The authoritarian construction of the civil-military regime in Brazil: Doctrine of National Security and Institutional Acts (1964-1969)

Abstract

With the overthrow of the constitutional government of President João Goulart, in 1964, and with the abrupt interventional procedure, was initiated the militarist cycle that marks the history of Brazil. Although it was the pioneer of Latin American military governments, many interpretations analyze the Brazilian military regime not in its specificity, which was the military institution particularities, but on its generic similarities with other countries on the continent where there was a predominance of the Armed Forces. Since 1964 the military and the technocrats assume the formal and actual center of political power, as well as the decision-making and implementation of public policies in Brazil. Considering its organizational structure, in which prevail the principles of hierarchy, discipline and mission, the Brazilian military defined themselves as the most equipped to respond by the country’s fate, whose protection is under the aegis of State security. This certainty of better preparation of the Armed Forces to govern rests on the conviction that the military is above individual and groups interests. We intend to analyze here the National Security Doctrine as essential for the implementation and dissemination of a new ideology that confirms the construction of a State profile Bureaucratic-Authoritarian (concept established by political scientist Guillermo O’Donnell) and the Institutional Acts as legitimating of a genuinely military policy practice.