Constituent Assembly may be
subject to some readings.
According to Villa, the constituent process allowed the country to become a
political laboratory from which popular consultation or plebiscitary democracy came
to be used as an almost routine mechanism. In less than a year, three referenda were
held and the Constitution ended up establishing a wide range of matters that should
be submitted to the popular plebiscite. There is no doubt that these structural
measures represented an expression of popular democracy. On the other hand, the
impression that the so-called refoundation of the State is made through a collective
effort is guided by the figure of Chávez.
Another development noticed with the convening of the Constituent Assembly
was to set in motion the dismantling mechanism of the governability pact of
traditional elites and to consolidate the project of re-foundation of political powers
through the use of constitutional substitution.
In the Constituent formed by Chávez, according to Villa, only three or four
members came from the traditional parties. This composition, determined unilater-
ally, ends up undermining opposition parties and weakening the arguments of other
political opponents. Another issue that was also raised by Villa38 is that the
35
Villa (2000, pp. 142–143).
36
Villa (2000, pp. 146–148).
37
Villa (2000, p. 146).
38
Villa (2000, pp. 148–149).
constituent process not only allowed the drafting of a new letter, but also made it
possible to demolish another constituted public power: the Congress.
The Venezuelan Congress had been elected in November 1998 and still expressed
a certain hegemony over the old traditional political forces. In the election from
which the Constituent Assembly is subsequently elected, the presence of such parties
is practically non-existent.
This problem can be formulated in the following way: Congress continued to be a
legally established force, but would the voter’s will, when the Constituent Assembly
was elected, signal for an emptying of its legitimacy? When there is a symmetry
between legality and legitimacy in the voter’s behavior in relation to the Constituent,
does a certain asymmetry begin to manifest in the same aspects in relation to
Congress? This “loss of legitimacy” by the Congress quickly led to the confrontation
of a crisis between the Constituent Assembly and the Congress and revived the
hypotheses of those who believed that Chávez, through the Constituent Assembly,
was preparing an institutional rupture or white coup. For Fernandes, this behavior
can also be defined as competitive authoritarianism. It happened with the elections of
Alberto Fujimori, in 1990, in Peru. The reconfiguration of the State was ensured by a
new Constitution and the new Charter was an instrument through which Fujimori
aimed at recovering the regime’s institutionality. It was approved by the Democratic
Constituent Congress and ratified popularly through a referendum held in 1993,
whose honesty and impartiality were put in doubt.39
The new letter also broke with the term limit of the 4-year presidential term and
replaced it with a provision of two terms of 6 years each, allowing him to remain in
power for 12 years.40 The restructuring of the Chávez government also reached the
Supreme Court of Justice, in which hundreds of judges were removed from office.
The task was not difficult to be justified before the population, because both the
appointment of magistrates and of many judges had its origin in the political
agreements made by traditional political parties in Congress and in State Assemblies.
It is noteworthy that Villa’s research41 concludes that these changes did not occur
at all levels of administration, nor in the fundamental principles of the rule of law,
but in those key points: wherever there were positions that represented decisions
about the fate of resources (or its administration) or also the administration of
personnel with high positions.
For the author, Chávez came to power offering political reform on two points:
election of a Constituent Assembly and the demolition of the governing pact of the
old regime. The combination of these two elements represented his greatest victory
in the framework of the so-called “peaceful revolution,” which gave him a very high
legitimacy and political credibility before the Venezuelan population.
39
Fernandes (2014).
40
Landau (2013, p. 206).
41
Villa (2000, p. 149).
Another way used by populists to consolidate their governance is the inaction of

