Jair Bolsonaro and the Dominant Counterpublicity

Abstract

This article focuses on the controversial and infamous behavior of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro in the public sphere. Based on an understanding that there exists something specific in relation to his strategy of rhetorical mobilization and the discursive domination related to broader dynamics in the Brazilian public sphere, we seek to analyze here the use of what we consider to be a 'dominant counterpublicity'.

The public sphere in the mode of systematically distorted communication

“…However, this dialectical process involving a negation of negation can be brought to a standstill insofar as the discourse-expanding pluralization meets with countervailing tendencies toward fragmentation that seek to avoid the increased social pressure of debate and the consequent risk of dissension. This is evident today in the rise of right-wing populist counterpublics (see Rocha and Medeiros 2021), which use “fake news” (e.g., regarding migrants), accusations of fake news (e.g., to deflect accusations of racism), and ressentiment-laden denigration of the (“left-liberal”) media in an attempt to restore structures of systematically distorted communication that have already been debunked, and thus to evade the confrontation with contradiction once again. By using such immunization strategies to dissolve once again, or block from the outset, the interrelation of discourse brought to light by pluralization, the need for openness just asserted seems to be empirically nullified.…”

“…The thesis that a plurality of public spheres exist seems only to be confirmed by contemporary experience, although its affirmative tone is increasingly giving way to a more ambivalent assessment. The plurality is continuing to grow with the formation of right-wing populist, nationalist, anti-feminist, conspiracy-theorist, and other counterpublics (see Rocha and Medeiros 2021) and amounts to a fragmentation and antagonization of the public sphere, so that the universally shared space of understanding that Fraser still imagined is becoming increasingly intangible and chimerical. In view of this fragmentation, which is manifested by the formation of “echo chambers” and “filter bubbles” together with the associated “alternative truths” (see Rosa 2022: 25f.…”

“…Even when the individual publics no longer communicate with each other or only excitedly talk past one another, this can be reconstructed as an expression of avoidance of communication, and thus as an inherently precarious condition that potentially pushes beyond itself. As a result, we arrive at a more dynamic and dialectical picture that does not simply register the contemporary fragmentation as an immutable fact of plurality (see Rocha and Medeiros 2021: 3), but deciphers and actuates it in a reconstructive fashion as a crisis-ridden expression of a suppressed totality of communicative socialization.…”

A degradação da Amazônia e a dimensão ambiental da crise da democracia no Brasil

“…O ano de 2019 marcou o início da segunda fase da crise da democracia, um período em que as mais variadas abordagens analíticas e metodológicas convergem para descrever a conjuntura de erosão da democracia (e.g. Medeiros, 2021, Almada et al, 2022. Daquele momento em diante, além das análises qualitativas, indicadores sobre a qualidade da democracia apontavam o Brasil como uma das principais nações sob processo de erosão democrática (Boese et al, 2022).…”

Compulsory deliberation: Variations in stability between South African and Brazilian economic councils

“…The act allowed the State President to suspend or limit legal rules that, in his opinion, unduly impeded economic growth. 110 It granted the president a tremendous amount of discretion, as it contained very few restrictions on his new power. Then, through the Minister of Manpower, the government demanded that councils remove certain provisions from their agreements (such prohibition of work on Saturdays) and threatened to employ the new act against agreements that were not revised.…”