Explaining the Role of Violence in the Brazilian State

Professor Anthony Pereira (KCL) - The Brazilian state in the 21st century is at the same time a coercive state, employing a large degree of lethal violence against its own citizens; a national developmental state, coordinating the commanding heights of the economy in the service of domestic industry and export promotion; a constitutional state, with a formal commitment to equality of citizenship and the rule of law; and a social democratic state that guarantees a minimum income to the most disadvantaged in society. What explains this peculiar combination of characteristics, and in particular, the persistence of relatively high levels of state violence despite rising state capacity in the developmental, constitutional, and social spheres? This paper reviews the literature on state formation in search of clues to this puzzle, and then suggests, from a comparative perspective, some answers to the question.
Anthony W. Pereira is a Professor and Director of the Brazil Institute at King’s College London. He has a B.A. from Sussex University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. He has held positions at the New School, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tulane University, and the University of East Anglia. His books include Political (In)justice: Authoritarianism and the Rule of Law in Brazil, Chile and Argentina (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005); a Portuguese translation of the latter, entitled Ditadura e Repressão (Paz e Terra, 2010), and a volume edited with Lauro Mattei called The Brazilian Economy Today: Towards a New Socio-Economic Model? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). Dr. Pereira can be reached at anthony.pereira@kcl.ac.uk