the executive. For Pozen and Scheppele,42 inaction preliminarily represents an
intentional failure by the executive to resolve a significant public problem in
which the executive is legally and functionally equipped—although not necessarily
required to resolve. However, the authors believe that this definition has multiple
ambiguities, such as: which baseline of the action against that failure should be
identified? Substantive measures, legislative preference, popular demand?
The attempt to try to materialize executive inaction turns in relation to the
expectations of executive action enshrined in the State’s own laws and in the
applicable international law rules.43 In the direction of Pozen and Scheppele,
inaction will occur when national and international legal sources are widely seen
to authorize, encourage or compel an executive to address a particular type of
problem with certain types of tools and, however, they refuse to do so. it. In short,
when the executive sees a potential threat returning, he has access to information
about what and how to prevent, prevent or minimize it, along with the power to
define a potentially effective and instrumental plan, but refuses to do so.
Inaction unfolds in another illiberal consequence, because it tends to house the
most coercive institutions in the state, including military and security agencies.
These negative externalities, ranging from the standardization of draconian and
rhetorical measures, the militarization of public policies to the concentration of
power in a group of institutions, will have, as an outcome, the enhancement of
democratic erosion.
Two populist governance trends by executive inaction are exemplified44 by
Pozen and Scheppele: President Trump’s pandemic response in the United States
and Bolsonaro’s in Brazil.
President Trump minimized the danger posed by the virus by refusing to give
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention the priority; ignored the National
Security Council guidelines on combating infectious diseases and did not guarantee
the distribution of test kits, ventilators or protective medical equipment; threatened
to withdraw from WHO; sold dubious cures; refused to wear a face mask in public;
criticized governors who imposed lockdown and containment measures or followed
public health councils to gradually reopen; and, in July 2020, began to hold large
internal rallies in favor of not wearing masks to increase support for his reelection.
In Brazil, Bolsonaro, minimized the danger posed by the virus; threatened to
withdraw from WHO; highlighted the effectiveness of unproven treatments, without
safety and effectiveness; made inaccurate statements about the number and count of
deaths from the pandemic; encouraged anti-financial protests; challenged the social
distancing guidelines issued by the Ministry of Health; rebuked governors and
mayors, accusing them of shutting down the economy by imposing measures to
contain the pandemic; and militarized the Ministry of Health.
42
Pozen and Scheppele (2020).
43
44
This information was documented by the press through several sources.
The outbreak of the state of emergency in global public health ended up revealing
a serious policy distortion by “securitizing global public health,” that is, the trans-
formation of the pandemic into a problem of public defense and security. This
propensity in the pandemic can produce three threats to democratization: the pro-
duction of a more violent state response; the contribution to the continuous imbal-
ance of priorities with resources directed to repressive and coercive measures to
combat the pandemic; and the gradual implementation of populist governance.
Militarizing health when fighting the pandemic requires public health policy
decisions can accommodate a reversal of roles, in other words, instead of the war
being commanded by politics, politics becomes commanded by war. The human
right to health in the pandemic is not a problem of securitization, because there is
neither an enemy nor a criminal, but a health problem in which the prevention,
containment, control and treatment of pandemic diseases must be a priority political
nature . Militarizing health means transferring its management from civil health
competence to military competence, which makes an integrated and coordinated
policy unfeasible. The militarization of health encourages an operation to transfer
health responsibility from the Federal Government to state units. On the other hand,
the importance of using the military tool in helping to combat the virus in a
subsidiary way does not go away.
In the case of Brazil, militarization is much broader. The militarization of health is
a consequence of the militarization of the Federal Government, which is a progres-
sive attempt to legitimize the populist regime, since the military would protect the
truly democratic regime against corrupt elites, the press, the top of the Judiciary, the
communists . . . Anyway, the enemies of the people.
What can be seen in the political field of Brazil is that, while trying to legitimize
its populist governance, the backlashing effects of the National Congress, the
Judiciary, and formal and informal democratic institutions are trying to contain
Bolsonaro’s populist movement. For Pozen and Scheppele, it is safe to say that
both countries suffer from executive inaction, because the rates of infected and dead
continue to rise.
Although the executive’s inaction may be represented by bureaucratic barriers, on
the other hand it represents a type of populist governance to implement its clientelist
policy with the desire to gauge guilt and avoid responsibility for alienating the main
supporters who prefer passivity, for a political time horizon that leads them to
discount future consequences of inaction.45 Therefore, it can be a rational political
tactic that enhances the degradation and battles of democratic institutions, the
polarization of political blocs and the militarization of politics.
When there are conditions to identify the problem, or rather the danger and not the
risk, although the alarm has already been triggered and nothing is done, responsi-
bility for inaction is characterized and the field opens up for the suggestion of a
partial remedy for contextual analysis for gauge their accountability and duty to
protect. For metrics purposes, the plans and actions of the government or its agents
45
should be considered by Decree, Provisional Measure, Sanitary Regulations, Direc-

