Police, Politics and Democracy in Brazil

Abstract

IntroductionThis essay has as subject the police, even in the plural, once there are different organizations that will fulfill the same role, generically defined as order maintenance. 1 Otherwise if, on the one hand, we can consider the order maintenance as a common point and, starting from this element, speak of the similarity in the work of different nationalities' police; on the other hand, we cannot ignore also "that different national police present unique characteristics". 1 Especially because we get into the complex question of what it means to maintain order, since we are faced with great variations present, for example, in the debate on democracy and authoritarianism, and which are articulated to political traditions as well as to cultures and societies, and the complicated relations between the State, governments and different social classes. Due to the limitations of the text and its authors, we will approach the organization and dynamics of the Brazilian police, although, necessarily, we make references and comparisons with other police models.This essay has as subject the police, even in the plural, once there are different organizations that will fulfill the same role, generically defined as order maintenance. 2 To do so, we will analyze both "police policy", as suggested by Reiner 2 and on the relations between "police and politics", as suggested by Huggins. 3 Thus, we intend to discuss how police organizations behave as social and political actors that, like almost every professional category, do politics in the sense of defending, maintaining and expanding, let's say, their own corporate interests, but also, and at least in the Brazilian case, we believe that we can generalize to Latin America, and how they interfered and still interfere, even though less intensely, in the broader political process. It can be observed, for example, in its leading role during authoritarian and dictatorial processes, as well as, in this aspect, the military police, in the participation and/or the policy planning to the poor and segregated populations, which we understand as a process of exerts control on those public policies. 4 A phenomenon that has been occurring in an increasingly extensive and intense way in the attempt to manage the territories of poverty.We consider it convenient to reflect on the research of police organizations, discussing some of the problems that seem to be recurrent to the researchers of these institutions, even because such reflection would allow us to begin to understand the police organizations from the theoretical and methodological challenges that are set to the researchers. That is, reflect about searching the police, Sociol Int J. AbstractThis essay has as subject the police, even in the plural, once there are different organizations that will fulfill the same role, generically defined as order maintenance. Especially because we get into the complex question of what it means to maintain order, since we are faced with great variations present, for example, in the debate on democrac...