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.

21世纪以来，拉丁美洲的安全人员通过合法正当的手段越来越多地担任政治职务。巴西的警察出身政客数量增长尤为显著——自2014年以来，警察国会候选人数量翻了一番，2012年至今更是增长近三倍。许多观察人士将这一现象归因于犯罪恐惧、对惩罚性司法的需求，以及与雅伊尔·博索纳罗（Jair Bolsonaro）右翼民粹运动的关联，认为这对巴西民主的健康状况构成严重影响。

我的理论框架表明，这一视角并不完整。借鉴经济学类比，我认为候选人供给曲线的变化对于理解政治市场同样重要。我通过对警察政客的访谈、原创的基于图像的联合实验（image-based conjoint experiment），以及对竞选材料的半自动文本分析（semi-automated textual analysis），探讨了该框架的意义。研究结果一致表明，警察候选人聚焦于专业议题，并在安全政策中行使其组织的"保留领域（reserved domain）"。尽管警察候选人塑造了在安全领域更胜任的品牌形象，但他们的政策总体上与其他类似候选人并无不同，也并非更具惩罚性。同样，尽管调查受访者认为警察候选人在公共安全、反腐败和强领导力方面更有能力，但他们对惩罚性刑事司法政策持怀疑态度，这表明培训和生活经验的评价独立于意识形态和政策。

警察候选人最准确的定位是组织代表，其数量增长可归因于对特定改革的需求、组织特权面临的新挑战，以及采纳民主行动策略（repertoires of democracy）的必要性。因此，他们在权力殿堂中的存在是民主实践带来的意外却自然的结果。文职政客应将他们视为其他有组织的利益集团，进一步将其融入现代民主的逻辑。