tive Protocols based on ordinary and extraordinary norms and not purely on politics.
Some outlines need to be structured for analytical contextualization:
(a) State of exception and the use of ordinary national and supraconstitutional and
extraordinary regulations.
(b) Limits and intensities for the derogation of fundamental and human rights and
definitions of their essential cores.
(c) Control of state activity.
(d) Deference to public choices.
(e) Analysis of the means of intervention and fundamentality to achieve its purpose.
(f) Technical expertise, scientific knowledge available.
(g) Institutional dialogues and global, regional, and local cooperation.
The sample of the assessment of responsibility via criteria of the principle of
proportionality can assist in determining responsibility and the duty to protect by the
inaction of the executive and must be:
(a) Applied both in decisions and in administrative measures.
(b) Legitimate, that is, as closely as possible in line with the principles of liberal
democracy.
(c) Transparent, mainly due to the possibility of incompleteness of information in
the pandemic field.
(d) Limited to contingent and grounded situation.
(e) Permanently reviewed and at the mercy of the circumstantial condition. There
will always be new outlines that must be the object of new analysis in the context
of the uncertainties and best practices to face the pandemic and its consequences,
including economic ones.
(f) Progressively adapted.
(g) Proportionate to the threat. Here, the instruments of the proportionality principle
compatible for empirical analysis can be aligned.
(h) Proportional to the imminent risk of the emergency.
(i) Temporal and geographically delimited in line with the security alerts triggered
by the pandemic.
The outlines are expressive, because they can represent the impediment to the
destabilization of the democratic system via self-coup; control of the formal or
informal populist movement; accountability of the administrative authority for
actions or omissions in controlling, preventing, treating, and combating economic
and social effects in response to the pandemic; and enhance a culture of justification
for administrative decisions and accountability.
Voigt and Gutmann46 make a series of proposals to design more resilient Con-
stitutions to face populism through “militant constitutionalism.” There is a close
46
Gutmann and Voigt (2019).
relationship with the theory of “militant democracy,”47 since the two share the
objective of preserving elements of the democratic order, namely democracy and
the rule of law. However, they differ in several other aspects, militant democracy
tries to prevent non-democrats from gaining power, while militant constitutionalism
tries to contain the damage already manifest in the political–legal system. The
authors observed, in the field of empirical research, that many would-be autocrats
change the Constitution to achieve their particular goals, as occurred in Venezuela.
Thus, they present a set of characteristics of militant constitutional design: the
potential role of constitutional amendment rules; the form of government, as well
as the electoral system; and the separation of powers widely conceived.
Constitutional Courts, in the manifest of populist waves, play a crucial role. The
possibilities of trying to minimize this practice can be built from numerous mech-
anisms to be developed by the constitutional system through the structure of the
constitution, such as, for example, the “strong form” judicial review, which cannot
be changed by parliament. For Tushnet,48 this mechanism calls for a judicial
declaration that refers to the substantive provisions of the constitution and that will
have an important weight on the political process. The language of law will represent
an extra element for constitutional protection.
Another alternative is the creation of constitutional rules to make structural
change through the populist movement more difficult. According to Landau,49 if
this mechanism, for example, the referendum, is intended to be an ally for the
consolidation of the populist movement, it must be more difficult to be called and
approved. For example, a replacement mechanism may require at least 75% of
registered voters for approval.
Time constraints can also be useful mechanisms. Voters, for example, may be
required to vote twice in favor of authorizing the composition of members of the
Assembly, with an interval of at least one election that separates the two votes cast.
The use of time would be beneficial to prevent substitution that is carried out only to
serve the interests of particular actors or political groups.
There is nothing to prevent the constituent process from being regulated by
clauses. Constitutions could impose “supermajoritarian” requirements for the votes
of the composition and decisions of the Constituent Assembly.
It is clear that, although the attempt is to protect the democratic process, there are
risks that these processes will be ignored in times of political crisis and state of
exception.
In the populist political context, law and jurists need to be on the side of
democracy and freedom. Almeida50 denounces the importance of this reinforcement
and the role of research. That is what there were never dictatorship, colonialism,
slavery, and coups d’état without these theorists, favorite jurists. These jurisconsults
47
Ver: Loewenstein (1937).
48
Tushnet (2009, p. 18).
49
Landau (2013).
50
Almeida (2020).
are racist, sexist, and authoritarian who create moralistic mystifications that lend
themselves to hide the role of law in the technical structuring of death.51
Almeida’s analysis addresses the law beyond its ideological dimension, reaching
the technological dimension. In this context, jurists are fundamental to the structur-
ing of power projects, citing, as an example, Germany in the 1930s, where the
persecutions, arrests, and murders of Jews and communists, gypsies, homosexuals,
people opposed to the government, and people with disabilities a technical and legal
organization.
The institutionalization of the Nazi socioeconomic order relied on a carefully
rationalized legal rationality.52 In Almeida’s conception, the legal organization of
Nazi power was not created by amateurs who did not know the law, but by
respectable jurists, important teachers, who put all their expertise and prestige at
the disposal of the regime, because the construction of authoritarianism demands
some sophistication, since it is necessary to connect ideology and technique.
This type of corrosion, seen by Almeida’s construction of meanings, carried out
by populist jurists enlarge when they: chancel fascism under the pretext of freedom
of opinion; are silent before the proliferation of racist practices and discourses; they
are convenient with state violence and its supporters; omit in view of the
flexibilization of fundamental rights and guarantees; sustain the forms of exploita-
tion and social domination. In this sense, Almeida affirms that the initiatives that are
prepared to face authoritarianism are worth noting.53
In the theoretical and practical studies presented, it was possible to identify some
guidelines to contain the populist movement and that can lead to reflection for a more
integrated and cooperative process in liberal democracy in crisis. Despite offering
indications for the emancipation of the constitutional subject and politics, it is
necessary to accommodate the propositions taking into account the specific charac-
teristics of each state, cultural and political contexts, historical traditions, ethnicities,
religion, the type of constitutionalism employed, legal training, to existing institu-
tions, marginalized groups, in short, their characteristics as a nation.
(a) Constitutional amendment and constitutional substitution: Prohibition of bar-
rier clause; constitutional substitution with increase of resolution to ¾ with two
consecutive legislatures; votes of parliamentary super majorities; prohibition of
amendment or substitution in the state of exception.
(b) Forms of government: Parliamentary democracy is recommended, since it is
possible to present the distrust clause at any time.
(c) Political parties as guardians of democracy: Reformulation of electoral laws in
a supervised and collective manner; priority to proportional representation;
remodeling of electoral districts with broad public debate and open voting;
restrictions on postponing elections; widest possible coalition building.
51
Almeida (2020).
52
Almeida (2020).
53
Chapters 5 and 6 gave an account of the materialization of these efforts by nongovernmental
organizations such as, among others, the Arns Commission.
(d) Betting and investing in constitutional arbitrators, such as multidimensional

