"Taxation is Theft!" - The Formation of an Ultraliberal Counter-Public and Dilma Rousseff's Pro-Impeachment Protests

Abstract

The goal of this article is to point out the role played by the ultraliberal counterpublic in calling and directing the first protests for Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment. In order to do so, I tried to stress the relevance of using the concept of counter-public to characterize the dynamics that permeated the experiences of members of organizations and other spaces of debate related to ultraliberalism. After a triangulation of empirical data, a historical reconstruction was performed, and the existence of an ultraliberal counter-audience was proven by the content of in-depth interviews with militants. It can be concluded that the early establishment of this group on the internet started the creation of an ultraliberal counter-public based on the existence of a collective identity shared by its members. The permanence and institutionalization of such counter-public were facilitated by the organizational and financial support of a pre-existing network of liberal think tanks in the country, enabling its members to convene and lead the first pro-impeachment protests of 2014. This was due to changes in the structure of political opportunities related to the Brazilian June 2013 uprisings and Dilma Rousseff’s reelection in 2014.