Originally published in 2019 as Sobre o Autoritarismo Brasileiro, this was the first book to grapple with the rise of Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro (2018–22) and the country’s democratic backsliding. Now available in English with a new preface and afterword, Brazilian Authoritarianism challenges the notion that Brazil is a peaceful, cordial, and racially harmonious nation that only fell victim to extreme authoritarian politics in recent years. Instead, anthropologist-historian Lilia Moritz Schwarcz argues that Brazil’s authoritarianism is “intimately tied to the country’s five hundred years of history” (p. 15), shaped by colonial and postcolonial violence, racism, and inequality.
The book is organized around what Schwarcz identifies as the principal elements of Brazilian authoritarianism. Chapter 1 looks into the dire consequences of slavery in Brazil’s past and present. The last to be abolished in the western hemisphere (in 1888), Brazilian slavery formed a society predicated on strict racial hierarchies, firm social stratification, and extreme inequalities. Schwarcz discusses various demographic and sociological studies that demonstrate the powerful legacies of these structures. Black Brazilians, she shows, still face structural discrimination across social and economic categories. Occupying most of the manual and domestic labor sectors, they are systematically disadvantaged in income levels and underserved in access to education, healthcare, and housing. They also suffer from police killings and incarceration at much higher rates than white Brazilians.
Brazil’s slavery and colonial formation also gave birth to a powerful oligarchy of rural landowners whose “bossism” is explored in the next chapter. Schwarcz looks into coronelismo, a patriarchal, patronage-based system in which regional authoritarian strongmen wielded significant political and economic power by controlling land and population. Their political authority and concentration of wealth in the nineteenth century shaped the contours of Brazil’s state-formation processes and modern government mechanisms. Even after the ratification of a progressive constitution in 1988, Schwarcz notes, the system of bossism survived (p. 45). Much of the current political system in Brazil is still dominated by a few families that have controlled their regions for generations.
The following chapters reveal the consequences of these foundational mechanisms of slavery, bossism, and hierarchies. Schwarcz shows how landowners in Brazil have relied on public resources to enrich themselves from the days of independence and throughout the twentieth century. The land-owning oligarchy not only enjoyed extensive political and economic privileges but also demanded that the state provide and protect its private property. Schwarcz persuasively argues that this type of patrimonialism “remains one of the greatest enemies of the republic” (p. 74), leaving the state economically and politically fragile. Patrimonialist practices also promoted corruption and social inequality, which Schwarcz views as ingrained in Brazilian society and its history. She discusses corruption scandals taking place under the Brazilian Empire (1822–89), the Vargas regime (1930s–1940s), the military dictatorship (1964–85), and, most notably, the recent Operation Car Wash (Lava Jato)—one of the biggest mechanisms of bribery and money laundering in Brazilian and perhaps Latin American history. Schwarcz then relies on economic studies, statistical reports, and sociological surveys to illustrate the prevalence of inequalities in Brazil along regional and racial lines. She particularly highlights the historical role of the country’s discriminatory education policy in perpetuating the low literacy levels of the poor population.
Schwarcz likewise addresses Brazil’s extensive inequalities when tackling the country’s extreme levels of violence. As she notes, Brazil has not only one of the highest homicide rates in the hemisphere but also one of the most violent police forces in the world (p. 139). Importantly, cases of violent crime and death vary significantly across states, regions, age, and race. Schwarcz focuses on the multifaceted violence employed against Indigenous communities in Brazil. She highlights both cultural representations that have historically portrayed them as uncivilized and contemporary state policies that have encroached on their land in favor of agricultural and mining developments. Discrimination and violence against women, Afro-Brazilians, and LGBTQ people—“a favorite target of authoritarian politicians” (p. 178)—are discussed in the final chapters of the book. Schwarcz again traces the foundations of femicide, sexual violence, and hate crimes in Brazil to its colonial and slavery systems, which controlled bodies and sexualities. As she notes in the final chapter and conclusion of the book, Brazil’s deeply seated authoritarian practices debunk its perceived image as a “paradise of tolerance” that has fostered social and racial inclusion (p. 186).
Throughout the book, Schwarcz moves back and forth between Brazil’s historical and contemporary periods to demonstrate its enduring patterns of authoritarianism, prejudice, and discrimination. As she explains in the insightful afterword (newly added to the English edition), this nonlinear approach helps to show how “processes of the present are determined and recognized via structures of the past” (pp. 231–32). In some chapters, however, the links between the past and present could have been emphasized better. The chapter on race and gender, for example, is heavily focused on Brazil’s contemporary period. Discussing the role that reproductive control policies or racial doctrines played in the country’s nation-building process could have illuminated the continuities of race- and gender-based exclusion practices in modern Brazil. Dedicating more attention to episodes in which Brazil’s dominant authoritarian structures were contested could have also enhanced the book’s analytical framework. Schwarcz mentions a few times throughout the book the significant achievements (and eventual limitations) of Brazil’s 1988 constitution, considered one of the most progressive charters in the world. But there is minimal discussion of the developments leading to this milestone. Looking into the opposition movement to the 1964–85 dictatorship, the 1980s economic instabilities and extensive worker strikes, the massive 1983–84 social protest that brought millions to the streets in demand of democracy, and ultimately the critical work of the nation’s constituent assembly (1987–88) would have elucidated how Brazil’s lasting authoritarian tendencies were (and could be?) confronted successfully.
Finally, the new English edition would have benefited from additional citations. The book draws on an impressive range of primary and secondary sources, from newspaper articles to visual art pieces. Schwarcz avoided using notes in the book’s Brazilian edition to facilitate quick and accessible publication in the months after Bolsonaro’s election. The process of translation allowed Schwarcz more time to add a preface, methodological afterword, and valuable bibliography. It would have been useful to add a number of citations in the body of the text as well, particularly when referring to significant primary sources (for example, slavery manuals on pp. 36–37) or when including direct quotes (for example, a quote by the dictatorship’s president Ernesto Geisel on p. 92).
On the whole, Brazilian Authoritarianism provides a compelling overview of the authoritarian components embedded within Brazil’s history. It is particularly perceptive in illustrating why the conversation about bolsonarismo must consider the nation’s long histories and legacies of slavery and social-racial exclusion. The book will appeal to scholars in various disciplines—from history, to political science, and to anthropology and sociology—who are interested in a historical overview that sheds light on Brazil’s recent democratic challenges. The book will also be very useful to scholars of authoritarianism and those interested in the entangled relationships between temporalities, chronologies, and narratives of the past and present.