research laboratories in political science and constitutional law.
(e) Institutional Archetypes: Creation of models of institutional designs in order to
prevent hyper presidentialism (expansion of the President’s powers); impedi-
ment of politicization or militarization of politics through the appointment of the
main positions of the republic by the chief executive, such as Attorney General
of the Republic, General Director of the Federal Police, Federal Public
Defender; Central Bank Director; Ministers of the Federal Courts of Accounts,
etc.; prediction of constitutional norms with full effectiveness, mainly when it
comes to popular participation; time limits for remaining in power; plastering of
the clause regarding the periodicity of the mandate.
(f) Legislative decrees: Increased legislative control in the issuance of decrees and
provisional measures; prior, concurrent, and subsequent control of exception
measures by the judiciary and the legislature.
(g) Bureaucracy: Rational bureaucracy based on competence and expertise and not
on charisma and tradition; limiting influence on state bureaucracy through
monitors that can limit the discretionary margin of the government, such as,
for example, noncompliance with manifestly unconstitutional laws.
(h) Strengthening of deliberative democracy: As the institution of the deliberative
mini-publics tool, in which individuals and groups can contribute effectively to
make political decisions and hold the State accountable; encourage society to
debate the weaknesses of liberal democracy; participatory projects with the
opening of a wide debate to society; constitutionalized right of resistance.
(i) Creation of Supervisory Boards: Social control institutions to monitor domestic
movements toward the consolidation of the populist and/or authoritarian
regime.
(j) Incorporation of international protection tools: As the jurisprudence of the
Regional Human Rights Courts as a source of law; Human Rights Ombudsman
and independent justice bodies, such as the ombudsman figure.
(k) Strengthening and balancing the checks and balances system: Preserving and
increasing judicial independence; setting the procedure for the appointment of
judges.
(l) Researchers and jurists who are willing to face authoritarianism: use of
overlapping expertise in the field of politics and law to combat the backing of
the formal, informal, direct, or indirect populist movement.
(m) Cooperation and integration: Creating an environment in which liberal democ-
racies can cooperate and integrate for mutual gain, manage their vulnerabilities,
and protect their principles.54
Among the possible proposals, why do we need to review the conceptual
dogmatics of the principle of separation of powers and the system of checks and
balances in the context of crisis and post-pandemic? The theory of the separation of
54
For more information, see: John (2020).
powers, for the UN, represents the materialization of democracy and is considered
one of its essential elements. All theory, by the fact to receive an ideology, heads to
determined interests.55 When a project idealizing political coexistence aims only at
legal formalization, it tends to forget the causes and political motivations that
produced it, at the same time that it does not worry about the purposes for which it
is proposed. And, in this sense, the predominance of unideologized dogmatics, that
is, separated from its interests and indifferent to the ends for which the political
organization that it intends to explain and interpret was constituted, inexorably leads
to immobilization, petrification.
In describing the theory of separation of powers, Montesquieu was also
concerned with the dogmatic universe of the system that he intended to implement
when he incorporated the “spirits” 56—independence, harmony, political freedom,
and cooperation—that constitute a perfect whole for the functioning of the institu-
tional archetype and for the democratic system.57
The integration is capable of promoting the ends destined by the State from a
maximized coverage for the resolution of the disputes that are inevitable in a legal
political system, mainly in flagellated nations and without experience in the universe
of democracy. This is a way of operating the real and functional integration of the
State.
The Atlantic Charter58 represents this modality of integration and cooperation
between nations, which is a way of establishing politics in the international field to
be refined in the national field by the baton of the theory of separation of powers.
Issued in 1941, the Charter defined allied goals for the post-war world, which
included peoples’ self-determination and economic cooperation between nations.
The document expresses the affirmation of certain common principles for national
policy.
In this way, the theory not only describes and configures the constitutional bodies,
pointing out their formation, composition, competences, and functions, but also
points out goals, transforming objectives of society so that the elements that will
articulate the constitutional text are inspired to work in a shared and integrated way
