War in Words: Law, Order, and Iron Fist Politics in Brazil

In the 21st century, security agents in Latin America have increasingly occupied political offices through legal, legitimate means. Brazil in particular has seen remarkable growth in police officer politicians, with a doubling of police congressional candidates since 2014 and a nearly three-fold increase since 2012. Many observers understand this phenomenon as the result of fear of crime, demand for punitive justice, and associations with the right-wing populist movement of Jair Bolsonaro, suggesting grave implications for the health of Brazilian democracy. My theoretical framework suggests that this perspective is incomplete. Importing an analogy from economics, I contend that shifts in the candidate supply curve are also important in understanding the political market. I explore the implications of this framework through interviews with police politicians, an original image-based conjoint experiment, and semi-automated textual analysis of campaign material. The results tell a consistent story that police candidates are focused on professional issues and exercising their corporation's “reserved domain” in security policy. While police candidates sell a brand that is more competent on security, their policies are not on average different or more punitive than otherwise similar candidates. Likewise, while survey respondents perceived police candidates as more capable on public security, anti-corruption, and strong leadership, they were skeptical of punitive criminal justice policies, demonstrating that training and life experience is judged independently of ideology and policy. Police candidates are most accurately understood as corporate representatives, and growth in candidacy is explained by demands for certain reforms, new challenges to organizational prerogatives, and the need to adopt the repertoires of democracy. Their presence in the halls of power is therefore an unexpected but natural result of the practice of democracy. Civilian politicians should approach them as they would other organized interest groups, further integrating them into the logic of modern democracy.