NEOLIBERALISM AND WAR ON THE INTERNAL ENEMY

Abstract

To understand the authoritarian turn in Brazil, the article analyzes the relations between neoliberalism and the military logic of war on the internal enemy during the New Republic and the displacements that occurred in its recent crisis. Drawing from the Foucauldian idea of the State as “the mobile effect of multiple governmentalities,” the paper uses literature review and news reports from the mainstream press to examine the this hybridism in the Brazilian neoliberalization process. The article presents the historical constitution of military logic in the National Security Doctrine and how it could enter metamorphosed in the New Republic. Then, it shows how it merged with neoliberalism, creating the conditions for the authoritarian turn consummated in the impeachment. The way the neoliberal radicalization was combined with the militarization of public administration, gaining new centrality in the Bolsonaro government, is analyzed. Finally, we point to the risk of this current configuration ceasing to be a government’s one and becoming a state’s one, defining a new phase of Brazilian politics.