to promote the much desired transformation.
It is necessary to understand that the spirits that compose it aim to integrate the
structural functioning of the “constitution machines” box,59 making the rights
compatible with its organic structure. We are talking about three functional bodies
that exist in the same State, therefore exercising the same power, and that will lead,
hand in hand, the nation to the aspirations and foundations provided for in the
constitution.
55
Lucas Verdú (1982, p. 12).
56
57
58
Naciones Unidas (2018).
59
Gouvêa and Dantas (2017).
The simple mention, in the constitutional letters, of the principle of the separation
of powers can lead federative entities to hermetic and solipsist paths, aggravating the
crisis of the democratic system.
The pandemic ended up demonstrating the importance of inferring some institu-
tional lessons about the use of emergency mechanisms in the state of emergency,
according to Gargarella.60 The presence of exceptionality can indeed be recognized
by paying attention to three fundamental elements: the increased concentration of
power in the executive; the severe limitation of fundamental constitutional rights and
the militarization of public space. In this sense, among the hypotheses presented61 by
Gargarella, it is necessary to rethink the division of powers to advance in the
construction of dialogue and institutional cooperation.
The first focus of the problem concerns the notion of a strict separation between
powers. According to this notion, the different branches of government are under-
stood as separate and not connected to each other. From this point of view, any
attempt by members of a particular branch to participate in the affairs of other
government powers is seen as an invasion, that is, an unacceptable violation of the
constitutional principle of separation of powers.
The second focus is that which sustains the relationship between the powers
under the logic of war. This perception was based on the reading, for example, of the
Federalists,62 but specifically in Article number 51, with its proposal to provide the
powers with the means to resist mutual invasions.
These readings, in Gargarella’s perspective,63 can make it difficult to put into
practice more democratic and cooperative readings of the institutional system and
represent obstacles to a different understanding of the constitutional structure: one in
which the relationship of powers is governed by a logic, not of collaboration and
cooperation, but of confrontation and distrust. This relationship in times of COVID-
19 responds to a binary dynamic: subordination, since one branch dominates the
other and there is mutual confrontation through an institutionally channeled war
between the powers.
The proposal of Gouvêa and Castelo Branco,64 as a tool, is to institute an
institutional modeling based on the principle of separation of powers to incorporate
the literal provision of its structural elements in the constitution, as fundamental
principles—independence, harmony, political freedom, and cooperation—which
can lead the political system to the construction of an integrated structural, dialogical
method, and the overcome of the problems resulting from the crises, especially the
one to be experienced in the post-pandemic state.
What can be predicted, given the current cultural and political contexts, especially
in Brazil, is that if states feel unable to accommodate popular frustrations and ideals
60
Gargarella and Roa (2020, pp. 1–30, 2).
61
See: Gargarella and Roa (2020).
62
Ver: Madison et al. (1993).
63
Gargarella and Roa (2020, p. 11).
64
and there is strong social fragmentation, the populist movement will increase. In this
circumstance, in repressive matters, we will see a delegation of authority to the
armed and security forces, acting more and more in the political and social field and,
as already stated, militarization, when taking the place of politics, is opposed to
democratization.
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Conclusion
A series of indicators reveals that the erosion of democracies has been in progress for
at least 15 years in several countries. The democratic deficit has become a breeding
ground for the flourishing of populist and authoritarian movements. When looking at
the results of the presented research, it is noticed that many raised questions remain
waiting for answers. However, we seek to face the challenges imposed by research
without deluding ourselves with the claim of a conclusive understanding of the
complexity of populism found in different political and cultural contexts that move
between democratic transitions, redemocratizations, and ruptures.
The debate on populism was raised to a discussion on an international scale in
which a substantial part of the academic community seeks to investigate the elements
underlying populism in order to contain authoritarian populist ambitions and prevent
them from becoming reality. Authoritarian populist leaders are giving way to their
designs that have progressively undermined the foundations of the democratic
