Brazilian punitive state: indeterminacy between democracy and authoritarianism

The central theme of this article is the growing investment in combating crime by the current democratic governments in Brazil, which contributes to consolidate also among us, the figure of “punitive state.” The current capitalist arrangement generalizes almost instantaneously ac...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Author: Pastana, Débora Regina
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2013
Country:Brasil
Institution:Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS)
Repository:Civitas - Revista de Ciências Sociais (Porto Alegre. Online)
Language:Portuguese
OAI Identifier:oai:ojs.revistaseletronicas.pucrs.br:article/9039
Online Access:https://revistaseletronicas.pucrs.br/civitas/article/view/9039
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Punitive state. Democracy. Authoritarianism.
Estado punitivo. Democracia. Autoritarismo.
Description
Summary:The central theme of this article is the growing investment in combating crime by the current democratic governments in Brazil, which contributes to consolidate also among us, the figure of “punitive state.” The current capitalist arrangement generalizes almost instantaneously across the globe, tying the success of the new economic businesses considering criminal policy. Accordingly, the punitive state characterizes an ambiguity that is symbolically the portrait of the contemporary political moment. Put another way, around this control, thoroughly contradictory concepts are mixed as democracy and authoritarianism. Present in recent sociological reflections of Loïc Wacquant, David Garland, Nils Christie, Zygmunt Bauman and Giorgio Agamben, among others, this theme also begins to be discussed by the national academic community. The paper therefore aims to address what has been called “punitive state,” political figure who portrays the economic, social and cultural changes already underway in the last thirty years and that rises in Brazil as an increasingly hegemonic control.