building. Democratic oppositions must learn to transcend polarization in order to
understand the problems and legitimize themselves through the consistency of their
political proposals.
We are engaged to contribute to the theoretical and empirical understanding of the
characteristics underlying the facade of the alleged popular power exercised by
populist leaders and, therefore, we set out to not only examine and compile the
most varied conceptual definitions, as we present a theoretical definition in which we
recognize the existence of numerous variable properties that revolve around it.
Populisms form a semantic range from which it is not possible to draw an aptitude
regarding behavior based on “acting, resisting, cooperating, nodding, choosing.” On
the contrary, populist behavioral grammar reveals “control, dominance, cooptation,
seduction, resentment and imposition.” The central core of the analysis was linked to
the way in which populists mobilize the notion of people in order, in the name of an
alleged “general will,” to increase the loyalty of their followers in order to legitimize
segregationist, arbitrary and authoritarian policies, as if they mirrored the
population’s desire. Populists seek to rise to the position of courageous heralds of
and Political Orders in Transition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85022-7
120 Conclusion
the people who struggle, above all, against the political elite to protect them from
endemic corruption and spoliation and systemic of the political world.
In the last decades, a notable expansion of the populist wave has been observed,
and still is observed, in the processes of alternation of power and in political
transitions in its most varied forms. The accelerated growth of the populist move-
ment resulted in a theoretical effort to promote a common understanding of the
principles, institutions, standards, and values that make up the basis of populism; the
commitment to unravel the episteme in order to guide the response of political
systems to the attempt to consolidate populist governance.
Populist waves affect various corners of the planet and shake the tectonic plates of
democracies, threatening the erosion of their structures. The rise of “charismatic
leaders,” who present themselves as if they were apolitical and try to play the role of
an incorruptible agent external to politics or old politics, corresponds to the attempt
to incarnate the messiah capable of saving the nation. The rhetoric of Messianic
Salvationism is often a powerful political weapon that populists use to undermine
institutions and cross the line that separates democracy from autocracy.
On the one hand, messianic promises, anti-institutional par excellence, tend to
succeed in environments of low trust in institutions. They appear to be able to satisfy
desires for political security, nationality, community, identity, recognition, fighting
corruption, hopelessness, and discredit in democratic institutions. On the other hand,
formal and informal movements are implemented through instruments of coercion,
imposition, oppression, alienation from the community and the State. Populists hide
behind a democratic facade in order to covertly suppress organs, weaken institutions,
equip government to replace technicians with relatives and personnel of confidence
or convenience.
The theorization about populisms was presented based on Mudde’s vision, in
2004, which rekindled, in the academic scenario, the discussions around the defini-
tion of populism, describing its cause, its relationship with social values and its
political supporters from a Manichaean perspective in which there are only friends
and enemies. The author’s work set out to question some semantic dimensions,
concluding that it is necessary to discuss what causes would have caused a deficit in
the legitimacy of the institutions of liberal democracy and motivated a social
depoliticization on the one hand and, on the other, an extreme politicization of
segments that were perceived removed from the “traditional.”
As mentioned, it is suspected that depoliticization in Brazil was aggravated,
among other reasons, by the “criminalization of politics” that occurred, above all,
due to an unprecedented fight against corruption, which the result exceeded the
punishment of political elite characters and business by criminalizing liberal-
democratic political rules and practices. In this sense, the greatest threat to democ-
ratization processes, which are always unfinished, is the criminalization of politics.
This is shaped by the inadmissibility of the existence of an opposition, freedom of
the press, expression, opinion, and thought, among other democratic values that
become the object of demonization by those who judge themselves or behave as
carriers of the absolute truth. It was also concluded that perceiving populisms in the
ideological field allows us to take into account both the demand side and the supply
side of populist politics. Instead of focusing on looking at populism, notably
Conclusion 121
constructed as a strategy for a particular political elite that is moving toward

“illiberal” democracy, research also allows us to look at populist demand, under-
stand the support of populism’s ideas in the context of the popular masses.
In conclusion, many variable elements common between totalitarianism and pop-
ulism were presented, existing, however, a fine line that separates the two movements.
Totalitarianism can materialize via illiberal democracy as the authoritarian govern-
ment expands its tentacles to stifle the spontaneity of private ways of life and suppress
freedoms by bringing total social life into the command of the state. Populism, on the
other hand, appears in liberal constitutional democracy through democratic liberal
movements without the intention of sacrificing the private life of the popular mass,
because it does not obstruct populist governance. In this way, populism can become a
totalitarian regime, but totalitarianism cannot become a populist regime.
Populisms are conceptual-instrumental in nature and can be defined as demo-
cratic illiberalism with variable properties. They represent a certain type of ideol-
ogy, discourse, strategy, mobilization, and political action in the specific cultural
and political context. They celebrate themselves through formal and/or informal
movements directly or indirectly in the democratic system by a charismatic leader
who represents and leads an anti-establishment force resting their beliefs in moral
and ethical institutions in order to consolidate and legitimize a populist political
regime under the cloak of popular sovereignty and democracy.
We present a myriad of variable properties of populisms that are strategies
commonly used in specific political contexts in order to increase the movement’s
political strength. The next step was to apply the definition of populism and answer
the following hypothesis: the political and normative actions undertaken by Jair
Messias Bolsonaro in the Brazilian political system could be characterized as a
populist movement in its formal and/or informal aspects, directly or indirectly?
Brazil has a populist and authoritarian president. We noted that Bolsonaro’s populist
movement is characterized by the use of political and religious moralism, the
unbridled drive for misinformation and fake news, polarization, and militarization
of politics. Such populist expedients contributed to making the population more
vulnerable due to the growing abuse of rights.
Populisms have been consolidated in the empirical universe dressed up with many
fundamentals, such as the fight against corruption, security, social well-being, the
protection of family and religious rights, ensuring, even, the “legitimacy” of imposing
a state of exception if democratic institutions resist. The importance of admitting this
theoretical categorization is revealed so that we can recognize and improve the tools
against populist governance, in the political and legal field, which can represent new
efforts to strengthen the theoretical commitment, including betting on cooperative
institutional design for the integration of new policies and normative compositions.
As a result, we can affirm that this recognition qualifies the political and norma-
tive benefits, betting on the democratic system and on the principle of popular
sovereignty as pillars of support, recommending the vigorous popular participation
in the subjects to be developed by the political project and constitutional government
regime. These political projects would be implicated in a web of legal considerations
and broader geostrategic policies, guaranteeing the development of a political culture
aimed at building democratic principles.
122 Conclusion
During the pandemic, which still lingers, many said that populism would wane in
the face of the need for government officials to be confronted with the urgency of
rationally making harm reduction decisions. We do not know whether populism will
fade or become stronger, what we do know, however, is to identify movements that
break with essential paradigms of democracy and, therefore, to prevent democratic
disintegration from decaying. Democratic resilience is intrinsically linked to the
backlashing effects exerted by the intermediary bodies, by formal and informal
institutions, which exist to protect the rights of minorities, the vulnerable, freedoms
and to contribute to the resolution of political conflicts in a plural way.
Political and social structures must strengthen and improve each other to establish
processes of change, integration, and cooperation between the institutions and
constituted powers, which will necessarily reduce the negative effects of the move-
ments and expand the spaces for public political vocalizations. Political leaders must
promote and strengthen the protection of human and fundamental rights through
their words and actions. They must show respect for basic standards and institutions;
responsible, participatory, transparent governance and political parties; support for
civil society and popular movements; imposition of sanctions on human and funda-
mental rights acts and abuses. Democracy and its various systems remain responsive
to changes in the geopolitical context and that demarcate the entrenchment of power
and freedoms—and this is the warning that the research intended to raise. We need to
forge mechanisms so that political and legal responses can advance and defend
democratic rights. We also need to direct the center of theoretical attention that is
directly influenced by these democratic liberal movements and actors.1
In the face of these new circumstances and in view of the various crises
established in democratic systems, debugging on the political project on which
they are going to focus, it was the path that the research sought to explore.
Authoritarian populist movements and leaders present new challenges to political
science and constitutional law. What aspects or elements of the political and
normative order will face this new chapter of political history in specific cultural
contexts? From this hypothesis, we could align means, techniques, ways that do not
aim at the diffusion of a single and finalized matrix of democracy, but that builds
tools, harmonizing and not unifying positions.2
The investigation of populisms made an incursion into the different political
realities. The suggestions presented in the work are diverse and it remains for us to
affirm, still, that all these dimensions of the problems have limitations, opening the
way to stimulate new reflections about populisms.
1
Democratic illiberalism represents the disintegration of the system in which liberalism and
democracy are in conflict. The term iliberalism has been widely used by doctrine. See: Zakaria
(1997), Mounk (2018), and Puddington (2017). For Puddington, illiberalism involves a rejection of
liberal values and democratic norms in the specific political context.
2
See: Diamond (2020), Csaky (2020), and Youngs and Panchulidze (2020).
Conclusion 123
References
Csaky, Z. (2020). Dropping the democratic facade. In Nations in transit 2020. Freedom House.
Diamond, L. (2020, August 18). The challenge of revitalizing democracy (audio). Fundação
Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Retrieved August 18, 2020, from https://fundacaofhc.org.br/
audios/o-desafio-de-revitalizar-a-democraciaenquanto-ainda-e-tempo-com-larry-diamond
Mounk, Y. (2018). The people vs. democracy: Why our freedom is in danger and how to save it.
Harvard University Press.
Puddington, A. (2017). Breaking down democracy: Goals, strategies, and methods of modern
authoritarians. Freedom House.
Youngs, R., & Panchulidze, E. (2020). Global democracy & Covid-19. upgrading international
support.

Populist Governance in Brazil: Carina Barbosa Gouvêa Pedro H. Villas Bôas Castelo Branco

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Societies and Political Orders in Transition

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15626

Populist Governance in Brazil

ISSN 2511-2201 ISSN 2511-221X (electronic)

The difﬁculty to interpret, comprehend, and manage some words is comparable to

Thus, in Austin’s theory, human dignity is a performative term, because, when it

an adjunct professor at the School of Political Science at the Federal University of

PUC-Campinas, Campinas, SP, Brazil Henderson Fürst

Populist Governance in Brazil: Bolsonaro in Theoretical and Comparative Per-

Gouvêa and Castelo Branco, Bolsonaro’s attempt to fabricate a “pseudo-constitu-

by a period of exception, followed by the establishment of an authoritarian order,

constitutionalism as well as to understand how the growth of populism is associated

Getúlio Vargas Foundation São Paulo Oscar Vilhena Vieira

Recife, Brazil Carina Barbosa Gouvêa

composed of effective alternatives to liberal democracy.16 The use of an ambiguous

1 What Would Populism Be? Understanding Some Semantic

5 Variable Properties of Populisms in the Bolsonaro Government . . . . 77

Carina Barbosa Gouvêa Professor of Constitutional Law at the Postgraduate

(. . .) ‘populism’ is everywhere and everything is ‘populist’.

Mudde’s1 publication called “The populist Zeitgeist,” in 2004, rekindled, in the

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 1

mobilization.6 It is possible to attribute characterizing elements of populism and of

1.1 Democracy and the Movement of Populist Waves

Democracy is currently the only constitutional system considered legitimate.

The ﬁrst wave of studies on populism, according to Pappas,13 started in a

phenomena could only be studied to explain authoritarian movements which fell

1.2 Populism as Movement and Ideology: Laclau’s Vision

Some approaches center their deﬁnition of populism as a movement and as an

1. As an intuitive perception being constituted through a common characteristic

institutional order—this mapping may lead to the development of new mechanisms

Apter, D. (1969). The politics of modernization. University of Chicago Press.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 11

However, the formation of some states (especially nations scourged by Strong

subdivided constitutions amended by an external actor, aided by an external actor

The classical conceptualization of populism for Laclau implied four essential

2.1 Populism and Progressivism Through Balkin’s Point

2.1.1 Initial Characteristics of the Populist Political

2.1.2 Characteristics of the Progressive Political Movement

Historically, progressive politics represented a good, a clariﬁed government that was

economically and politically. Thus, populist politics tends to merge democratic

Arendt, H. (1990). On revolution. Reprinted in Penguin Books.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 21

which is dominated, at this moment, by electoral marketing and by the communica-

economic differences between countries, social inequality, unemployment, and the

3.1 The Semantic Vacuum of Populism

movement, in which it increasingly departs from democratic principles, gaining

And, ﬁnally, the restrictions imposed on fundamental rights, mainly establishing

1. That populism is (x) with variable properties of (x).54

monist. However, it manifests in the pluralist democratic system, therefore, we

3.2 Populism and Its Manifestation in Limbo of Liberal

and equality recognized by the American Declaration of Independence of 1776 and

understand a method or a set of procedural rules for the constitution of government

Representation is one of the parameters considered essential to democracy today,

3.3 The Semantic Range of “Populisms”

appearance, the previous forms of freedom, but to desecrate it, a counterfeit of

designed to respond to the political climate of the moment; anti-democratic behav-

Körösényi, A. (2005). Political representation in leader democracy 1. Government and Opposition,

If the people embrace democratic values, democracy will be

The information extracted to contextualize aspects of Bolsonaro’s populist movement were

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 51

considered authoritarian regimes.1 As stated in the previous chapter, these meanings

Does the candidate tolerate or encourage violence?

Does the candidate deny the legitimacy of party rivals?